Bilawal’s benevolence: Teen with copper overload gets help from government
PPP co-chairman says govt to pay about Rs2,500 a month for treatment.
SUKKUR:
Sometimes too much of a good thing works against you. This is the case of 16-year-old Allah Bachai who has the inherited Wilson’s disease in which her body’s tissues suffer from extremely high levels of copper.
Her life is in danger because her jaw has been paralysed and she can’t use her limbs properly any more.
Luckily, help is at hand. The co-chairman of the Pakistan Peoples Party, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, heard about her on Express News and said that the government would pay for her treatment. It will cost about Rs2,000 to Rs2,500 per month for the rest of her life.
An eight-member team of doctors, headed by the medical superintendent of Chandka hospital, Dr Zulfiqar Sial, visited Kunbi Sandelo village on Sunday and took blood samples from the entire family.
Allah Bachai is the second eldest of eight of Mohammad Ameen Chinjni’s children. The same disease took the life of her 18-year-old brother, Mohammad Rafiq, last year. Chinjni took Rafiq to the Aga Khan Hospital in Karachi and sold all his property, buffaloes and gold to foot the medical bills. “Now my daughter is suffering from the same disease and I don’t have anything to sell in order to pay for her treatment,” Chinjni said.
Allah Bachai has been admitted to Chandka hospital and is being treated under the supervision of the professor of medicine, Dr Hakim Abro. He told The Express Tribune that Allah Bachai was admitted last year and he treated her for two months, but then she did not return for a follow-up.
He explained that this disease is the result of inter-family marriages.
Dr Sial added that in Wilson’s disease the levels of copper in the body increase to the extent that it starts damaging the brain and liver. But it is curable if detected early. Unfortunately, in Allah Bachai’s case, the disease has already progressed to an advanced stage.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 19th, 2011.
Sometimes too much of a good thing works against you. This is the case of 16-year-old Allah Bachai who has the inherited Wilson’s disease in which her body’s tissues suffer from extremely high levels of copper.
Her life is in danger because her jaw has been paralysed and she can’t use her limbs properly any more.
Luckily, help is at hand. The co-chairman of the Pakistan Peoples Party, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, heard about her on Express News and said that the government would pay for her treatment. It will cost about Rs2,000 to Rs2,500 per month for the rest of her life.
An eight-member team of doctors, headed by the medical superintendent of Chandka hospital, Dr Zulfiqar Sial, visited Kunbi Sandelo village on Sunday and took blood samples from the entire family.
Allah Bachai is the second eldest of eight of Mohammad Ameen Chinjni’s children. The same disease took the life of her 18-year-old brother, Mohammad Rafiq, last year. Chinjni took Rafiq to the Aga Khan Hospital in Karachi and sold all his property, buffaloes and gold to foot the medical bills. “Now my daughter is suffering from the same disease and I don’t have anything to sell in order to pay for her treatment,” Chinjni said.
Allah Bachai has been admitted to Chandka hospital and is being treated under the supervision of the professor of medicine, Dr Hakim Abro. He told The Express Tribune that Allah Bachai was admitted last year and he treated her for two months, but then she did not return for a follow-up.
He explained that this disease is the result of inter-family marriages.
Dr Sial added that in Wilson’s disease the levels of copper in the body increase to the extent that it starts damaging the brain and liver. But it is curable if detected early. Unfortunately, in Allah Bachai’s case, the disease has already progressed to an advanced stage.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 19th, 2011.