A one arm amputee and mother of four, Juliet Nayuki a resident of Bendegere-Nkumba, Katabi Town Council in Wakiso district, is stranded with her four children after her husband abandoned them. Two of her children are living with acute sickle cell anemia.
Nayuki intimated to our reporter the situation she finds herself in, as she relies on well-wishers and local non-profit Machnik Sickle Cell Foundation (MSCF) to provide for family after losing her employment at a stone quarry.
She told Gateway News that after her husband learnt that two of their children had sickle cell anemia, he fled and he has been absent since. “In 2018 my husband, the father to my children after revealing that our children were affected by sickle cell, then he left us and we don’t know where he is,” she said.
Nayuki furthermore revealed it is very costly to provide daily medical treatment for her sick children because the medicines are too expensive. “Things have been quite hard for us since I lost my job, we have gone to bed hungry and as well lacked the basic requirements.” she said
According to Caroline Namagambo Machnik who is the director of MSCF, a lot needs to be done on top of the support they provide to Nayuki’s family and other families with sickle cell children. “On top of medication and some food stuff that we routinely provide to such families, we remain constrained here and there, we can not this alone.”
She therefore urged the general public to join them and support in terms of food, clothes, start up capital and medication facilities to such people.
About sickle cell
Sickle cell disease (SCD) is a group of inherited red blood cell disorders resulted from a problem with hemoglobin. Hemoglobin is a protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen throughout the body. With SCD, the hemoglobin forms into stiff rods within the red blood cells which changes the shape of the red blood cells from disc-shape to a crescent or sickle shape.
The cause of SCD is a defective gene, called a sickle cell gene. People with the disease are born with two sickle cell genes, one from each parent.
If a baby is born with one sickle cell gene, it’s called sickle cell trait. People with sickle cell trait are generally healthy, but they can pass the defective gene on to their children.
In Uganda, It’s estimated that over 20,000 babies per year are thought to be born with sickle cell disease making it the leading cause of child death as well as contributing 6% of the child death for the greater Africa.
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