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Bartica woman pleads for support to finance son’s liver transplant
With each passing day, Jamal Williams’ hope of becoming a police officer is becoming a faded dream. Because of a tumour on the liver of this nine-year-old, doctors at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation [GPHC] have concluded that his life could be cut short.
But there is some hope. With a liver transplant, Jamal’s life could be prolonged so that he could one day become a productive citizen.
His mother, Natasha Williams, is praying that Jamal could be given a chance at living a full life. However, doctors have advised Williams that the needed transplant cannot be done in Guyana, but at hospitals in either Brazil or India. Thus far, the woman has been able to secure a quotation from a children’s hospital in India which indicates that the procedure will attract a cost of US$31,000 [approx. G$6.2 million].
Williams has already reached out to the Ministry of Public Health for support. She said that while the Ministry has promised to give some financial assistance, it has not yet given an assured sum. Moreover, the woman said that she was advised to seek support from the public to help raise the sum needed to cover the surgery in India, since her son’s condition is becoming worse.
The Giving Hope Foundation and the BAK Import/Export Company – which has operations both in Guyana and Trinidad – have committed to lending support towards the child’s surgery.
Reflecting on how her son’s condition was first detected, an emotional Williams of 248 West Indian Housing Scheme, Bartica, recalled that it all started in January of last year when her son came home from school [St. Anthony’s Primary] claiming that he fell and hit his stomach on a brick.
The ailing Jamal Williams
Worried Mother: Natasha Williams.
Williams said that although she’d questioned her son about the fall, she had no idea that his condition would have worsened within a matter of hours. She recounted that by 20:30 hours the same night, her son awoke crying for pain to his stomach. The worried mother said that it was then that her son informed her that one of his schoolmates had kicked him to the stomach.
However, although she’d rushed him to the Bartica Hospital and an x-ray was done, there was no forthcoming information to determine whether her son had sustained any injury.
Williams said that it was late into the night she was advised to have an ultrasound done. The ultrasound revealed that there was something on Jamal’s liver. This, moreover, forced the attending doctor at the Bartica Hospital to refer the child to the GPHC.
According to Williams, while doctors at the GPHC had given her hope that they could remove the object from her son’s live, they later realised that the child instead needed a liver transplant, since the object was in fact a tumour. They informed her that the liver transplant surgery cannot be done at the GPHC.
“I asked how that could happen and the doctor told me he could’ve been born with it and maybe the accident at school could have irritated it,” related Williams.
In addition to constant pain, Williams said that her son’s stomach has since started swelling which doctors have attributed to the growing tumour. For more than a year, Williams said that her son has been suffering, and she desperately hopes that she can somehow find the means to help him get better.
“It does make me cry every day…it pains my heart to see him like this,” said Williams of her son’s condition.
Those willing to lend support to Natasha Williams for her son’s liver transplant can do so by contacting her on [592] 692-5092, [592] 689-0957 or [592] 673-4238.
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