Children ‘offer themselves for sale’ to fund mother’s kidney transplant

Provincial government promises treatment to the woman.

VEHARI: Four children in Vehari had put up a banner outside their house reading “children for sale” to raise funds for the kidney transplant of their mother, 35-year-old Aqsa Parveen.

Taking notice of the incident, the provincial government on Wednesday deputed Muhammad Ashraf Chaudary, the Vehari district coordinator officer, and Naeem Khan Baba, a PML-N MPA, to address the issue. The two have moved Parveen to the district headquarters (DHQ) hospital, where she is getting free-of-charge dialysis regularly. The DCO said that the government would arrange all medical facilities required by the woman. He said that he had also contacted some well-off people in the district and asked them to help her. “I will do whatever I can to raise funds for the woman,” he said.

Tahir Iqbal, a PML-Q MPA in the district, however, expressed dissatisfaction with the measures taken by the government. He said that every other household in the province was facing similar healthcare problems, “it is a failure of government’s health policy”. He said that the government was not serious about the treatment of the woman, adding that when she needed an immediate transplant why was the government delaying it.

He said that if something happened to the woman due to the delaying tactics, he would file a murder case against the provincial government. When asked if he had extended support to the family, he said that he would wait for two more days and if the government did not arrange a transplant he would do that himself.

Omar Illyas, Parveen’s second child, told The Express Tribune that all valuable belongings in their house had been sold and their only chance at saving their mother’s life was to offer themselves now.

Despite having polio, Omar continued his studies in the 10th grade and worked part-time in the evening at a pesticides factory. For some months, however, he, as well as Iqra, a 2nd year student; Sana, 9th grade student; and Ali Raza, 6th grade student, had discontinued their studies due to insufficient household income.

However, Tahir Anwar Wala, a PML-N local leader, has now offered a Rs5,000 per month job to Omar in the evenings. He has also announced to fund the boy’s education for as long as he wanted to study.

Parveen said that her husband Rana Illyas died five years ago due to a kidney ailment. She said that she went to Lahore’s Shaikh Zayed Hospital where Dr Shafi told her that she needed a  kidney transplant. “He said that the procedure would cost us Rs500,000 and that one of my children would have to donate the kidney,” She said, adding that she did not have the required funds so she came back home and had since then not consulted a physician.

She said that she had sold almost all things in her house and was now dependent on her sister and her husband.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 26^th, 2010.