The apparent decay, and lack of requisite equipment in many of Nigeria’s health facilities recently brought sorrows and tears to the life of yet another citizen, whose child returned home blind. In a heart-wrenching cry for justice and accountability, a Nigerian woman based in Kano State, recently agonized about how the lack of a photo therapy machine in a general hospital led to her son’s blindness.
Left with no other option in her search for accountability and justice, she took to social media to voice her pains and frustrations. In what she described as a cry for help, the unnamed women expressed deep frustrations over being forced by the situation to cater for the special needs of the blind child. She said she was voicing the collective pains of citizens who are tired of pains being inflicted on them as a result of corruption and bad governance.
The Explainer gathered that the newborn’s blindness was caused by the lack of a phototherapy machine to treat the jaundice, which affected the newborn. According the United Kingdom’s National Health Scheme, phototherapy is treatment with a special type of light. It is sometimes used to treat new born jaundice by making it easier for a newborn to break down bilirubin from its blood. The Explainer checks online indicate that the cost of a UV photo therapy machine stands at 7,990 United States Dollars.
Her words: “This is more or less a cry for help because really we are tired. Enough is enough; we cannot continue like this, we cannot continue to accept these things they are doing to us. I am a victim, Nigeria happened to me; my son’s life was ruined by an error from a medical doctor. This is one out of many Nigerian children out there and families that have been ruined by the system. We cannot keep quiet; we will talk about it and I think its high time we start calling of names of these hospital that are doing these things.”
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While insisting that those responsible have to be held accountable for their actions, she queried; how can a general hospital, a government hospital not have a phototherapy machine? How is that possible in a country that is so blessed; in a country that is rich with resources, where we have abundance of everything?
“Why do we need to keep quiet? Why do we need to shut up? Why are we hushed when we try to say the truth? It hurts so much; it pains me a lot that my son does not even know what I look like. My son doesn’t know what his father’s face looks like; he has two siblings he doesn’t know what they look like because medically he is blind and this is part of an error of a medical professional because she didn’t do what she is supposed to do, she failed me; she failed my family.”
The woman expressed her grievance further by talking about the financial, mental and emotional exhaustion herself and her family have had to deal with due to the excruciating reality of catering for a child with special needs. She said: “Do you know what it means to have a child that has brain damage? Do you know the financial exhaustion, the mental strain, and the physical exhaustion it comes with caring for a child with special needs in a country that does not have social welfare service? Do you know what that does to family like us? You don’t have any idea where it hurts; you don’t have an idea what it means waking up every morning thinking of where your next meal will come from.
“I am talking about families that are under privilege and for these government hospital we are talking about, they mostly served under privileged families that go there to give birth to their children. And you take back home a child that has brain damage when you can barely raise N50 to buy food for yourself.” Subsequently, she urged citizens to join their voices together to put an end to the anomalies in the medical system, which are causing many Nigerian families unbearable pains.
