During a single night shift at Almaty's Children's Emergency Care Center, surgeons had to perform three emergency operations to remove magnetic beads from the gastrointestinal tracts of young patients. The children, aged two to four, all faced the risk of intestinal perforation, reports infohub.kz.
The first patient was a two-year-old boy with abdominal pain. An ultrasound revealed multiple foreign objects, and doctors decided to operate immediately. During the procedure, 25 magnets were removed from the child's body.
Just a couple of hours later, another child, aged two and a half, was brought in with vomiting and abdominal pain. During the emergency surgery, surgeons removed nine magnets.
By the morning of the same shift, a four-year-old patient arrived with similar symptoms. However, the number of magnets in his intestines was significantly higher, shocking the medical team.
"It was a shock. We removed 59 magnets from the child's small intestine. (...) It was the most difficult operation of the shift," said surgeon Aibol Sultanbekov.
Almaty's health department reported that since the beginning of the year, 15 children have been admitted to this center with similar diagnoses, all having swallowed magnets. Doctors emphasize that the danger lies in magnets attracting each other inside the body, which can lead to severe consequences.
Medics again urge Kazakhstani parents not to leave magnetic beads or other toys with magnets within children's reach and to carefully monitor what their children play with.
Earlier it was reported that a child in Almaty swallowed three magnets and ended up on the operating table.