SBUH patient returns to Kenya after second stay

SBUH patient returns to Kenya after second stay

Saline Atieno with her host mother, Kerri Tame, of Coram, outside Stony Brook University Hospital last week. Photo by Iryna Shkurhan

By Iryna Shkurhan 

Saline Atieno came to Long Island as a girl in 2012 from Kenya to receive transformative facial surgeries by Stony Brook Medicine doctors. On May 2, she returned home as a 19-year-old young woman with a whole new demeanor after 15 surgical procedures. 

Atieno developed a facially disfiguring bacterial necrosis called Noma as a child, which often occurs in young severely malnourished children. Dr. Leon Klempner, a retired orthodontist and professor at Stony Brook University School of Dental Medicine, met Saline for the first time in 2010 on an outreach medical trip.

“She was beautiful on the inside and through the work of Dr. [Alexander] Dagum and the Stony Brook medical team, they helped match her inside and out,” said Klempner, a Poquott resident. “So, she now has a much stronger self-image.”

Through his charity, Smile Rescue Fund for Kids, Klempner brought Saline to the United States in 2012 until 2014, where she received 10 life-changing surgeries to improve the functions and appearance of her face. Klempner and Dagum, who is chief of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, and their Stony Brook colleagues set a plan to reconstruct her face and mouth to improve her functions and look.

The doctors recount meeting a shy girl for the first time in 2013. Saline only attended school a handful of times because she got bullied too much. 

“She’s blossomed,” Dagum said. “Little by little, she’s gained confidence in maturation and she’s grown into a young woman that we’re all so proud of her.”

Following her return to Kenya, Saline developed recurring infections and scarring from the Noma infection and the healing process of the first 10 surgeries. The charity arranged for her to return to Long Island for additional treatment from February 2019 to January 2020. During this period, Dagum performed more reconstructive procedures to reduce the risk of future infections. He also removed a developing cyst from her cheek and scarring around her lips, face and forehead. 

Saline’s return to Kenya was interrupted when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Her stay with a host family on Long Island was extended indefinitely as travel was banned back to Kenya. 

During this extra stay, Saline had additional time to heal and recover with medical guidance from her Stony Brook clinical care team. She also took the time to perfect her English skills and enjoy her adopted home. 

“It’s almost the equivalent of sending your child to college,” Dagum said. 

When she returns home, Saline will attend a boarding school and in the future wants to receive training to become a hairstylist. This wouldn’t have been possible without the medical staff volunteering their time and the university volunteering its services. Smile Rescue Fund also has donated to help support her education when she goes back, find clean water and finance solar lights in her area. 

The pandemic has given Saline added time to heal, adjust and see her future. Now she returns home to Kenya as a young woman.

Saline’s host mom, Kerri Tame, of Coram, said that Saline adjusted well and became one of her children in the past two and a half years. Saline was enrolled at Newfield High School in Selden where she made friends and enjoyed attending classes in person. 

“She became Americanized,” Tame said. “Just like one of our children.”

“I’m not going to be able to do the things I do here, back home,” Saline said. When asked what she would miss most about Long Island, she said, “Everything.”