Ashmal Khan
The family of a nine-year-old whose right eye was affected by an allergic reaction to medication in 2007 has left with no money to continue the treatment.
Doctors say the only option left for Ashmal Khan, is to have a stem cell transplant, from abroad.
“My son has been suffering an unbearable pain for the last seven years. I cannot see blood falling from my son’s eye anymore,” said Nazia Bano, Khan’s mother.
The family has appealed to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif and philanthropists for financial support. “With every passing day, he is losing his eyesight,” she said.
The family says they have sold everything they owned to meet treatment expenses, which add up to roughly Rs10,000 a month.
Bano said she said her son to the Polyclinic emergency ward in May 2007 where doctors prescribed an injection and a penicillin antibiotic. “About 12 hours after he was given the treatment, the boy started to suffer from sort of an allergic reaction. The medicine affected his whole body and his eyes started bleeding,” Bano said.
The boy’s father is taxi driver and they live in a colony near Khana Pul. She said they have not been able to pay house rent for the last two months.
“We have reached a stage where we have to decide whether to secure out shelter or spend on his medicines. It’s now difficult for him to see during the daylight,” the mother said.
Ashmal is her eldest son and a third grader at Al-Maktoum Special Education Centre, Islamabad, where she said he was performing better than his classmates.
The family has received treatment at a number of hospitals but Khan’s condition has not improved.
“I took my son to Lahore where doctors at Mayo Hospital cut a part of his lips to use it in his eye surgery but it also did not work. And now he finds it difficult to speak or eat,” she said.
Dr Tayyab Afghani, head of the orbit and oculoplastics department at Al-Shifa Eye Trust Hospital Rawalpindi, said currently stem cell transplants are not available anywhere in Pakistan.
Dr Afghani, who has also suggested the transplant, said it will cost around Rs1 million to Rs1.5 million in India.
The doctor said that usually the white part of the eye gets damaged in reaction to a medication which later also affects cornea. “Stem cell transplant helps revive the glands to start secretion to keep the eye wet,” he said.
For financial assistance, the family can be reached at 0314-5202763.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 24th, 2015.
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