It hits you right in the heart. The pain you immediately feel when you look at the photo of five-year-old Sule Dramani and look into his deep brown eyes. He has his forearms stretched up and his hands. Hands that look like small, clenched fists. It’s just that you can’t see the fingers. No thumb, no limbs, no fingernail. Dark, brittle skin stretches over everything. Burnt skin.
Two years ago: Sule is three years old and lives in Ghana. His family is poor and they cook on an open fire. The little boy should go buy coal for the family. On the way he loses the little money his aunt gave him. He comes back home. Without coal and without money. His aunt drags Sule’s forearms and hands into the fire as punishment. They burn.
Sule must have been in a lot of pain. Physical and mental. Luckily, two years later he arrived at the orthopedic training center (OTC) in Nsawam. And meets Sister Elis. The 83-year-old belongs to the Congregation of the Poor School Sisters, has lived in Ghana for 29 years and works in the OTC. She sees Sule’s hands and knows he needs help quickly. “I just thought you had to help him,” she remembers back then, “otherwise he’ll always be a cripple and have no chance at all.” Disabled children have a very difficult time in Ghana, she says. From that day on she takes care of Sule. Like having your own child.
By chance she hears about a doctor in Munich: Milomir Ninkovic. And from that Association for the Promotion of the Treatment of Burn Injuries (VfBB), which the doctor has supported since 2010. Elis sends the x-rays. The head physician at the clinic for plastic, reconstructive, hand and burn surgery in Bogenhausen wants to help, and the association is contributing financially. “I saw these terrible injuries, but I also knew that something could be done, that it might be possible to reconstruct the fingers,” says Ninkovic.
The fingers are much thicker than healthy ones and have no fingernails, but after numerous operations Sule can do almost everything with his hands again.
(Photo: Robert Haas)
The association has existed at the Munich Clinic Bogenhausen since 1985. He quietly does great things. Because the treatment of severe burns is not only expensive, but also lengthy, says Ninkovic. The VfBB should particularly support destitute children or young adults from crisis areas who otherwise have no chance of good treatment.
The association has cared for 23 patients – three of them adults – since 2010. For example, there is Mutaman from Sudan, who was attacked by robbers and poured battery acid over his head, there is Yakyho from Uzbekistan, who suffered third-degree burns in a terrible traffic accident, and there is Basmane from Benin. The girl’s dress suddenly started burning on the open fire on the stove.
23 patients. “That may not be a lot,” says Magdalena Koch, who has been working on a voluntary basis for VfBB for 30 years. But the costs of treating a child are high. Between 25,000 and 40,000 euros. Donors are not easy to find with these sums. Three doctors operate on the children for the association without charging a cent: Carsten Krohn as head doctor in the center for children with severe burns, he operates in the Munich Clinic Schwabing. Steven von Gernet is head of craniofacial surgery at the Munich Klinik Bogenhausen. And Milomir Ninkovic.
Sister Elis collected money in Ghana for the trip to Germany. This is how Sule comes to Munich. He’s five then. And he has a long road ahead of him.
Nine long operations are necessary
A burn causes the skin to shrink. Before the fingers could be reconstructed, explains Ninkovic, tissue had to be transferred so that the gaps between the fingers could be rebuilt. Skin is also taken from Sule’s thigh and transplanted to his hands. In order not to endanger blood circulation, Ninkovic then separates one finger after the other in several operations. In nine long operations. According to the doctor, this was only possible because the base of the bones was still there.
Sule was cared for and received medical care at Bogenhausen Hospital for one and a half years. VfBB will cover the costs for this. The association also finances necessary therapies or further training for medical staff that the clinic does not pay for. The VfBB, which has long made a name for itself internationally, now has 127 members. He receives many inquiries. The club cannot accept everyone. Ninkovic emphasizes that everything is always a financial question and he would like to see more young people in particular become interested in the club.
Soft and flexible: Sule can grasp and feel anything with his new fingers.
(Photo: Robert Haas)
Today Sule is 16. He and sister Elis are sitting in the Bogenhauser clinic again. He traveled again from Ghana to Munich for treatment for a few minor operations. Small incisions in the palms were necessary so that the hand could unfold even better.
Sule allows you to stroke his new hands and fingers because you can’t believe they even exist again. The skin is very soft. The fingers are much thicker than healthy ones and have no fingernails. But they are very flexible and Sule feels everything. Can do anything, as he says. Even write. He immediately takes a ballpoint pen and writes his name on a pad as if to prove it. He beams. “I’m proud that I can do it all again,” says Sule, who loves playing football and wants to become an information technician one day.
The doctor has grown fond of the boy
He doesn’t want to talk about the incident itself. He no longer has contact with his mother, but he does have contact with his father, brothers and stepbrothers. He likes Germany a lot, especially the beautiful landscapes, as he says, but Ghana – “that’s family”. Soon he can go back to her.
Over the long period of treatment, Milomir Ninkovic and Sule Dramani developed a friendly relationship. The 66-year-old doctor has grown fond of Sule. “Maybe I’ll visit him in Ghana someday,” says Ninkovic and smiles at Sule. It makes him happy to see that people could help. That’s why the club means so much to him. “For me this is humanitarian aid.” This is about poor children who do not have good care. “If they don’t get treatment for their worst burns, their life is over,” emphasizes the plastic surgeon.
For Sule it is not. For him, life has only really begun again. The future lies before him. Also in Ghana.