A 62-year-old widow, Abena Asanewa, who lives at Obuasi Amankyem in the Ashanti Region, has her grandchildren abandoned in her care by their father after they lost their sight.
The poor widow told crimecheckghana that she is in debt after borrowing money from her neighbours to get them medical care at different hospitals, but all the efforts failed to produce the desired results.
Madam Asanewa, whose worry was figuring out what was behind her grandchildren’s blindness because her daughter’s husband accused her of inducing their predicament through witchcraft, decried the inability of doctors to diagnose the strange cause of the children’s illness.
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She said the children’s mother, her daughter, died at a ‘galamsey’ site where she had gone to seek greener pastures due to difficulties at home. This, she said, has made life tough for her as taking care of the blind twins has been a tussle.
“Kakra got blind first and when I took him to the hospital, I wept and out of sympathy, the doctors asked me not to pay for the bills. My daughter, who had been sending me money to cater for the children, was brought home lifeless. The days were dark for me,” she said.
Madam Asanewa said she wishes to share her eyes among her grandchildren so that they would rather work to take care of her because she is weak and struggles to make ends meet.
“I used to sell firewood to cater for the children but I am weak now and can no longer go to the bush to fetch firewood. I wish they rather had their sight so that I go blind,” she said.
Recounting how he lost his sight, Kakra said he felt that an object fell on his left eye while he was on his way home from school during vacation. Eventually, he said it affected the right eye and he couldn’t see with both eyes after that. He said the situation thwarted his education because he dropped out of school.
Kakra’s brother, Panin, who said he was learning to weld to support his grandmother, also got blind in the process.
“One day while I was working, I removed the glasses I wore to protect my eye. A light flashed my eye and my sight began to blur. When I was taken to the hospital, doctors told me that my eye had long been damaged. It affected the other eye later on. I can’t even see the colour of your dress,” he said.
The blind twins shared their father’s disregard for them after they got blind. “Our father told us that instead of using his resources to take care of us, he would rather use them to repair his equipment he works with because that gives him money. He was able to wed his new wife though he told us he didn’t have money to give us,” they said.
CCF’s intervention
Crime Check Foundation (CCF), through one of its United States-based couples, Sammy and Dorothy, gave madam Asanewa GH¢1,000.00 for the upkeep of the blind children.
The poor widow, who almost shed tears when she received the money, was grateful to CCF for coming to her aid. “God bless the donors through whom you have come to support me. May God restore in double-fold for what they have lost for my sake,” she prayed.
Through the series, the Foundation seeks funds for struggling ailing individuals to get medical care.