Baby with large tumor on neck gets life-saving surgery to remove it

By Amy Reast

A British surgeon removed a baby's life-threatening tumor on her neck, which was the same size as her whole face.

Memunatu, a 10-month-old baby girl from Port Loko, Sierra Leone, began growing a lump on her neck from just five months old.

Her mother, Aminata, took her to the hospital, but doctors told her Memunatu was too young for surgery.

Her family began to fear the worst until Aminata bumped into a volunteer that worked for Mercy Ships, a healthcare charity that operates hospital ships.

Memunatu was instantly referred for surgery on board their ship, Global Mercy, docked in Freetown, Sierra Leone, for FREE - as the tumor would eventually have suffocated her.

She went under the knife on March 18 for a meticulous four-hour surgery with Royal London Hospital’s Maxillofacial Head and Neck Surgeon, Leo Cheng.

He successfully removed the tumor - effectively saving baby Memunatu's life.

Aminata said: "When they brought her from the theater, I thought she was going to lose her life because she's so little for such a condition.

"I was very worried for my child.

"If not for this surgery that Mercy Ships did for my child, she would have lost her life.”

When Aminata first took her baby daughter to hospital, it was wrongly believed to be just a symptom of her having a cold.

But the tumor continued to grow until it was dangerously large - almost the same size as her whole face.

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Miraculously, during one visit to a children’s hospital, Aminata and Memunatu met a Mercy Ships volunteer, South African Anne-Marie Van Tonder.

Immediately recognizing the critical situation, Anne-Marie referred Aminata for surgery on the Global Mercy.

Her surgeon, Cheng, said: "Without the surgery, her condition would have continued to worsen, affecting her ability to swallow, eat, speak, or even cry."

The tumor was compressing Memunatu’s airway, and the medical team worked with skillful precision during the anesthesia process to manage her airways during the challenging intubation.

Memunatu was under anesthesia for about five hours, with the slow, meticulous surgery taking nearly four hours.

Cheng said: "With every single millimeter, I was estimating, calculating, and trying to prevent any bleeding.

"It went very slowly but very positively. And thank God.”

Five billion people, close to two-thirds of the world’s population, lack access to safe, affordable, and timely surgical care.

Rough estimates show that someone dies every two seconds from a preventable medical condition that could have been treated surgically, and Memunatu could have been one of them without the surgery.

Since 2023, the Global Mercy has provided more than 3,630 free surgeries in sub-Saharan Africa to people who are robbed of years of healthy life, for conditions that are easily treatable.

Following the successful surgery on the Global Mercy, Memunatu and her mother remained on the ship as the swelling subsided and she recovered.

Back at home, weeks after her surgery, her neck had healed, and the swelling had subsided.

Anne-Marie said: "When she was discharged, it was such a great joy for me to see Memunatu's face. There was no tumor.

"The tumor had grown so fast, almost the size of her head, hiding her beautiful face… her eyes were so full of light and joy.”