Our community is filled with stories of neglected health, illnesses turning into life threatening emergencies or even leading to death because of delays in seeking professional care. People cling to self medication, probably out of fear or financial constraints. Some even use the excuse that government owned hospitals are stressful which is true in many occasions especially in my country. Others because of one religious belief or another remain adamant in seeking professional care for their sick ones.
But excuses aside, is the life of a child not worth more than the excuses/reasons provided?
How many more children will have prolonged sicknesses and convulse in the night before we desist from keeping the sick child without professional help.
I've seen children lose their lives as a result of neglect.
However, I'm glad the same did but happen where I live currently.
It was a week or so ago, our apartment was shaken awake by the cries of a mother whose child was convulsing.
Due to her religious inclination, she ran to our apartment's boy's quarters to call on a religious leader who stays there. The banging on the door of the man woke me up because I also live at the boy's quarters as the man's only neighbor.
The mother of the child herself has been ill for days but refused to seek professional help even at the cry of her husband. She kept self medicating. It was days later that her baby followed suit. She was running a high temperature but the excuse which was common for children of that age was mentioned again. She's teething...so???
Well, I also ran out of my apartment and saw other neighbors doing their thing.
The cleric that the mother came to call got himself salt, kept rubbing it on the baby's toes and chanting as he did. Someone was fanning the baby, while another got a spoon and inserted it into the baby's mouth.
The eldest woman in the group asked the child's mother to urinate sọ the child would bathe with it but it proved abortive.
When every attempt failed, the cleric then did the most bizarre of them all, he asked for an onion and a seasoning cube.
I was shocked to the bones 😲. Are we planning to cook the baby? so I thought. Anyway, the onion was rubbed on the child's face while a bit of the seasoning was placed in he mouth. It was when the child showed slight improvement that she was taken to the nearest hospital.
Out of my curiosity, I asked a medical practitioner about infantile convulsing and she explained that it's always a result of neglect. A child can't just convulse if there has not been sickness that brought about fever. She explained further that inserting a spoon in the child's mouth is also a dangerous venture and that the child would still have survived if she was rushed to the hospital immediately neglecting the kitchen essentials drama.
The kitchen essentials used did not really bother me but the fact that all the drama would have been prevented. I was denied a few hours of sleep because of someone's neglect. The joy is the child is fine after all.
No to risking children's lives.
Have you also seen the adverse effect of self medicating? Let me know in the comments
Thanks for reading through.
Thumbnail is from Canva