By Makutu Manneh
Awa Camara, Alama Sissoho’s mother, solicits urgent help to get treatment for her 11-year-old son, whose dream of becoming a medical doctor may shatter by a heart disease he is suffering from, which requires overseas treatment.
Lying in bed, Alama said before getting the disease, he loved playing football with friends.
“Now I cannot do all these as I cannot even go to school,” he said.
Alama told this reporter that his family is not financially strong enough to help him get treatment outside the country and has been battling with the condition since 2020, as confirmed by a medical report shown to this reporter.
Awa Camara, Alama Sissoho’s mother said she has gone to all the major Hospitals in the country to find a cure for her son but said she has been told the same thing: ‘‘your son’s condition can only be treated outside the country.’’
She lamented that her son no longer attends School as like his peers because of his heart disease.
“My husband and I do not have the financial means to pay for our son’s overseas treatment, and worst of all, we do not even know and where to start,” she said.
Awa called on the Government, philanthropists, Gambians and non-Gambians and NGOs, to assist her child get treated for him to live a life of a normal child.
A document from MRC Gambia that Ms. Kamara showed to this reporter indicated thus: “this young man has a diagnosis of Rheumatic heart disease and this was first diagnosed at MRC Gambia in July 2020.”
The document continued that the boy’s disease is unable to be treated in the Gambia because there is no paediatric cardiothoracic surgical expert to do this here.
