People told me to throw my child away

A mother of two, Mrs Edith Onyekachi, has said she was told to throw away her ailing three-year-old son because he was born with a hole in his heart. The unemployed woman from Enugu State said the child, Onyekachi Victor, was diagnosed at the National Hospital after she noticed that he breaths very fast and […]

A mother of two, Mrs Edith Onyekachi, has said she was told to throw away her ailing three-year-old son because he was born with a hole in his heart.
The unemployed woman from Enugu State said the child, Onyekachi Victor, was diagnosed at the National Hospital after she noticed that he breaths very fast and that his growth was retarded when he was about one year old.
She said due to the ailment, “a baby of one year and three months was bigger than him.”
She also said that the child only started walking in February when he was about three years old.
The child, she added, could not be enrolled in  school while she could not pick up a job as a teacher because he needed constant care and support.
“My husband repairs radio and television sets and we spend more than N10,000 on drugs a month,” she said.
The situation, she said, had compelled her into begging for alms to take care of the child who is admitted at the National Hospital almost every month.
“So people said I should throw him away and stop asking for help. We are suffering, we don’t have anything and I love him so much,” she said.
A medical report signed by a chief consultant pediatrician at the National Hospital Abuja, Dr. I.B Babaniyi, says the boy was presented at the National Hospital when he was 13 months with complaints of fast breathing, fever, loose stool and vomiting of 11 days.
“He will need a definitive surgical intervention in two stages,” Dr. Babaniyi said in the report putting the total money required at over N4 million.
The Public Relations Officer of the National Hospital, Dr. Tayo Haastrup, confirmed the authenticity of the medical report detailing the nature of the ailment and money required for the medical treatment abroad.