Rare surgery restores voice to young Mozambican 23 years later

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Rare surgery restores voice to young Mozambican 23 years later

2:28 CAT | 24 Feb 2025

File photo: Hospital Central de Nampula./Facebook

Calado Hermínio suffered from ankylosis since he was a child. Ankylosis is abnormal adhesion and rigidity in a joint, resulting from injury or illness.

Calado is 30 years old, and since he was eight, a rare disease prevented him from speaking and eating normally, until a rare surgical intervention, carried out at the Central Hospital of Nampula, northern Mozambique, gave him back his life.

“I’m happy,” he begins by saying. Since the end of January, his surgery has allowed him to start eating and drinking with some normality, in addition to resuming speaking, 23 years later.

It all started in 2002, when 8-year-old Calado fell while trying to scare monkeys away from the family’s agricultural field in Mecula, Niassa province. The incident affected his temporomandibular [jaw] joint, leading to bone fusion that has since prevented the mouth from opening.

From then on he could no longer speak, and his diet was limited to liquids and light foods, which he consumed only with great difficulty. He only completed the fifth grade and at 23 years old was spending his days helping his family with beekeeping and fishing, as well as agriculture.

Due to his health condition, he faced social stigma for over two decades, until surgery in January began to give him back a lost life, despite some initial opposition from his family to his leaving the land and seeking treatment in Nampula, more than 700 kilometres away.

“I’m already getting a bit of morale back,” he admits. Still recovering from surgery, performed on January 27th at the largest hospital in northern Mozambique, young Calado cannot hide his emotion at being able to explain in his own words what those years were like.

“Very difficult. After the fall, I was unable to open my mouth for two days, but I thought it would be temporary. Days and years went by and I continued like that. I couldn’t even open my mouth to eat, and spoke to people using gestures,” he recalls.

He remained voiceless until the religious association Estrela do Amanhã identified him in October 2024 and sent him to Nampula to finally receive medical treatment.

Calado’s situation was discovered by the Mozmed program, run by the religious mission of the same name and made up of general practitioners who work in remote communities without access to specialized health services.

In addition to Meconta, the mission also works in the districts of Angonia and Tsangano, in the province of Tete, central Mozambique.

The president of the Mozmed mission, Jacinto Joaquim, explained that last year the organisation transported 43 patients with various pathologies who needed surgical intervention to Nampula Central Hospital for treatment. Of these, 42 were operated on – and now also young Calado, whose surgery was unique in that hospital.

“He was already giving up because most of those who went with him had already been operated on and returned home,” Joaquim admitted.

Satisfaction at the young man’s new life was felt throughout the hospital. “We are extremely pleased with the success of this operation that restored this young man’s speech,” explained Daniel Sitóe, a dentist at Nampula Central Hospital, who oversaw the four-hour surgery on the young man, a team led by maxillofacial surgeon Alexeis Amita.

“For me, as a dentist, it was the first time I had followed such a case. The impact that the surgery has had on Calado’s life is incredible and satisfying,” the clinician highlighted.

Source: Lusa