Bekwai SDA SHS student appeals for $25,000 support to undergo surgery

• Posted on February 20, 2018February 20, 2018
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

A 20-year-old third year student of Bekwai SDA Senior High School (SHS) in the Ashanti Region, Miss Leticia Nyamekeh Ackah, is in dire need of financial assistance to enable her to undergo a surgery to remove a tumour from her brain.

She needs a total of $25,000 or its cedi equivalent to travel to India to have the surgery as the service is not available in Ghana.

The Home Economics student dropped out of school in 2016 when the tumour started blurring her vision and virtually made her blind.

Although she looks physically fit, her sight is completely gone. She can neither read nor write and it is very difficult for her to move about.

Miss Ackah lost her father in 2012 and she is currently staying with her mother, Doris Amponsah, a petty trader at Nampansa, a suburb of Bekwai, who also takes care of five other children and her aged mother.

Medical report

A medical report, signed by Dr Anthony Lamina, a Consultant Surgeon at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in Kumasi, said the CT scan conducted on Leticia showed “a pineoblastoma with severe obstructive hydrocephalus and signs of increased intracranial pressure.”

It said on March 17, 2016, Ms Ackah reported at KATH with a two-month history of blurred vision and prior to that, she had experienced persistent headaches and occasional vomiting and had been attended to by two different eye clinics without any improvement “and so was referred to the Eye Centre of KATH where a CT scan of the brain revealed a rare brain tumour.”

According to the report, the patient required a surgical removal of the tumour, adding, “the location of the tumour will require an endoscopic approach, which service and equipment are unavailable in Ghana.

“A hospital has been contacted in India for the purpose, the patient will need financial support due to the huge bill involved,” it said.

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