Help Sulivan School Pupil Caya to Have a Life Changing Operation

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Fulham community pull together to raise funds for eight year-old Sulivan school pupil

The Fulham community is pulling together to raise funds to help Caya, an eight year-old pupil at Sulivan Primary School, have a life-changing operation.

Caya has spastic deplegia cerebral palsy, a condition which which affects muscle control and movement, making leg muscles tight and stiff.

She is currently using a walker or a wheelchair to get around but as she gets older and she grows her muscles will become tighter, making walking more and more difficult. The painful condition already affects her balance and she often falls.

The organisers of the local fundraising campaign say that Caya was on the list to be assessed for an operation called Selective Dorsal Rhizotomy, or SDR on the NHS, but NHS funding was then withdrawn.

SDR is a surgical procedure, launched in this country three years ago by a specialist team at Great Ormond Street Hospital, which involves dividing and cutting some of the nerves in the spinal cord that contribute to spasticity in the lower limbs.

Without NHS funding, the operation is now set to be carried out privately in January and campaign organisers say they need to raise around £40,000 - £31,000 for the operation and then £10,000 for the ongoing, intensive physiotherapy that Caya will need afterwards.

The optimum age for this surgery is between four and seven, so every month is a month away from this.

Over the last five months, the campaign has raised almost £10,000 with the help of school friends, family and other members of the local community.

October 12, 2016