Grief as ‘careless mother’ loses only child to illness in Ilorin
By Zainab Isiaq
Sometimes in November 2016, Mrs. Florence Okafor, a resident of Osere area in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital, was all smiles after being delivered of her first and only child.
The birth of the baby christened John, came about after intensive prayers few years after the union of the Okafor’s marriage. Ten months later, the family was thrown into mourning on Monday, following the death of little John after three weeks of illness.
According to a neighbor of the Okafor’s who does not want to be named, the baby had been ill for about three weeks but her mother resorted to self-medication as she could not afford hospital bills.
“The death of the little boy came to many of us as shock. The mother could not help the situation because she had no money. Had it been the father was around, he would have reached out to family and friends to raise money for the baby’s hospital bills,” the source lamented.
Recalling the ill-fated incident, Mrs. Okafor said, “My child started vomiting from midnight till the following morning. When the situation was getting out of hand, I had to call my husband’s brother living at Ita-Alamu.”
The bereaved mother added that John was taken to General hospital, Ilorin in the morning for treatment and he was injected and given some medications.
“After the treatment, he stopped vomiting and had even slept off before we got home but three hours later, I noticed the boy breathing heavily and crying. I immediately took him to the nearest pharmacy where the attendant tried all she could but she later asked me to return him to the hospital as the situation was too complicated for her to handle,” Mrs Okafor stated adding that John breathed his last before he could get to the hospital around 2pm.