Family in Thika seeks Sh5m to help boy get treated for cancer in India

George Mbugua, a seven-year-old boy who was diagnosed of Osteosarcoma, and currently stranded in a hotel in India where his father Samson Mwangi had taken him for treatment. (PHOTO: COURTESY)

In March, Samson Mwangi left the country for treatment in India with his ailing son.

George Mbugua had been diagnosed with Osteosarcoma; a condition characterised as cancer of the bones.

However, the father’s journey of hope turned into a nightmare after the hospital they had been booked in denied them treatment and threw them out for lack of money.

The two are stuck in an Indian hotel whose bill by last week stood at Sh34,560.

“They neither have money for treatment nor upkeep at the hotel. My worry is the hotel might also decide to throw them out,” says Mr Mwangi’s wife, Esther Wanjiru.

Ms Wanjiru remembers how the journey of hope now turned nightmare started.

One Sunday afternoon in August holiday, the boy, while riding his bike, got an accident.

NORMAL INJURY

“We thought it was a normal bicycle injury and we took him to hospital,” said Wanjiru, who works as a store clerk at Career Direction Ltd in Thika.

X-ray tests revealed the boy had Osteosarcoma and the only option left was amputation.

Not ready for that, the family sought a second opinion to find out whether their son could be treated without having his leg amputated.

The family was linked to BLK Hospital in India where they were advised the boy could be treated without necessarily cutting the leg.

On March 10, father and son flew to India and was admitted to BLK Hospital. Hospital tests revealed the disease had spread to the boy’s lungs and other parts of the body, therefore he required prolonged treatment.

This called for more money to enable the boy undergo 12 cycles of chemotherapy and have surgery and bone marrow transplant done. Once the Sh800,000 was depleted, they were thrown out of the hospital and the medication stopped.

While out in the cold, a well-wisher sponsored the boy’s second chemotherapy at another hospital, Artemis Hospital.

The hospital is demanding Sh5 million to resume treatment. “We are requesting well-wishers to help us out of this situation,” says Wanjiru.