‘Wrong drugs paralysed my child’

Mother of a four-year-old child in Chirimba, Blantyre, claims her child is becoming paralysed following wrong medication she was given at the referral Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital (Qech).

The child is one of the girl triplets the mother gave birth to in March 2009, making her have six children in total.

In an interview at her home last week, the 38-year-old mother, Lucy Omari, said she failed to understand how the hospital prescribed epilepsy drugs for her daughter despite diagnosing her with a brain tumour.

“My daughter had been healthy until March last year when she suddenly fainted and remained in that state for two weeks. The hospital told me that my child had a tumour on the left side of her brain which was responsible for her condition.

“When she regained her consciousness, she was being fed through pipes and she could not speak, walk or hear until she underwent physiotherapy a week later. Surprisingly, she was given epilepsy treatment and there was no mention about the tumour anymore,” Omari said.

The mother said she strongly believed that it was this epilepsy medication that had worsened her daughter’s condition, so much so that she was slowly getting paralysed.

“The hospital has been changing the medication and each time she takes the drugs, her condition worsens, becomes too weak and she alarmingly oversleeps. I have seen epileptic patients. My daughter never shows such signs.

“This wrong medication has only managed to further worsen my daughter’s condition by paralysing her left arm,” said the mother, showing deep cuts the child had been sustaining in the head following her seizures.

She said she had been to herbalists and various churches for prayers but there had been no positive change.

“I strongly believe that the first diagnosis that my daughter has a brain tumour was right. I don’t think keeping my child sleeping all day long through the epilepsy medication will help anything except paralysing her completely,” Omari said.

The child’s health passport, which The Sunday Times saw, corroborated the mother’s story as it recorded that the child experiences frequent “seizures” and “convulsions”.

Information posted on the National Brain Tumour Association website shows that a brain tumour may interfere with normal brain activity, damaging nerves and healthy brain tissue. This may cause seizures and gradual loss of movement or sensation in the arm or leg in adults but not in children.

A further look at a different UK-based Brain Tumour Charity website showed that a brain tumour may cause “a very small proportion” of epilepsy in patients.

Both websites, however, did not prescribe epilepsy medication as treatment to the patients. – By Simeon Maganga