Father abandons 3-year-old daughter in hospital after loosing wife, son to fire
Mr. Alex, the father of a three years old girl(Ozillia), who was a victim of fire explosion. Has left her in the intensive care Unit of the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital (UCTH), after losing his wife and son to the explosion.
The fire explosion was the reported kerosene explosion in Calabar that killed several people in the March, 2017.
While a woman with good heart, Mrs. Theresa Etido-Umoren visited her own family member in the Intensive Care Unit of the UCTH, she encountered Ozillia and decided to help the poor girl’s condition.
Her heartfelt zealotry stirred up pity from the members of the Calabar-Municipal branch of the National Association of Seadogs (NAS), who intervened with a donation of N20, 000 and a follow up of another N50, 000 yesterday.
Etido-Umoren said:
“I noticed her when I went to the ICU to visit my cousin, who later died. I noticed this little girl, Ozillia, and I made inquiries about her. In the course of my inquiries, i found out that nobody was caring for her.
“The hospital staffs had taken her like their project. I had to go and see the head of Anaesthesia department and told her what I could do and they gave the go-ahead. The staffs at the Anaesthesia department had taken up the responsibility of caring for her when they discovered that her father had stopped coming to see her.
“The child had been in the hospital for about two months without the father. The child’s mother and brother had died in the fire incident. So, I had to reach out to people and the first donation came from Seadogs.”
“From what I understand, the father is from Benin Republic and the mother was from Akwa Ibom State, but they were not legally married before this incident.
In addition to the grief of losing his family, he was made to marry the corpse of the mother before the burial.”
She however stressed the need to support donations towards enhancing Ozillia’s health after the success in the first surgery.
The Head of Department of Anaesthesia, Prof. Stella Eguma, who manages the ICU, also revealed how the little girl has been recuperating after the first surgery.
She said, “We have been taking care of her for some time now, while public spirited human beings like you have just stepped in now. She just had the first
surgery. She will need a lot of grafting because the skin was not enough. It is going to be a long recovery process and we are happy that she is responding.”
The President of the Calabar Municipal branch of NAS, Mr. John Nya, said the association felt touched by the news and had to intervene immediately.
“This matter was brought to our attention, just three days ago and we instantly swung into action by sending in N20,000 through the lady that brought up the matter. We have again brought another N50,000 and it will not stop there. In fact, in the next two days, we would have given N100,000 for a start.
“The situation of this little Ozillia is very traumatic. We will drum support for her treatment. It is a worthy cause. We, as an organization, have always identified with the less privileged and we will continue to do that within our resources”, Mr. John Nya submitted.
