THIS MAN NEEDS N4 MILLION TO SURVIVE

Okwudili
For Mr Benatus Okwudili Offia, life has become empty, full of misery and regrets.

Offia, is a university graduate, fell into the dreaded grip of unemployment in the country, making the father of three children to resort to washing cars as a means of livelihood before calamity struck to leave him bedridden for the past one year.

His predicament started like a simple ailment, but to the chagrin of many, he became paralyzed and had since remained bedridden with little or no improvement.

According to Mr. Offia, he started noticing some strange pains all over his back which made him to feel dizzy on his two legs and he never took it seriously until it degenerated into serious sickness that landed him in the hospital where he was diagnosed of Tuberculosis initially and treated.

'When I went to the hospital because I had earlier treated TB, the doctors said that I still had some TB in my system and instead of treating the new sickness, they had to subject me to TB therapy.

'They told me that my system had been affected by the sickness and that it had affected my spinal cord, but they had to finish with the remaining TB which they said was still in my body before they could do anything to my problem,' he said.

He said that when the problem was getting out of hand with the pains in the back and the two legs increasing on daily basis, he went for treatment at the Federal Medical Centre, Asaba in a bid to find new solution to his problem, but was also told that the sickness had affected his spinal cord so badly.

Offia was referred to the University Teaching Hospital at Nnewi where the doctors advised him to go to Port Harcourt for MRI Test which he said he could not afford due to his poor financial standing.

He said that he was told after series of tests that his problem was so minute that it could not be detected by ordinary test.

Financial problem Offia told Daily Sun that he was advised by doctors at the state University Teaching Hospital, Nnewi to go to Port Harcourt for MRI test but could not go because of the financial involvement.

'When I got to Nnewi Teaching Hospital, the medical doctors there said that I still have chances of survival, and that was after they diagnosed me severally and said that they could not find out the actual cause of my paralyses, so, they advised me to go to Port Harcourt for the MRI test to know what was actually the cause of my predicament.'

Also speaking, his wife, Mrs Ebere Offia said that when the problem got out of hand she had to resign her teaching appointment to be able to take care of her sick husband and their kids as well be run her little business for survival.

According to her, taking care of a bedridden husband and automatically becoming a breadwinner had always been a very Herculean task, especially in the face of the current financial and economic problem.

She, however, called on good-spirited groups and individuals to come to their aid by donating for the treatment of her husband outside the country so that they would have access to means of survival.

She said that all donations to help her husband should be paid into: Intercontinental Bank number; 0057110000366216, account name, Ebere Uju Ekwue or call 08063629123.