Okikijesu bill now $530,000 after 6 surgeries to get new skull
Three-year-old Okikijesu Olawuyi, the Nigerian child without a skull, has undergone six surgeries so far in an American hospital to get a skull, doubling her surgery bill to $530,000, says the charity Global Initiative for Peace, Love and Care, GIPLC. Okikijesu is scheduled to undergo at least eight surgeries in one year which began in […]
Three-year-old Okikijesu Olawuyi, the Nigerian child without a skull, has undergone six surgeries so far in an American hospital to get a skull, doubling her surgery bill to $530,000, says the charity Global Initiative for Peace, Love and Care, GIPLC.
Okikijesu is scheduled to undergo at least eight surgeries in one year which began in May, initially estimated to cost $234,000.
Her first surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospitals in the US lasted 14 hours and complications arose as a result of inconsistencies in her medical history, in addition to the fact that it was a maiden attempt in paediatric neurosurgery, said GIPLC.
Without a skull, fluid has accumulated since birth in her head, held only by skin.
The surgeries were to divert the fluid from her head to her belly in hopes of reducing the mass on her head and then create a new skull from bones taken from her pelvis and rib cage.
The surgery is considered the second most expensive in the world—no child has ever had a similar condition—and could enter the Guinness
Book of World Records.
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In initial surgeries, neurosurgeon, Dr Ben Carson drained fluid from her head. A new skull was created—a sort of helmet to be held in place
using platinum screws.
Doctors during her first visit said the helmet will “hopefully fill in and grow bone the rest of her life.”
Further surgeries by Dr Carson will remove more fluid and excess skin, then bring forward from the back of her head to make a normal forehead.
Okikijesu’s new skull requires 39 such screws, costing $3,000 dollars each, said GIPLC coordinator Nuhu Khwajafa at a press conferencing in
Abuja on Wednesday.
The three-year-old patient was moved from JHH’s intensive care unit to a general ward Tuesday, after six weeks.
“The first bill said she would be in ICU for three days, but she spent over six weeks in ICU, and that’s four to five thousand dollars every night,” said Khwajafa.
“Every day, it keeps counting. So we had to come back to Nigeria to see how we can raise this money. She needs special therapy to talk, sit, walk, and a new helmet. It is going to be so much more complicated that we have to start looking for more money for her recovery.”
GIPLC said in a statement last week: “Prior to the complications which have risen, what made a determination of the full cost of Okiki’s surgery difficult is that in modern times, it is an extremely rare (perhaps singular) medical condition with no precedence to draw indicators from.
“This latter fact also means that it is equally difficult to tell what other medical complications may arise; just like the fluids that were retained in her cranial cavity has posed an unforeseen challenge and may have led to a fatal infection.”
“Difficult to get government”
In a video Daily Trust has seen, Carson, in initial hospital visits, told Okikijesu’s parents that surgery to correct her condition came with risks of bleeding, infection, death, coma, paralysis, visual disturbances, seizures and damage to lungs and abdomen, but insisted none were “remotely likely to occur.”
GIPLC in May raised the initial surgery bill of $234,000 within 72 hours using local network of donors.
But it said it has “been difficult to get to government” for assistance. “In our lifetime, we have never seen this kind of medical condition,”
said Khwajafa. “Her medical procedure has made her the number two most expensive procedure in the world today. She is going to be in the
Guinness Book of World Records.
“For a Nigerian child to be part of the Guinness Book of World Records for a medical condition that has never existed, it is high time the
Nigerian government became a part of her life.”