Kenyan mum in Dubai seeks gift of hearing for her birthday girl
Dubai: As birthday wishes go, this is a touching one. Dubai-based Wardha Abdul Mustafa, a Kenyan girl who will turn six on August 21, desperately needs the gift of hearing.
“It will be the best birthday gift ever,” said her mother Fatma, trying to make it happen.
She said Wardha still doesn’t go to school because she can neither hear nor talk. “She doesn’t even go out and play with other children because she cannot communicate.”
But the good news is that doctors, who have diagnosed Wardha with hearing loss and delayed language development, have said a cochlear implant could make a world of difference to her.
A surgically implanted electronic device, the implant lends sound to a person who is severely hard of hearing. But it doesn’t come cheap.
Fatma said doctors at Dubai Hospital had given her an estimate of Dh130,000 which covers the device, surgery, hospital stay and necessary rehabilitation and therapy.
Come a long way
A housewife, she said her husband worked as a sales staff with a private company and they could not afford the implant. “We would be very grateful for any help in raising the money,” she said, adding she had come a long way with Wardha who had suffered many trials since her birth.
According to Fatma, the little girl did not even cry when she was born. “When I delivered her through a C-section in 2007, she did not have a heart beat. She was diagnosed with severe asphyxia but was resuscitated by doctors and shifted to the neonatal ICU on ventilation. She suffered convulsions on the first day of birth and was in coma for a week. She also underwent two red blood cell transfusions.
The convulsions, which continue, have seen Wardha admitted to hospital on several occasions. But Fatma said her daughter is a fighter and having survived the many ordeals, deserved a normal life.
“What better way than to give her the gift of hearing,” she said, earnestly hoping that her sixth birthday would be a new beginning.-gulfnews.com