Rose­marie Sant

Trinidad-born Dr Michael Singh has been nom­i­nat­ed for the Good Morn­ing Britain Health Star Award. Singh was born in Freeport, on In­de­pen­dence Day 1972.

He grad­u­at­ed from the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies in 1997 and went on to train in Pae­di­atric Surgery in Man­ches­ter and Liv­er­pool. Singh is now a con­sul­tant pae­di­atric sur­geon at the Birm­ing­ham Chil­dren's Hos­pi­tal where he spe­cialis­es in Pae­di­atric Tho­racic and Up­per Gas­troin­testi­nal Surgery and has earned the ti­tle "MR."

The son of the soil shot to in­ter­na­tion­al fame re­cent­ly when Dr Hi­lary Jones, one of his peers and a rel­a­tive of one of his pa­tients nom­i­nat­ed him for the award. The award is for any­one who has gone above and be­yond what is ex­pect­ed of them in the field of health. Dr Jones be­lieves Dr Singh is an in­spi­ra­tion to him and to all of us. The award cer­e­mo­ny takes place on April 14 at the Hilton Park Lane in Lon­don.

Jones met Singh in March 2013 at the Birm­ing­ham Chil­dren's Hos­pi­tal when his grand­daugh­ter 18-month-old Bel­la, who was di­ag­nosed with pneu­mo­nia and an ab­scess in the right lung, was flown to the Birm­ing­ham Chil­dren's Hos­pi­tal for emer­gency surgery.

Singh was high­ly rec­om­mend­ed as "the right man to do the job." He spent rough­ly 19 hours in surgery on the day in ques­tion.

To­day, at age four, Bel­la with the help of her par­ents and grand­fa­ther put to­geth­er a video which Dr Jones pre­sent­ed to Dr Singh. In it, Bel­la is seen play­ing doc­tor with her dolls, check­ing their heart­beat and tem­per­a­ture. Her grand­fa­ther said she loved to play doc­tors and nurs­es with her dolls. Dr Jones said this month marked the three-year an­niver­sary since the surgery was done and Bel­la had a mes­sage for Singh, telling him: "Thank you, Dr Singh, for mak­ing me bet­ter."

Bel­la's moth­er wrote a mes­sage to Singh telling him: "I know to you it's just your job, but to us and your oth­er pa­tients it's our whole lives. We will nev­er for­get how lucky we were to have a bril­liant sur­geon to give us back a healthy child when we were so des­per­ate."

Thank­ing Dr Singh for his work, Dr Jones said: "You re­mem­ber those events three years ago, and it's my fam­i­ly's priv­i­lege to come back here and say a prop­er thank you. You saved her life that day. You were op­er­at­ing from sev­en in the morn­ing un­til af­ter mid­night, non-stop. It was a fraught time for every­body and you wouldn't know that she'd been so, so poor­ly. We're very priv­i­leged and you do such a great job every day of the year. You are an in­spi­ra­tion to me and to all of us..."

Singh said he was sur­prised when Dr Jones told him he had been nom­i­nat­ed for the award. "It was a sur­prise to me as I was ex­pect­ing to be in­ter­viewed about the child's con­di­tion. I am hap­py to have been nom­i­nat­ed."

Speak­ing to us at her Freeport, home Singh's moth­er, Ma­hadai, re­called she was at her son's Lon­don home at the time he per­formed the surgery on Bel­la. She said when he came home af­ter mid­night he was ex­haust­ed, "he could not talk, his hands were so sore he could hard­ly open it, we had to mas­sage his hands with some mus­cle re­lax­ant and give him pain killers."

She said her son ex­plained to them the next day that the child had come to him from an­oth­er hos­pi­tal and the pro­ce­dure had been "very in­tense."

About the life-sav­ing surgery

Singh said "some pa­tients with an air leak from the lung fol­low­ing in­fec­tion re­quire ma­jor surgery to con­trol the in­fec­tion and plug the leak us­ing a flap of mus­cle." He said the tech­nique was "pi­o­neered at Birm­ing­ham Chil­dren's Hos­pi­tal," which he said re­ceives "many pa­tients with this com­pli­ca­tion re­quir­ing this pro­ce­dure."

