Help! Goodness needs N3.4m for an anus

Imagine a life without an anus. Imagine your baby excreting faeces from her mouth. Imagine having to be abandoned by your spouse when you needed him or her most. Imagine accessing care and you were told that your hospital file is no where to be found? These aptly described the present challenges confronting Mrs. Florence Nkemachor Edokpayi and her four year-old child, Goodness Edokpayi.

Goodness, according to a medical report from Lagos State University Teaching Hospital,LASUTH and signed by a Consultant Paediatric Surgeon, Dr. O. Faboya requires urgent assistance for further medical attention after undergone three operations already.

*Master Goodness

Goodness is said to have been born with Down syndrome with delayed passage of meconium and further medical investigation revealed that she has Hirschsprungs disease.

Unfortunately, the defective intestine had made it impossible such that he could not pass faeces normally through the anus.

However, after due consultation with two hospitals abroad, BLK Super Specialty Hospital, India and Great Ormond Street Hospital, London had both reviewed the case and said they were capable of carrying out the operations.  Now, Goodness needs a total of N3.4 million ($20,000) for the life – saving operations and the associated expenses. Unfortunately, Florence is now running from pillar to post as she cannot afford the sum.

Narrating her ordeal to Vanguard, Florence said few days after Goodness was born, his tummy was swelling as he could not excrete like normal babies. And it got to a point that faeces was coming out of his mouth.

Then, her mother Florence rushed him to LASUTH where it was discovered that he has a defective intestine that could not allow him pass faeces through the anus.

Medical doctors at the hospital in the battle to save his life carried out what they called, “A Martin-Duhamel pull over” through surgery when he was one year old. Later, there was post operative complication which required re-operation.

At age three and half, he had colo-anal astomosis done.  Since then, the baby has undergone three operations without the doctors being able to correct the abnormality.

To add salt to injury, the last time they went to the hospital in October, the mother was told that the baby’s medical file and records has gone missing and as such they could not do anything and were sent home without any hope or help.

As if these were not enough, Mr. Kingsley Edokpayi the supposed father of Goodness, upon discovery of these abnormalities in his boy abandoned his wife and child to their fate. Since then, he never cared or asked after their welfare.

Right now, Florence has been catering for herself and the baby by selling telephone recharge cards and from little financial assistance she gets from relatives.

Florence  who said all the efforts of the doctors have not  solve her child’s problem, appealed to well meaning Nigerians to help her child.