THE happy life of a young Nigerian panel beater, husband and father of five children, Sodiq Akanbi Ganiyu suddenly took a dive three years ago,

By Gbubemi God’s Covenant Snr.

THE happy life of a young Nigerian panel beater, husband and father of five children, Sodiq Akanbi Ganiyu suddenly took a dive three years ago, when his voice began to fade, like the volume of a transistor radio being turned off slowly until his voice went completely silent. 

 

To compound his plight, doctors in their efforts to restore his voice, piled up bills, which figure looked like quarterly expense sheet of a medium scale enterprise.  Now with his throat opened up in a trial surgery that proffered no solution, 42-year-old Ganiyu is required to spend about N300, 000 or more for further surgeries that does not guarantee restoration of his voice. His wife spoke to Gbubemi God’s Covenant Snr. at their Ijora Badiya residence in Lagos. 

 

The family’s ordeal 

Ganiyu was born 42 years ago in Oke-Oyin village, Moro Local Government Area of Kwara State. Sweating at it all is his 36 years old wife of 16 years, Mulikat.  A panel beater managing his household of five children at ages of three and 16 years, Akanbi had a comfortable grip of his life until three years ago, when a mysterious sickness sneaked upon him and since then his health and everything around him went bizarre.  

 

Now stuck with a pipe and plastic stuck in his throat through which he breathes, his voice is completely silent and all resources squeezed dry. His wife narrated their ordeal to The Moment.  

 

In 2008, his voice suddenly began to go down, slowly and steadily until it became a whisper. 

 

“It started with some sickness in 2008; he suddenly started to feel weak and he was having difficulty in breathing, but what frightened us all was that his voice began to go down until it became only a whisper. We had to seek medical help so we went to Fadan Hospital at Amukoko, Lagos. There, they treated him with drugs and after some time his breathing improved, he became a little better and his voice came up again. 

 

“Not too long after he started feeling the same symptoms again, and someone took us to Rotunda Hospital at Orile, Lagos where the doctors told us that they would need to operate his voice cord or something like that; but they said they cannot carry out that operation so they recommended we go to the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH). 

 

When we got to LUTH we were directed to do a series of tests, from scan, x-ray and some others that we don’t understand. They were just billing us money for all the tests, from N1,000 for three separate tests, N1,400, another for N1,800, N2,500, it went on like that. Then after all that, they asked us to go home that they would wait for the results of the tests, the scan and the ex-ray photos before they would know what to do. 

 

“But before the time they gave us to come back my husband took ill again. The sickness was severe to the extent that he almost became unconscious in his office. His friends said he was shivering with cold and maybe some fever joined with the sickness. 

 

They rushed him to Joe Mark Hospital at Amukoko, where they gave him some injections, drugs and put him on drips. Later they said he was short of blood so they did blood transfusion. He was there for one week before he was discharged. We were happy that time because he was well and fit, his voice had become normal and my husband was his old self again. 

 

“But later, the sickness came back and his voice became low and he was breathing with difficulty. Then we remembered that LUTH did not call us as they said, so we went back again. Seeing the condition of my husband that day we were surprised when they said we should come back in six week’s time. 

 

I begged them to see us earlier or at least make the appointment for four weeks instead of six, because time was going fast and my husband’s condition was getting worse everyday, since they were not even listening to my plea, we left them and went to Sida Hospital at Mushin. 

 

The doctors there were honest at least because after treating my husband on emergency, they told us that they will be collecting money from us for nothing if they should continue this treatment, that my husband will require operation and it is only LUTH that is equipped to carry out the operation.

 

“I explained the delay we experienced at LUTH and they sympathized with us. From there someone directed us to Lantoro Hospital in Abeokuta, Ogun State. The story was the same as with Sida Hospital. After the first treatment and on our second appointment they said if they continue treating him like this we will just be wasting money. 

 

Like the first hospital they said this is a matter of operating my husband that we should go back to LUTH and beg them to attend to him as an emergency. At this time my husband’s breathing has become dangerously slow and difficult and his voice was almost gone. Lantoro Hospital gave us a note to a particular doctor at LUTH so that they will attend to us quickly instead of long appointments.