Singh per­forms more than 300 op­er­a­tions a year, many of which are planned. "How­ev­er, when on call for emer­gen­cies the surgery may be life-sav­ing," he said.Singh ex­plained that the most-chal­leng­ing group is the new­born with ma­jor birth ab­nor­mal­i­ties."

Scores of moth­ers have sent posts to the Birm­ing­ham Chil­dren's Hos­pi­tal Face­book page, prais­ing him for his life-sav­ing work. Among them, Deb­bie Cousins said "Mr Singh first op­er­at­ed on my daugh­ter at just sev­en days old. A tru­ly amaz­ing man and we can't thank him enough for sav­ing our pre­cious daugh­ter's life. For­ev­er in Mr Singh's debt and so pleased he has re­ceived some recog­ni­tion."

Bernie Mc­Cor­ley said: "Mr Singh op­er­at­ed on my daugh­ter Emi­ly and saved her life when she was just eight weeks old, such a won­der­ful man."

Singh is on­ly sat­is­fied that a pro­ce­dure has been suc­cess­ful "when the pa­tient is dis­charged from hos­pi­tal."He said some of the pa­tients have on­go­ing is­sues which re­quire long-term fol­low-up.

"I have a co­hort of pa­tients whom I have known from birth and are now run­ning around and chat­ting with me in clin­ic!"

Singh is a mem­ber of the Bet­ter Lives Foun­da­tion, a UK-based char­i­ty group, which runs a pri­ma­ry health care clin­ic and sur­gi­cal day case cen­tre called the Yoni­bana Sai Hos­pi­tal in rur­al Sier­ra Leone.They treat pa­tients with malar­ia, mal­nu­tri­tion, and oth­er trop­i­cal dis­eases.

They al­so per­form in­guinal her­nia and cataract surgery.He said "all care is pro­vid­ed free of charge to the pa­tients."In ad­di­tion, he said, they al­so have a ro­bust health ed­u­ca­tion pro­gramme run­ning in sur­round­ing schools.

Since the Ebo­la out­break the team has been un­able to go to Sier­ra Leone, but he said they have been pro­vid­ing aid to Ebo­la af­fect­ed fam­i­lies through their team of vol­un­teers in Sier­ra Leone.

No plans to re­turn to T&T

Al­though he comes for va­ca­tion, Singh has no plans to re­turn to Trinidad to prac­tice.He said "there are many well-trained and com­pe­tent pae­di­atric sur­geons in T&T, they are al­ready do­ing a fan­tas­tic job."

His ini­tial in­spi­ra­tion he said came from Dr David Josa, Prof Vi­jay Naryns­ingh and Prof Paul Teelucks­ingh, but ex­plained that his in­spi­ra­tion changes as his de­vel­op­ment needs evolve. Singh said he has been "for­tu­nate to have been men­tored by many great pae­di­atric sur­geons" dur­ing his train­ing and as a con­sul­tant.

He de­scribes his se­nior col­league Mr Dak­shesh Parikh as his "gu­ru in Pae­di­atric Tho­racic (chest) Surgery, he is a world leader in this spe­cial­i­ty."

Singh's sis­ter San­dra re­calls that grow­ing up "Mike" want­ed to be a cow­boy. She and their fa­ther, Jag­mo­han Singh, laughed as they re­called when he was young: "Mike would put a rope in the car to catch a horse when we were go­ing to Princes Town."

Jag­mo­han said he used to tell me "dad, all I want is a horse, a rope, a fry­ing pan and two eggs."To­day, Singh lives near a horse farm in Eng­land and of­ten gets the chance to feed the hors­es ap­ples and car­rots.

While he is "hap­py" with the ac­co­lades he's get­ting, Singh said his great­est suc­cess was the birth of his now four-month-old daugh­ter, Vais­navi.He ac­knowl­edged that his wife, Anush­ka, does "all the hard work," but his daugh­ter is his pride and joy and he looks for­ward to rais­ing her.