Baby needs N3.5m for open heart surgery

An eight-month-old baby, Mubarak Anuoluwapo Jayesimi, has been diagnosed with symptomatic congenital heart disease.

He requires N3.5 million to undergo an open heart surgery in India. All was well and rosy for Mubarak, who was born on May 25, 2016.

However, that changed two weeks after when his mother, Mrs. Monsurat Jolayemi, became disturbed about his breathing pattern. She said: “After two weeks, I noticed that he was breathing quite fast.

The breathing was not normal, it was too fast. So we took him to the nearest hospital to us in Ikorodu, Dele Hospital.”

Dele Hospital was the beginning of the journey for Mubarak’s parents. There, the doctors explained that their child’s condition was beyond their capacity.

Thus, they were referred to the General Hospital at Ikorodu. At the General Hospital, they were told there was no space and were further referred to Massy Children Hospital, Lagos Island. It was at Massy Children Hospital that they were told that baby Mubarak has a hole in his heart.

“It was when we got to Massy Children Hospital, Lagos Island that they told us that he would have to undergo surgery.

So they told us to go to Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) for echocardiography,” Jolayemi said.

Mubarak was admitted to LUTH, and after a series of tests and scans, a medical report signed by Professor C. A. N. Okoromah, a consultant paediatrician, says Mubarak has “symptomatic congenital heart disease, which was confirmed by echocardiography to consist of large perimembranous ventricular septal defect, paten ductus arteriosus, moderate pulmonary arterial hypertension with good biventricular function in Down’s Syndrome”.

Okoromah further explained that Mubarak would need to undergo cardiovascular evaluation and open heart surgery in order to correct his heart to forestall irreversible and life-threatening complications.

Jolayemi said: “She told us we would need N3.5 million as at October 28, 2016, to take him to India for the operation.

I am a caterer and my husband is a driver, we are left with no other option than to ask people to help us raise the money for the operation.”

Jolayemi can be reached on 08168415370. Money can be sent to Diamond Bank account number 0087458674 opened in the name of Mubarak Anuoluwapo Jayesimi.