Doctors of the district hospital in Kulgam performed a surgery on a 17-year-old youth to restore beard on his face. In a statement, the directorate of health services said this was a rare feat for any government secondary-care hospital in the state.
Dr Hamidullah Dar, a plastic surgeon at district hospital, Kulgam, performed 'hair transplantation for post-burn baldness of beard' on the youth.
The patient, whose name has been withheld, suffered from baldness of beard (scar alopecia) due to a burn injury on the right side of his face.
The extensive surgery lasted nine hours. "The entire bald area was covered by transplanting 500 hair follicles," the statement said.
The health department says surgeries such as this one are costly and time consuming. "This surgery is a huge breakthrough towards conducting advanced procedures in rural areas and that too free of cost,"the statement said.
Director, health services, Kashmir, Dr Saleem-ur-Rehman has complimented the doctors for achieving this feat, while assuring better logistics to the hospital administration so that advanced surgeries like this one could be conducted at the hospital.