Musa Musa (not real name), twelve years old school boy, stepped on a sharp object while walking barefooted in his local Har6o Community of Jahun Local Government Area in Jigawa State. He reported a very sharp pain, bleeding, then swelling, and total loss of function immediately. He limped back home on one leg.
He received the first aid almost all children of his age and social circumstances would receive in Har6o community; a hot cloth compress, application of grounded leaves and kersone.
A few days later, the leg swole further, started discharging a watery substance, which later turned greenish with offensive smell. At this level, Musa’s wound is probably infected, and he stopped going to school. He was fast losing his legs, but not much was being done.
The Unik Impact Foundation’s medical outreach caravan arrived Har6o on the 30th of October, 2020. Its mission was to provide medical assistance to those displaced by masive floods earlier in the month. Among the multitides that turned out was Musa, carried by his father and accompanied by the mother who nursing a baby and pregnant with another. The pitiful sight caught the curious attention of our paediatric specialist, Dr Umar Abba Sabo. A paediatric neurologist with an additional masters degree in public health.
Dr. Sabo quickly confimed that little Musa most probably had a chronic infection of the bones in his foot. He referred to it as chronic osteomyelitis while discussing the situation with his colleagues around. They determined that Musa, as a matter of urgency, needed intensive hospital care, which included thorough cleansing of the infected wound, removal of all dead tissues right up to the bones, regular dressing, antibiotics therapy, optimal nutrition, and absolute rest in an inpatient setting. It is either these, else Musa loses his limbs, or worst case, his life through overwhelming infection.
The problem was that Musa’s parents had neither the money nor the disposition to go to the general hospital in Jahun town where such services are possible.
Unik Impact Foundation initiatiated Musa’s referral to the general hospital through a volunteer and foot his entire bills of one hundred thousand (100,000) naira, equivalent to 25 USD at the prevailing exchange rate, for logistics, drugs, treatment, and hospital admission, until he fully recovered his leg.
Many aren’t lucky like Musa. A limb, perhaps an entire life with its dreams and potentials, could be lost because of the structural barriers of poverty and access, equality, and quality of care. 25 USD may be a small amount to many, but to Musa, it meant his entire limb.
