A 32-year-old mother Fazia Bi is pleading with parents to get their children’s heart screening done at the earliest at the Sri Sathya Sai Sanjeevani Children’s Hospital in Suva to avoid the fear of losing their kids.
Her plea comes after her six-year-old son Abdul Momin was diagnosed with congenital heart disease when he was just three months old and the couple found out when the child was two years old.
The Wairebetia, Lautoka resident said they had taken the child to the Lautoka Hospital where they were told that Momin had a hole in his heart.
“The doctors said it was a small hole and that worries us. They said it might close on its own so we believed it. He did not show any signs or symptoms while growing up.”
“When the Sai medical team came to Lautoka, we just took him for a regular check-up and that’s when we got to know that he still had that hole and it was growing. We had to rush and get our appointment done and that’s how we got here.”
“If the team had not come then I don’t know if we’d found out about him. We had him checked and we came for the surgery last week Saturday and he went on surgery on Monday.”
“I’m very happy and thankful to the surgeons and the doctors at this Sai hospital because they saved my son’s life and I feel they were sent to us by God.”
Bi has urged parents to come out of the stigma that heart disease cannot be cured and get their children’s screening done.
“We didn’t know that screening is very important for children until this Sai hospital. When they came to Lautoka, I felt the need to get my son’s check-up done. I felt like something was pushing me to take him.”
“I just want to tell the parents that there is no harm in screening. Screening just takes a few minutes and the doctors are very helpful. Sometimes people say that if children have heart disease they don’t survive but that’s not true. We have doctors in Fiji who do surgery for free and they do their best to help the kids.”
“I’m very lucky that my son was saved and I did not have to pay anything. It was free and I was even staying in the hospital with my daughter and the doctors here provided me with food.”
“My message to parents is to get your children’s screening done and save your children if they have a heart problem,” she said.
