29 June 2016

Time running out for Othieno’s heart

Richard Othieno is grappling with a heart condition. Photo by Desire Mbabali


 



In Summary



At only 18 years of age, Richard Othieno can only speak of pain and hospital visits. He has not had a vibrant life like most teenagers his age because is heart started manifesting complications when he was aged eight. And now he seeks Shs264 million to undergo surgery to replace two valves in India.






You can easily mistake Richard Othieno for an abandoned malnourished child because of his swollen stomach, pale skin and sunken eyes.






But the 18-year-old is grappling with a heart condition that causes his stomach to fill up with acetic fluid that has to be drained out by a doctor.






All this aside, Othieno can still manage a smile as he welcomed me to his home, despite the life threatening heart condition that is ravaging him. He lives with his family in a single room they rent in Kisugu, Kampala.
From my visit, I also learned that he has a caring family that understands him and his condition and together hope that their brother and son will get well if he undergoes surgery.






Othieno started manifesting symptoms of heart problems at the age of eight. His mother Florence Ogen Ateng, however, didn’t think it was something severe. “He always had persistent nose bleeding, and difficulty in breathing,” she narrates.






As a mother of eight, who had been abandoned by her husband, Ateng had to look for ways to sustain her family and so she sought work as a house help.
When the situation got harder, she decided to return to her village in Tororo District together with her eight children.






While there, Othieno’s health and symptoms worsened and in March 2009 he was admitted to St Mary’s Lacor Hospital in Gulu with a history of chest pain, difficulty in breathing and cough, according to his medical report.






But Othieno’s condition was not improving forcing his mother to return to Kampala with him to access better health services. In 2013, while at Mulago National Referral Hospital, Othieno was managed as a pneumonia case but in vain.






“He was later diagnosed with Endomyocardinal fibrosis, a heart condition where pumping of blood is restricted due to heart stiffness, causing the heart to insufficiently pump blood to the body. The causes of this condition are idiopathic (arising from an unknown cause) but in some few cases it is genetic,” Dr Denis Robinson Mugarura, Othieno’s doctor, explains in his medical report.






“The most affected parts of the heart are the valves and when they become stiff, they cannot open and close properly to allow proper blood flow, causing the heart to be less efficient,” he adds.






Othieno’s major complaints have since been difficulty in breathing, body swelling, a dry cough, rapid loud heartbeats, general body weakness, easy fatigability, and reduction in urine quantity.






This condition also causes fluids to accumulate in his abdomen, which continues to swell, therefore, every after a few weeks, the doctor has to do paracentesis (a procedure done to drain the acetic fluid from the abdomen).
Despite the severity of his condition, Othieno couldn’t be kept at Mulago hospital due to the high cost of living, but also because the mother had his other siblings to take care of. So every after a few weeks, the doctor visits them to do paracentesis from home.






“My son needs surgery, but I don’t even have ways of getting all that money. I can barely afford to keep him in Mulago and get him a decent meal. How then will I be able to afford sending him to India?” his mother says amidst tears.






Doctor’s take
There are several medical interventions, but in advanced cases (like his), surgical therapy seems to be beneficial as it fixes the original insult, usually by replacing the stiff part of the heart with a flexible and functioning one, in most cases the valves. Medical therapy is also important in the management of these patients but it can only relieve the symptoms which will not stop recurring until the source of the problem is effectively addressed. In Othieno’s case, two of his valves need to be replaced, and this calls for a heart surgery, which is to be done in India. Dr Mugarura says that in Artemis Hospital Delhi, India, a valve replacement surgery can go as high as $30,000 (Shs99 million) and as low as $15,000 (Shs49.5 million). “It all depends on the team, the parts they are going to replace and so many other considerations. So the cost can go as high as $80,000 (Shs264 million),” he says.






You can make a change in Othieno’s condition; render a helping hand so that he gets to live a better and more productive life. Contact Florence Ogen on 0791925096 / 0776723468






editorial@ug.nationmedia.com






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