 

“At this point, we met the doctor eventually and after reading the note my husband was sent to the emergency ward where he inquired from us about the history of my husband’s ailment and we explained everything to him. On the third day, they asked us to pay N100, 000 before the operation could be carried out. 

 

We pleaded that we didn’t have that amount of money, but they should go ahead while we go and look for money. This sickness has been on and off for three years, so we have spent so much money we cannot even calculate how much we have spent so far.

 

“That was how we went to look for money; my husband’s relatives and his friends put everything they have together, but it was not enough so we sold everything we could sell for cash, including his car because since this sickness started, my husband was no longer working and we have to feed our five children and buy medicines for him. It was after the money was paid that they took my husband to the theatre and performed the first operation.

 

“After the operation when they brought him out from the theatre, I saw they have cut his throat and put a rubber pipe through which he was breathing. He was still under drug and sleeping when they wheeled him out. They told me that the operation was only to ease his breathing; that they would do a second operation in which they would start from his mouth and that through his response after the second operation, that they would know whether there would be yet another operation. 

 

“I nearly fainted because my husband was hale and hearty and we were living our lives without any problem; now my husband has become a subject of surgery upon surgery, and from what they are saying they don’t even know what the outcome is going to be. Our future suddenly collapsed in our hands.

 

“I told my husband everything the doctors said when he woke up. Thereafter, they discharged him one week after the operation and that was the end of our N100,000. They told us to come back after three weeks and that we should look for any hospital near us to treat him there every three days in the meantime. 

 

“When the three weeks period was over, we went back to LUTH and they said we should pay the sum of N50, 000 for the operation that they will do in his mouth, but that we should first of all go and do a scan from his head to his chest. When we went for the scan at N35,000; that took one week to do because we didn’t have any money. 

 

We went to borrow some money again. When we showed them the result of the scan, they said we should go and do other tests, the first cost N1,400; the second N1,000, and the third N750 another scan again for N1, 000. After all that they said we should do some blood tests, the first one cost N3,000, the second one cost N6,100. 

 

All this while, we thought that the cost of all the tests they were directing us to do would be deducted from that N50,000. When we finished all the tests they asked for N50,000 for the operation. 

 

“I almost fainted because we were just borrowing with no feasible means of paying back. I pulled myself together because my husband was in pains and he was talking but no sound from his voice. We went again and borrowed N50,000, thinking that it would meet the cost of whatever operation they were going to carry out but it was not to be. 

 

Instead they gave us a breakdown of N20,000 for one operation and another N20,000 for a second operation. Then they said we would buy other things for N10, 000 that N50,000 will see us through.

 

After the operation, they asked me to take him to their biology laboratory for a test. They didn’t tell us we would pay any money. When we got there, they said we are going to do two sets of test and each one was N5,000, we paid another N10,000 in that biology laboratory. 

 

When we returned to the doctor, he said we should come back in three weeks’ time to hear the result of the tests. “Wo, emimi fe bo” (my spirit almost left me). Meanwhile my husband was still in the ward on admission. They said they would discharge my husband in that condition fresh from the second operation, which we didn’t even know how he was going to recover or recuperate. 

 

When I told my husband, he asked whether they have done the two operations or there is still another one, I said I don’t know. I went to ask the doctor and he said they only operated that of his mouth that they have not touched the main operation; that they wanted to see the result of the biology test so they can be sure where exactly the problem is.

 

“However, I explained to my husband what they said and eventually he was discharged and we went home. Only God knows how we managed at home in those three weeks, with no money and no food for the children. We have never run expenses like this before all our lives. The whole trauma was like a bad dream that refused to finish so that I can wake up and thank God that it’s only a dream.

 

“After three weeks, I went to the biology lab and collected the results and took to the doctors. When they studied it another problem started. They said that it was not what they were suspecting that was the problem that they would need to repeat the operation in his mouth. 

