Operations for Handicapped Children

In May, before I left Cameroon, we brought a team from the Fondation de Bethleem to Maga to examine around 70 handicapped people to decide whether they could benefit from tricycles, crutches or operations. Among 350 handicapped people whom we had identified in the county these were the ones who appeared to have these needs. It was envisaged that around 35 of them could benefit from tricycles and the Foundation had intimated that it could supply five free and 30 for each of which it would contribute €150 from a total cost of €200. The council undertook to contribute €30 per tricycle, I undertook to contribute €15 and the family of the handicapped was to be asked for €5. After returning to Maga in October I visited the Foundation to enquire about the results of their examinations. I was told that donations to the Foundation (mainly from Italy, its country of origin) had fallen substantially and that it could not deliver on what had been envisaged. It now proposes to give tricycles to 20 handicapped, none of which will be free and for each of which it will contribute €82. The tricycles, which it builds in its workshop, will not be ready until after Easter. The team which performed the examinations has selected their 20 highest priority handicapped and we plan to ask them to include a few others, children who did not make it to the list but have an urgent need for tricycles to get to school. The Foundation also plans to perform operations on a few handicapped (see below) and to give crutches to some others. It had originally planned (with the backing of another organisation) to give financial assistance to around 50 handicapped who plan revenue-generating enterprises but now says that it will be unable to do so.

The Foundation said that they were bringing doctors to Mouda early in December and proposed a list of 11 handicapped for further examination to determine whether they could benefit from surgery. We were asked to have the relevant limbs xrayed in advance and to transport the handicapped, each with an accompanying person, to Mouda (around 40 kilometers from Maroua which in turn is around 80 kilometers from Maga) for consultation. For each scheduled operation we would have to pay in the region of €120 (the Fondation would pay certain other costs) and the family would have to provide an accompanying person and food for a hospital stay of one to three months.

Because of logistical difficulties, we managed to bring only four handicapped for examination on this occasion, three girls and a boy. The boy travels 500 metres to school on his hands and knees, protecting his hands from the scorching and rough ground with flip flops. One of the girls has to crawl but she cannot use her hands and has to use her elbows in stead (Not included in this group is a girl who cannot use her hands or her feet and who uses her elbows to pull her body along the ground.).

The doctors were to be available in the Foundation on a Monday. We got agreement from a hospital in Meskine (around eight kilometers from Maroua) to do the xrays on the preceding Saturday. Each child was to be accompanied by an adult and they were to be housed with relatives in Meskine from Friday to Monday. One of the Maga councillors took on the difficult task of looking after the four handicapped and their accompanying adults from Friday to Monday. He had them brought by moto from their villages (some very remote) to Maga where we took a bus to Maroua on Friday afternoon. Happily the bus did not break down on this occasion. The councillor organised a taxi to take the four handicapped and four accompanying adults to Meskine (it is not unusual to put ten people in a car in the Far North). I went to my house thinking all was well but at around 9:00 p.m. I got a call to say that the families did not have the capacity to house them. The hospital lent them a vacant house which had no furnishings and no floor coverings. The temperature currently falls to the low 20s at night, which local people find very chilly, and although I was in my comfortable bed I spent a somewhat sleepless night thinking about them sleeping on a bare concrete floor and worrying about whether they would all catch cold (a serious condition for people as poor and undernourished as these). The next day we bought mats and blankets and organised food since their relatives had not taken up this duty. The xrays went smoothly and morale was restored. However we then got a message to say that the doctors had not arrived because their flight was cancelled (this can be a euphemism for their flight being taken over by a government minister and his retinue) and that the examinations would have to be put back to Wednesday. All agreed that the best thing to do was to stay in Meskine until Wednesday.

The councillor brought them to Mouda on the Wednesday and the visiting doctors selected two (the boy, aged 12, and the youngest girl, aged five) for operation on the following Friday. This was much earlier than we expected but we got permission from their parents to go ahead with the operations and we got their commitment that an adult would stay with each of them in Mouda for a two to three-month recovery period and that they would provide food for them throughout this period. The councillor brought the other two handicapped home and then returned to Mouda. The operations went ahead and the doctors were very happy with the results. The councillor spent a few days with them since the parents only speak Mousgoum and nobody in Mouda speaks that language. They are well housed by the Foundation but are now struggling to find money for food. I visited them to-day (St. Stephen’s Day / Boxing Day) and brought them stocks of rice and smoked fish.

Initiatives such as these pose difficult questions in relation to how to deploy the limited funds which my friends in Ireland have donated. I estimate that the costs will come to around €500 per operation (the estimate given to me originally by the Foundation was much less than half this). I would guess that if we could break the deadlock on getting birth certificates (there has been progress on this front) we could probably get them for 50 children for this money. There are roughly 5,000 children who currently need birth certificates to complete their education and for other purposes and there are also many other competing demands for funds. One of the two handicapped who were examined but not yet scheduled will need three operations and there are seven other handicapped who have not yet been examined.