Cynthia Morrison
The Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection, Cynthia Morrison, yesterday visited the little boy whose left hand had been amputated at the Cape Coast Teaching Hospital.
The left hand of the five-year-old boy from Abura-Asebu-Kwamankese District of the Central Region was left to rot after his stepmother allegedly inflicted a machete wound on him.
The minister promised to put the five-year-old boy, Isaac Mensah, in her own school for his basic education and take care of him.
She suggested that an account be opened for the boy so that all financial donations would be put in that account to take care of the boy in senior high school.
The pregnant stepmother, Efua Baidoowa, 22, purportedly cut the hand of the little boy accidentally with a machete some weeks ago, but refused to treat it. Therefore, the left forearm of the boy decomposed quickly to the shoulder.
According to reports, two men spotted the boy at Ahomfi in the district last week and became alarmed by the rotten hand. They immediately reported the matter to the District Director of NCCE, Ellen Osei, who also reported same to the police before taking him to the hospital the same day for medical examination.
The doctors indicated that the veins and cells in the hand had all died, adding that the decomposition was gradually spreading to the shoulder. The doctors at the Cape Coast Teaching Hospital successfully amputated the hand to stop further damage to the little boy.
According to sources, the boy is currently in the company of social welfare workers and some staff of the hospital, who are taking care of him.
Meanwhile, the hospital has appealed to the public to assist little Isaac to get an artificial hand.
Parents Arrested
Police in the Central Region have arrested the stepmother; she has been put before court and remanded in police custody.
Speaking to journalists, the stepmother alleged that she did not intend to cause injury to the boy.
“The little boy defecated on our compound and so I decided to punish him. I was then holding a machete so I decided to use the side to hit him, but he raised his arm to block it. Unfortunately, the machete cut him; we took him to a clinic and he was given injection and medication,” she alleged.
She claimed that a man later told her to use warm water to clean the wound at home, adding that “when I tried to do it, he poured the water away. I decided to use the hot water again but it worsened the case.”
From Emmanuel Opoku, Takoradi