A 12-year-old must beg for life-saving surgery

Feb 21, 2026 Editorial, News

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(Kaieteur News) – The story carried by Kaieteur News on February 19, 2026 is one that should stop this nation in its tracks. It is the story of 12-year-old Delroy Moses, a child now fighting for his life and of a family forced to beg in a country awash with oil wealth.

Delroy is not seeking an overseas transplant costing hundreds of millions. He is not asking for experimental treatment. He needs a life-saving endovascular surgery that can be done right here in Guyana at a cost of $9 million. The Ministry of Health has committed $1.5 million. The remaining $7.5 to $8 million must somehow be found by a family of modest means, a construction worker father, a housewife mother, and a 73-year-old grandfather holding vigil and hope in equal measure. Let that sink in.

In an oil-producing nation boasting record revenues, a 12-year-old child with a ruptured aneurysm, a condition diagnosed at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation must depend on bake sales, phone calls, church collections and public sympathy to survive. The recommended procedure, endovascular coiling, is unavailable at the public hospital. It can be performed at St. Joseph’s Mercy Hospital for a fee his parents cannot afford.

We are told daily of Guyana’s transformation. We hear of billions allocated, supplementary budgets passed with ease, grand infrastructure rollouts, conferences, expos, consultations, and ceremonial launches. We see the tents, the banners, the catered affairs, the motorcades, the foreign trips. We are reminded that Guyana is now the fastest-growing economy in the hemisphere.

Yet somehow, in this booming petro-state, a critically ill child cannot secure $8 million for surgery without passing around a hat.

The MRI results described in the Kaieteur News report are harrowing:  a ruptured saccular aneurysm, haemorrhagic infarcts, midline shift, multiple acute infarcts. This is not a routine case. This is life and death. The child has already endured seizures, emergency interventions, and remains in critical condition. Doctors have spoken. The treatment path is clear. The only obstacle is money.

What does that say about our priorities?

Governments reveal their true values not in speeches but in spending. When tens of millions can be mobilized overnight for events, hospitality and engagements of questionable necessity, but a child’s life depends on partial assistance, the optics are troubling and the moral implications worse.

It is not enough to say the State has “helped.” The question is whether it has helped adequately. $1.5 million against a $9 million bill may be technically assistance, but practically it leaves a struggling family drowning. If the public hospital cannot perform the procedure, and the State recognizes the urgency, then the State must bridge the gap fully. Healthcare is not charity. It is a responsibility.

This is not an attack on doctors or nurses at the Georgetown Public Hospital. They are working within the limits of the system provided to them. The issue is policy and priority. For years, we have heard of plans to modernise healthcare, to expand specialised services, to reduce the need for private or overseas interventions. Yet here we are again with a family appealing to the public because critical neurosurgical capability is unavailable in the public system.

And let us be clear: Delroy Moses is not an isolated case. His story simply pierced the headlines. Across Guyana, families quietly mortgage homes, sell vehicles, empty savings and plead with strangers to save loved ones. Oil wealth has not yet translated into universal assurance that a medical emergency will not mean financial ruin.

Corporate Guyana must step forward. The private sector has benefited handsomely from the oil economy. Banks, contractors, suppliers and service providers are reporting robust growth. This is a moment for corporate citizenship to mean something tangible. Eight million dollars, divided among major companies, is not an insurmountable sum. It is, in fact, a modest demonstration of social responsibility.

But while corporate support is welcome, the ultimate burden should not rest on philanthropy. A nation earning billions from petroleum exports cannot normalize public begging for pediatric surgery.

Delroy’s grandfather described him as an ordinary 12-year-old boy until two weeks ago. Ordinary going to school, laughing, living. Then seizures. Then ICU. Then a quotation.

The measure of a country’s progress is not GDP growth charts. It is whether its most vulnerable can access care without humiliation. It is whether a family, in its darkest hour, can rely on the system it has paid taxes into and voted for.

Guyana stands at a crossroads between wealth and wisdom. Oil revenues can build roads and hotels. They can finance summits and spectacles. But if they cannot guarantee life-saving care for a child, then something is profoundly out of balance.

The public will no doubt rally because Guyanese people have always shown compassion beyond their means. Donations will come. Churches will pray. Businesses will contribute. And hopefully, Delroy Moses will receive his surgery in time.

But when this crisis passes, the larger question must remain: In an oil-rich nation, should any family ever have to beg to save a child’s life?

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• beg, Delroy Moses, Editorial, life saving, oil wealth, surgery

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