Boy with painful enlarged stomach needs help (Pictures)

SANFROSSA MANYINDA writes

IN A rather bizarre case, a 2 year old boy of Zimba in Southern Province has been denied the childhood he deserves due to a health condition that he developed last year.

The Lusaka Sun team was told that Maradona Mundyoli’s stomach started bulging in May, 2018 and people paid little attention.

Mundyoli’s grandmother, Ms. Hachaamba said in an interview that it all started as a small lump on the right side of his tummy.

She said that everybody in the family thought that it was a normal thing that would eventually disappear after some time not knowing that it would completely change the life of the little boy.

She said that after three months, they discovered that the lump had disappeared and it was then that the stomach of the baby started getting bigger.

“It kept growing big day by day and it was at this point that we took him to the hospital. We moved from hospital to hospital and I can tell you that we have been to almost all the hospitals in Southern Province but doctors have failed to help,” Ms. Hachaamba said.

She said that after realizing that the stomach continued to grow they were then referred to the University Teaching Hospital in Lusaka (UTH) in December 2018.

She said that the boy was admitted on December 6, 2018 and that he was partially discharged on the 4th of April, 2019.

The Sun team that visited the boy in Lusaka’s Kuomboka compound where he and his grandparents are temporarily living found the boy in a seemingly painful state.

“Tests have always been done on him since the time he was admitted, but no illness has been detected so far. In the four months that he has been admitted, several scans were conducted but nothing is detected and this is getting us worried because the stomach keeps bulging,” she said.

She further said that some tests could not be carried out because the hospital management has been requesting them to pay certain amounts of money that she said they could not afford.

She said that they are currently waiting for the results of some samples of blood among other things that the hospital sent to India for examinations.

Ms. Hachaamba explained that the boy’s parents who are peasant farmers were presently busy trying to raise money for their child’s medication.

She however appealed for help from well-wishers stressing that any effort made to help her grandchild will be appreciated.

She would also be happy if the boy got help from government just the way the boy with needles in the stomach was helped.

She said that she would love and will be happy to see her grandchild cheerful again, play and live like other children do.