Gujarat: 12-yr-old with rare skin disorder gets adopted
AHMEDABAD: Prachi, 12, was surrendered to the court as a five-year-old by her parents following a family feud. Suffering from TB and a rare skin condition - erythroderma or exfoliative dermatitis - she initially lived in a juvenile foster home for three years and then at Missionaries of Charity facility for five years. As her condition leaves her with blackened skin which is hard like 'scales', she was rejected twice as a child for adoption, said foster home officials.
Prachi, however, got third time lucky when she found her family in Manju Goel, a MD (medicine) from Madison, Wisconsin in the US. Manju is already a single mother to two daughters, both adopted. She will welcome Prachi to her family and is likely to fly back to US this week following completion of formalities. The Ahmedabad regional passport office processed Prachi's passport in a day as a special case, said adoption agency officials.
The state child protection officers said that family conditions forced the parents of Prachi to surrender her to the court in 2015 when she was four years old. She was first kept in Shishu Gruh at Paldi and later the NGO's facility for children and adolescents. Officials said that as a child Prachi was diagnosed with a lesion of TB for which she has undergone surgeries twice - once in Civil Hospital and another at a private hospital.
Dimple M, a coordinator at Missionaries of Charity, said that while Prachi's TB is under control, her skin condition, attributed to genetic factors, persists.
Prachi was happy to meet her sister, mother
Dimple M, a coordinator at Missionaries of Charity, said, “The condition requires regular moisturizing to avoid the skin from getting too dry and peel off. As the condition affects the upper layer of skin, it also hampers perspiration. Due to her looks, she could not make many friends. The rejection by prospective parents also hurt her somewhere. But her pain vanished when she got to know about her new family – in the US”. Goel also has an interesting story of her own, said NGO officials. She emigrated to the US as a child and lives across the home of her parents. She never got married, but to fulfill her wish to be a mother, she adopted two girls – one from Mumbai and another from Pune over the past 16 years.
The girls are now 20 and 15 years of age. One of the girls accompanied her to India to complete the formalities of adoption at the NGO. “A medical practitioner, she feels closer to orphan children as her father was a probation officer in one such facility in Delhi. It was a wholesome moment as both Manju and Prachi got a member to complete the family. The family has made special arrangements at the Madison residence to welcome her,” said a social worker at the NGO. “Prachi was so happy to meet her sister and mother. A reserved girl, she enjoys the company of close friends. We’re sure that she’ll grow to her full potential with her family.”
A senior official at Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) official in Gujarat said that children with any health conditions or disability find it difficult to get adopted. “The trend indicates that Indian parents often go for the healthier children. Girls are often the first choice. It is mainly adoptive parents from abroad who choose children that need special care,” said the official.