Two-year-old boy needs N1.7m to stay alive

Culled from Punch

For Mrs. Toyin Benson and her two-year-old boy, Feyijinmi, life has not been a bed of roses. Feyijinmi, for whom she waited for 10 years, is now battling with a heart disease. He was diagnosed with congenital heart disease just few weeks after he was born.

Feyijinmi has not walked since he was born in 2011.He looked pale while he pants each time he breathes when this correspondent sighted him.

Benson says she had sought help from various state governments to help her foot the bill after she was told that her son required a surgical intervention abroad, but to no avail.

She notes that at some point in February 2012, the Lagos State Ministry of Health directed the State Medical Board to consider the sponsorship of the surgery. She laments that ever since she had not heard any word from the agency.

The distraught mother of two, who is also a petty trader, says Feyijinmi’s condition has rendered her family helpless and poor.

“Just after a month I gave birth to him, I observed that his breathing pattern was abnormal but I used to think it was a common cold.

“When I took him back to the hospital where I put to bed, in Ijoko, Ogun State, he was referred to the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, Ikeja, where he was diagnosed with congenital heart disease.

“My petty trading business has already folded up as managing him with antibiotics and other drugs needed to stabilise his health each time he has a crisis are quite expensive,” she laments.

Feyijinmi had been referred by doctors at LASUTH to undergo a surgical operation in India since 2011, but two years after, the family is yet to raise the money.

“I have been running from pillar to post to raise N1.7m for his surgery in an Indian hospital. But the family has no such money and we are now pleading with Nigerians to come to Feyijinmi’s aid.

“Each time we make significant progress at getting money for his overseas treatment, he suffers a relapse and we end up spending the money we have raised on drugs and his admission,” the mother explains amidst sobs.

Confirming Feyijinmi’s predicament, Consultant Paediatrics/Paediatrics Surgeon, Dr. B.A. Animasahun, in a letter, says the ailing boy is a patient of Paediatrics Unit of LASUTH.

“He is being managed as a case of Congenital Heart Disease (Tetralogy of fallot). He requires surgical intervention,” the doctor adds.