Parading kid patients at traffic intersections to raise funds for their treatment cannot be justified under any circumstance.
A spectacle of these children with tubes inserted into their abdomen as it appeared in the media yesterday made worrying reading. Apart from the horrible sight, we find the practice unacceptable in a modern society such as ours.
The dignity of the child must be ensured by all means. Such kids too have rights which should be protected by all and sundry.
Upon reading the unfortunate story midway, we were tempted to question the genuineness of the organizations which are now making an industry out of the practice of soliciting funds for children who require expensive surgical procedures.
Eventually though the head of Paediatric Surgery at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital, Kumasi, Dr. Michael Amoah said he is aware of the fund- soliciting group. He was quick to add, however, that the hospital did not ask that the patients be paraded in the streets the way we are observing in both Accra and Kumasi.
With loudspeakers and giving details of the ailments being suffered by the kids, we are constrained to condemn the unnecessary graphic description in the public space.
Parents, no matter how hard pressed they are in raising funds for complex and therefore expensive medical procedures, should not release their kids for such street alms-seeking.
Very soon if the practice is not checked, we shall witness a proliferation of not only children but adults with tubes inserted into their abdomens parading the streets in search of alms.
We can vouch that not all the cases are genuine; bad persons already lacing their boots to join if they have not done that already.
Be it as it may, we demand that decency and orderliness be introduced into how to raise funds for kid patients needing medical attention.
Those who parade kid patients the way they are doing should be stopped forthwith and better means of raising funds adopted.
The ‘philanthropists’ who are leading the mission of raising funds for the kid patients, we understand, operate in both Kumasi and Accra.
Even if the cases of children with tubes inserted into their abdomens being paraded in the streets are genuine, the possibility of infections cannot be dismissed given the exposure of the openings to choked gutters of Accra streets.
It is amazing that this practice has gone on for so long and nobody has raised a voice against it.
We call on the relevant authorities with the active participation of the National Health Insurance Scheme to fashion out something which can support kid patients requiring such expensive attention in our health facilities.
This does not look too good for us as a modern country. Now that we are faced with this challenge of kid patients being paraded in the streets, we ask that the doctors review their recommendations to parents to contact the alms-seeking NGOs in both Accra and Kumasi.
If the work requires parading the kids in the streets then they should not be engaged at all.
We are not against cash-strapped patients requiring money for surgery seeking financial assistance but we certainly are not in favour of the showcasing module.