Two children loses the battle of life, three more suffering from Thalassaemia

Rafiullah Mandokhail

ZHOB: Three children of the same family suffering from Thalassaemia disease require urgent bone-marrow transplant, but their low income father is unable to afford.

Father of three children, 40-year-old Ramazan from Killi Trei Sherani has appealed to the provincial government, philanthropists and well-off people to save the lives of his kids and help him for their bone-marrow transplant surgery at Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) as he is pinning hope to the treatment.

Ramazan runs a shop in a village to earn livelihood for his family, says, his all three children including 6-year-old Kamran, 5-year-old Farida and 3-year-old Luqman are suffering from the fatal disease. While his two children lost the battle of life. The poor man says, he cannot imagine losing another child to the disease.

Ramazan has been struggling for the last few years to treat his children taking them to Quetta, Dera Ismail Khan, Islamabad and Peshawar hospitals for treatment as his entire family has been suffering the pangs of their life-long agony.

“I spent all of my available wealth on the treatment of my children and even sold my own house. I am now residing at my neighbor house and unable to continue the treatment any longer due to financial constraints.” He recalls the difficulties he faced.

“My two sons – eight-year-old Imran and three-year-old Irfan have died of Thalassaemia. My each child diagnosed with the disease at the age of six months”.

The doctors say, it is major Thalassaemia and the only treatment is bone-marrow transplant which can be done at PIMS Islamabad. The treatment costs three to four million rupees, but he is unable to meet the expenditures needed for the treatment of my ailing kids.

According to experts, Thalassaemia is an inherited blood disorder that is characterized by abnormal formation of hemoglobin, and diseases are consequently caused due to weakening and destruction of red blood cells.

A major cause of this disease is inter- family marriages that practices are quite common here because of illiteracy and backwardness.