{"id":316783,"date":"2017-05-06T10:00:16","date_gmt":"2017-05-06T10:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=316783"},"modified":"2017-05-06T10:00:16","modified_gmt":"2017-05-06T10:00:16","slug":"12-yr-old-loses-battle-with-kidney-disease-poverty-stricken-family-cries-for-help","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2017\/05\/12-yr-old-loses-battle-with-kidney-disease-poverty-stricken-family-cries-for-help\/","title":{"rendered":"12-yr-old loses battle with kidney disease; poverty stricken family cries for help"},"content":{"rendered":"
\u201cGod knows I have done my best for Kimbly; but I can no longer continue thinking about his death. I have to move on now and find ways of pushing my two other siblings.\u201d<\/p>\n
These were words from 16-year old Vanessa Kyei, Kimbly\u2019s elder sister when I visited the family home at Pig Farm in Accra to confirm his death.<\/p>\n
Vanessa tells me her brother who suffered from chronic kidney disease died around 5:00pm last Thursday (April 27). He was on dialysis for seven months <\/a><\/strong><\/span>amidst a very difficult financial constraint.<\/p>\n \u201cI went outside to go and pray. When I returned, he was sitting on the bed and told me he was hungry so I gave him food. He started eating faster and I scolded him; but he started drawling. I got scared and started panicking\u201d she says.<\/p>\n \u201cAs soon as he finished eating, he fell on the bed and told me some people were putting him in a grave. He asked me to pray for him. Eventually he went into coma with his tongue out. A few hours later, the doctors came to tell me there was nothing they could do but to let my brother go.\u201d<\/p>\n Three weeks before his death, Kimbly was not receiving dialysis. According to Vanessa, the doctors could not get access to his veins and so they asked them to stay home until they find other alternatives. Even when she felt her brother\u2019s condition was worsening, there was nothing she could do if the doctors haven\u2019t asked her to resume the treatment. Her brother\u2019s situation was a difficult one because he was young, the doctors said.<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Up until now, the only person oblivious of Kimbly\u2019s death is his 42-year-old mother. She has not been in a good mental state for eleven years. For someone who has worked as a caterer at the Golden Tulip Hotel, her catering skill is still intact however. On my visit, I met her in their compound house preparing food for the family. The first question she asked me was whether I have gone to see her son at the hospital. Vanessa told\u00a0me they are scared breaking the news to her will aggravate her situation. Kimbly and his mother were an inseparable pair.<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Like the trials of Job in the bible, this family is facing very difficult times. The children\u2019s father died while in South Africa. Even though he used to send money home, Vanessa tells me that her father\u2019s family who were recipients, kept it away from them.<\/p>\n \u201cI started selling with my aunt. Unknown to us, my father use to send money to her; but she never told us so we even thought my father was wicked to us. So one day I called to ask him and he narrated everything to me. Few days later, he died.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Before her mother\u2019s illness, Vanessa tells me she was a very hardworking woman who never denied her children a good life and education. She recounted to me how she use to go to one of her mother\u2019s eleven catering services scattered all over the capital to make a choice for anything they want- from pastries to natural fruit juices and even jollof.<\/p>\n However, since she lost it, most of her workers and business partners have parted ways with her. Some of the businesses have collapsed, and most of the proceeds cannot be accounted for because the family has no details of its management.<\/p>\n