Father of son with hole-in-the heart seeks public support for treatment

HE is contract staff driver with a leading national paper and his wife, a trader. All their earnings have gone into their son’s medical bills.

Praise Omohimoria, 14 months old, has been diagnosed of having a hole in the heart and needs not less than N7 million for medical treatment and other travel expenses abroad.

This is the plight of his father, Vincent, when he brought his case to the Edo state secretariat of the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ).

He needs help and he is pleading with kind hearted Nigerians and corporate organizations to assist.

Vincent said that the evaluation was carried out at the Paedriatic Cardiology Unit of the University of Benin Teaching Hospital (UBTH) with Professor Wilson Sadoh, a Consultant Paedriatic Cardiologist.

It was diagnosed that his son, who has been a patient at the hospital since birth, was during the week evaluated for a congenital heart disease or hole in the Heart.

“The hospital said that my son’s life is at risk and that he is likely to have heart failure because of the hole in his heart. He also said the heart is failing very fast”.

Omohimoria said that the doctor also said his son would need to be flown abroad for corrective heart surgery and that the estimates for the procedure would not be less than USD10, 000 exclusive of airfares and accommodation.

He displayed the doctor’s report from a repeat echo cardiogram at the UBTH, carried out on his son, on the February 9, 2015, which revealed a “10.3mm secundum type, Atrial Septal Defect shunting from left to right, the right Atrium is markedly enlarged and fractional shunting 50.3 per cent”.

Meanwhile Professor Sadoh has confirmed Praise’s plight and said that his parents requested for the toddler’s health status to be made open in order to enable them seek assistance for the boy.

“I am begging Nigerians to help me financially so that I can commence the treatment in India before my situation get worst or out of control because I am already running out of money for treatment and the treatment must commence soonest before it deteriorates to a disastrous state.

“I beg the people of the state, the sate government and other people to come to my aide. The doctors said I need N7 million for the treatment, travel expenses, visa and other expenses. I am begging our Comrade Governor to help us. I am begging Nigerians and other kindhearted people to help me.

“The baby is one year four months. I have three children, and he is the last. I am a driver. The other two children are in school my wife is with me but because of this challenge, she has not been doing anything because she has to be with the boy all the time.

“The chest is now swelling up and when we went for another test, the doctor said instead of the hole to be getting smaller, it was getting wider.”