Help for Egyptian whose illness made her world’s heaviest woman
CAIRO // An Egyptian believed to be the world’s heaviest woman flew to India for weight reduction surgery yesterday after intervention from the country’s foreign minister ensured her a visa.
Because of medical issues, Eman Ahmed, 36, had not left her house for 25 years, and weighed about 500 kilograms.
As a child she was diagnosed with a condition that left her almost immobile. Safwat Masalam, head of EgyptAir, said Ms Ahmed left Alexandria’s Borg Al Arab airport on Friday on one of their planes and was taken to Mumbai’s Saifee Hospital.
“A team of doctors has been in Egypt for the last 10 days to optimise the conditions for her travel,” said her doctor, Muffazal Lakdawala. Ms Ahmed’s sister had approached Dr Lakdawala in October saying her sibling needed urgent medical attention. Her family told the doctor that as a child she was diagnosed with elephantiasis, a condition that causes the limbs and other body parts to swell, leaving her almost immobile. She later suffered a stroke and was rendered bedridden, triggering a series of ailments including diabetes, high blood pressure, hypertension and sleep apnoea.
Dr Lakdawala offered to do bariatric surgery free. Her request for a visa was initially rejected, prompting Dr Lakdawala to tweet a request for help to India’s foreign minister Sushma Swaraj. Ms Ahmed has had a long wait because no airlines were previously willing to fly her to India because of her health. “Transporting Eman to Mumbai is a challenging task keeping in mind the complexities of her case as she is a high risk patient who has not been able to move or leave the house for the past 25 years,” the surgeon said.
Bariatric surgery is a stomach- shrinking bypass procedure for those wanting to lose excessive weight.