New face for SA burn victim

WINNER: Feleng Mahamotse, recipient of a brand-new face.

WINNER: Feleng Mahamotse, recipient of a brand-new face.

Published Nov 22, 2014

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Johannesburg -

A badly burned South African boy has been given a new nose after surgery in the UK.

Feleng Mahamotse had already undergone a skull operation in Switzerland five years ago before flying to London last month for the major procedure costing R155 000.

Feleng, 12, was badly burned in a shack fire in Heidelberg aged just one month, when either a candle or stove fell over, setting his home ablaze. Since then he has fought off social stigma and endured numerous medical treatments, culminating in the four-hour operation in East Grinstead, England, which surgeon Baljit Dheansa did, free of charge.

The procedure at the McIndoe Surgical Centre saw medics rebuild his nose using skin grafts from part of his face and cartilage taken from his hip and ear. The cost of Feleng’s flight to the UK and his hospital stay were paid for by Joburg-based charity Children of Fire, which helps badly burned children with medical and rehabilitation needs.

Its founder, Bronwen Jones, who is also Feleng’s legal guardian, said he was bearing up well after the operation: “We’ve got to be careful about catching infections, but so far he’s doing well. He’s spent a lot of time turning to one side, then the other, while looking in the mirror. It’s a novelty for him not to have a concave face and, instead, have a convex one.

“Other than that, he’s doing well, just like any 12-year-old. He can be naughty but also really funny, and he loves the arts. While acting in Macbeth, he was swooping around in a cloak, laughing and joking.”

In 2009 Feleng travelled to Switzerland, where neurosurgeons covered a hole in his head caused by the fire, which had burnt away the soft bone. They grafted part of his ribs onto his skull and then filled in the cavity with ground bone and covered his skull with a protective mesh.

Following his latest operation, Feleng is due to return to South Africa on New Year’s Eve and is currently combining schoolwork with sightseeing.

Jones added: “Feleng goes to the Johannesburg School for the Blind, Low Vision and Multiple Disability. It’s been hard for him because he finds it difficult to be accepted with his injuries, but he wants to go to high school like any other child.”

Feleng was part of a group of young burns victims from South Africa who made the trip to the UK and took part in a Monopoly Board Challenge, which is a charity walk around the sites featured on that famous London-based board game.

All monies raised go to Children of Fire, which Jones runs between South Africa and her home in England.

The long-term goal is to set up a dedicated hospital in southern Africa to treat child victims of fire, and help with their rehabilitation.

- Saturday Star

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