A Papua New Guinean mother appeals

By PETER KORUGL

A mother appeals . . . She is slowly going blind and will die

A mother of seven is slowly going blind and will surely lose her life if she does not have an operation to remove a growth at the base of her skull.Mujawe Banzinga left her village Dumbola in North Wahgi in the newly created Jiwaka Province on June 15 for a specialist medical check on her eyes, one that was not working and another that was slowly going, thinking that she would be treated and return home to her children and village eight days later.

Mujawe Banxinga is suffering. Picture: TARAMI LEGEI

At the Port Moresby General Hospital, Mujawe had her check up and what she learned shattered her life and that of her husband Kaman, who fears that he may lose his wife of 29 years and the mother of his children if she does not travel to Australia for the operation. Mujawe is from Hube in the Finschhafen district of Morobe.

She left her home and went to the Western Highlands in 1980. At Banz, she met Kaman, who was working with the young people in the Lutheran Church.The two Lutherans got married and they have been working with the Lutheran Church, Kaman as the Lutheran Youth Coordinator and Majawe as a prayer warrior for nearly all their lives.

“We are praying that a miracle will happen and that she will be saved,” Kaman was telling this newspaper on Friday.Majawe suffers from Pituitary Mass, which has caused the blindness and it was only about four months ago when doctors at the Port Moresby General Hospital told her of her condition after she went from one hospital to another in the Highlands. “In 2003 I started getting the pain in my right eye and I went to see the eye specialist in Mount Hagen General Hospital.

“The doctor there informed me that there was nothing wrong with my eyes and sent me home. As the days went by, the headaches started getting worse. In 2004, my right eye went black out,” she said. In 2006, she returned to the eye specialist in Mount Hagen and was advised again that there was nothing wrong with her eyes but the nerve, from her eyes to the pituitary gland, buried at the bottom of the brain, had “gone white” and she was advised to eat a lot of fruits.

In November last year the headache was worse and she went over to the Mingende Rural Hospital in Chimbu, Mingende referred her to Kundiawa Provincial Hospital and the doctors there referred her yet again to the Goroka Base Hospital.“I was there for eight weeks and the doctors could not do much. I was referred again to Port Moresby. I could not travel down because I had no money.

I lost hope. One day in June, a former Australian volunteer whom we looked after as a son returned to Banz and heard about my plight. He quickly paid for two tickets – one for me and one for my husband. “He also paid the K900 for the test at the hospital.

“I was very happy, thinking that very soon my problems would be over and I would resume normal life again but it was not to be,” Majuwe said.Majuwe said the lives of her children Christina, Roselyn, Saina, Ezekiel and Gidion and Alola are also affected and except for Alola, the others are in school.

“I do not want to die, I want to go home for my children. I want to see them grow up and help them find their lives. There are many of them and I know if I go, their father will not cope on his own,” she said. They need to raise more than K60,000 for the medical and other expenses and this is money they do not have.

*** I just wish that the government of Papua New Guinea could have a trust account to help her citizens who couldn't afford the huge medical costs and probably send them overseas for further testing and treatment. That would be a worthy cause for the government to spearhead for those who are sick and underprivileged. Just my thought!

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@