Help save Ms Patience Azilaku
Thirty-year-old Ms Patience Azilaku resides at Debidebi, a remote fishing community in the Kpando Municipality. The community, along the main Kpando Fesi road close to the banks of the Volta Lake, is one of the isolated communities within the municipality.
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A visitor to the community would have to endure an arduous journey of climbing and descending rocks and brushing aside leafy plants.
Sitting in front of a small hut, cuddling her one and half year-old son was a pale looking Ms Azilaku who had a large swelling on her left cheek. She could only look up perhaps with hope that someone may help her out of the medical condition she has been suffering from for years.
The Daily Graphic, which joined a voluntary humanitarian team headed by a health worker, Mr James Mawuli Gawu, that visited the community on a familiarisation tour ahead of a major medical outreach, was struck by Ms Azilaku's condition which the team leader described as one that needed urgent attention.
Interactions with Patience and her family members brought some disturbing news. At 30, Patience had five children made up of three boys and two girls.
The eldest of these children, a 17-year-old girl is also a mother to an infant and they are all dependent on Ms Azilaku who has lost the father of four of her children.
The father of her last child, however, abandoned her when she was pregnant with her fifth child.
Farm Hand
With no form of formal education and skilled work, Ms Azilaku resorted to working on people's farms as a farm hand and in return got foodstuffs as payment to feed her family.
Miss Azilaku had done her job diligently over the past couple of years until a disease left her left cheek swollen, with almost half of her 32 teeth giving way, leaving her with offensive smell which often attracts flies anytime she attempts to open her mouth.
She told the Daily Graphic that the condition started some eight years ago when she felt a strange sensation on her left cheek.
That, she indicated, was accompanied by slight tender swelling and occasional toothache.
“I had hoped it will resolve on its own after several herbal preparations recommended by people in the community failed to achieve the desired results”, she told the team.
The pain, which became unbearable, coupled with the offensive smell, made it uncomfortable for her to be among people, many of whom shunned her company.
As such, Ms Azilaku was unable to continue her farm hand duties as people who gave her jobs could not stand her presence.
Thus, she and her family had since relied on the benevolence of the community to be able to feed.
Health condition
According to her, while she had managed to get treatment at local clinic miles away from the community, her condition only got worse.
More worrying is the task of opening her mouth which comes with its associated pains. Eating, chewing and swallowing had become a very difficult task as such; she often goes to bed on an empty stomach.
Her family described her efforts to eat as a “miserable struggle”.
Ms Azilaku could hardly speak without a tear dropping out of her eyes.
Diagnosis
Having managed to register for the National Health Insurance Scheme about a year ago after a five year struggle to raise resources for such a purpose, Ms Azilaku visited the Margret Marquart Catholic Hospital at Kpando where she was diagnosed as having a cancer of the left parotid gland, a form of salivary gland that forms in front of each ear. Anyone suffering from such a condition could also develop major salivary gland tumor.
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She was subsequently referred to the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital to seek further medical attention, however, lack of funds has seen the referral letter almost in shreds.
Believing that piece of "dirty" referral letter could be her saviour one day, Ms Azilaku had kept it religiously, hoping, praying and expecting that help would come her way someday.
She could only appeal for assistance using sign language.
Persistent Pain
“Patience may not have much time if urgent action is not taken. She is now unable to work as a result of significantly lesser energy”, Mr Gawu told the Daily Graphic.
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Mr Gawu and his team, under his Health Support Foundation,a non governmental organisation (NGO) have launched a campaign on social media to raise $10,000 to enable Ms Azilaku go through surgery and other medical procedures.
“It is my hope that the campaign I shave launched under the foundation would be able to raise enough funds to enable us transport Patience to Korle Bu to begin the treatment", Mr Gawu stressed.
Until Mr Gawu and his team or corporate institutions comes to the aid of Ms Azilaku, her condition may eat her away gradually until she succumbs to death.
Writers's email: delarussel@gmail.com