Posted by By Richard Jideaka, Abuja on
The inability of the parents of four year old Miss Favour Joshua, to raise an initial N500,000 in 2004, after she was diagnosed to have hole in the heart, has put the lttle girl in danger of losing her life.
•Needs N1.5m for surgery
The inability of the parents of four year old Miss Favour Joshua, to raise an initial N500,000 in 2004, after she was diagnosed to have hole in the heart, has put the lttle girl in danger of losing her life.
Now she requires over N1.5 million for a surgical operation to live and her mother whose annual salary is nowhere near this amount has made a plaintive appeal to Nigerians to rush to the aid of her daughter by donating funds for the surgery.
Speaking to Sunday Sun, mother of the girl, Mrs. Anthonia Joshua, 31, said expressed fears that she might lose her second daughter if the vitally needed medical surgery fails to be performed soon.
Recalling the calamities that had trailed her since she got married in 2001, Anthonia said that she lost her husband two years after her marriage, precisely in 2003 and in 2004 she delivered Favour who was diagnosed to have a hole in her heart at the hospital where she was born.
After a prolonged treatment at the Kings Care hospital in Abuja, mother and child were referred to the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital for further treatment but the situation remained unchanged.
The woman who hails from Delta state and was married to an Abia state man told Sunday Sun that while she was still grappling with how to live without her husband and a sick baby, the house they toiled so much to build at Piwoi Area, along the Airport road was demolished during the tenure of of Nasir El-Rufai as FCT minister. This she lamented, left her in the cold, squatting with friends until she had to relocate her children to Minna where her aged parents live.
Narrating her ordeal further, Joshua, who is a nurse at Kings Care Hospital said that the condition of her child was fast deteriorating and that doctors told her that she might lose her daughter if surgical operation was not carried out on her soonest.
'I am scared that she would die if I cannot muster enough fund for the surgical operations and being a poor widow, I am helpless because they told me that the operation can only be performed in Ghana, India or south Africa because Nigeria do not have the facilities to carry out such operations.
'Each time my Favour gets attacked with cough I become afraid that she would die but God in his infinite mercy has been keeping her alive. The doctors told me that the hole is big and that it is not to be toyed with hence I decided to appeal for help. My daughter must not die because I cannot be able to bear the loss of another family member. At four she is still at home and not in school because of the regular attack that has made her look retarded and inaudible in speech.
'I have been able to take care of her and the senior sister who is normal, thanks to the financial support I have been receiving from my town's men and women from Asaba and some relations of my late husband. And now the doctor in charge of her treatment told me that I would need an upward of N1.5 million for the surgical operations in an hospital in Ghana and more if I had to take her to India or South Africa
'I have committed her to God and I believe Nigerians would not allow her die because of N1.5m. I am appealing to Nigerians to come to my help by raising the money to save my child. I believe she would live to be someone great in future and who knows what she would be? Mrs. Joshua stated Little Miss Favour looked everything but a four year old when this reporter saw her. She paints the picture of two year-old and could hardly talk.
Mrs. Joshua also disclosed that she had sought help from Kanu Nwankwo Heart Foundation but that the queue was too long and she was advised to either seek help elsewhere or wait for her turn adding that she chose the first advise to save her daughter.