 

After that operation he would go back to biology lab for another round of tests before they would be sure what they would operate on. He also said the next operation would involve all the doctors in LUTH.

 

“I had to shout and tell them there is no money anywhere even to borrow. Ganiyu had a taxi he was managing before and we have sold that and everything else since three years of this sickness. I was crying like a baby in the hospital. 

 

Meanwhile, my husband has been carrying that pipe and cotton wool in his throat since the first operation. When he heard the doctors saying we have to look for money, he said they should take away the pipe and plastic and let him go because there is no money anywhere to pay for any operation anymore. 

 

The doctors said if they remove the pipe without doing the operation that he would die. So that is the deadlock we are facing now. Before heaven and earth we don’t have one kobo anywhere. All family and friends have given all they have.  This is where I am now and I am begging government and Nigerians to help me.

 

Don’t let my husband die; the way this thing is going, if we don’t get help death is looking at us in the face. Please help us because money is now the issue that can keep my husband alive. We don’t have one kobo anywhere. Since three years of this sickness he has not been able to work. 

 

All his friends and colleagues have been helping to give us something for food and everybody is tired. All our children are no longer going to school. My concern is that Ganiyu should not die. Please help me,” she pleaded.

 

Muritala Sulaiman, a motor mechanic is one of Ganiyu’s many friends working under the bridge at Iganmu. He said:

 

“The sickness surfaced like that about three years ago, and like his wife said, we all are witnesses that the family have spent more than N200,000 on this problem. The whole property they have were sold because of this sickness and at the end of the day, all the private hospitals we took him to end up directing us to LUTH after trying their best.

 

“We hereby beg government and Nigerians to help us with a good doctor who can understand exactly what is wrong, or help us with money to continue with LUTH; and from what the doctors explained, he is going to need two more operations that will cost no less than N200,000.”

 

Ganiyu’s mother came to Lagos with him and wife for this interview. She is Ajara, a farmer who lost her husband when Ganiyu was young. “I am the only person left of all the family. I am a farmer.” She has never seen such sickness and believed it might be some bacteria or virus, (what Yorubas call kokoro). She said nothing of such has ever happened in her family or anywhere in their place.

 

The Moment sought the opinion of people in the know and learnt that the ailment is not a mystery after all, but a condition that requires thorough clinical tests, analysis and careful surgery to put right, depending on the findings of the lab scientists. 

 

A medical specialist in a private hospital on the Ojota-Ogudu Road, Dr. O. Adesokun said the situations that could make a patient manifest such symptoms are vast, but would be impossible to place such through a report from a third party without proper laboratory analysis. 

 

Generally, such symptoms and signs as loss of voice could manifest as a result of a cancerous growth in the larynx region; this could also cause difficulty in breathing and bouts of fainting.

 

“From the condition of this particular patient, the cut in the throat through surgery is for the patient to be able to breathe and phonate. However, the best the patient should do first of all is for him to visit the ENT (Ear, Nose and Throat) doctor now as they are specialised in the diagnosis and treatment of such diseases.

 

“Moreover, for the situation to have reached climatic stages is either the patient has neglected the initial symptoms, or did not quite notice it early enough; because if he has been initially treated effectively, it would have been eliminated, but he either had only taken preliminary treatments which may have palliated the illness but did not fully eradicate it.

 

“On the fact that the doctors carried out series of tests on him does not mean that all the causes would have been determined; and it is expected that he would have been given some medical advice, which he probably didn’t quite follow to the latter at the early stages of the cancerous growth. 

 

“On the issue of the costs being high is also not the fault of the doctors or the hospital; these are some of the things the medical insurance scheme should be channeled to. These can only be effectively implemented through the public insurance scheme.”

 

The family and friends of the patient is appealing to federal and state governments, NGOs and individuals to save Sodiq Akanbi Ganiyu from this dilemma. The doctors refused to remove the pipe and plastic from his throat lest he dies, and the family has no hope of raising any money to progress the treatment and subsequent surgery.