Three-year-old Joseph Karanja was recently saved by the honorable acts of a watchman, three nurses and a clinical officer who forewent their duties to donate blood to save his life.
The little boy, who had been sickly for a while, resulted in his parents seeking treatment in various hospitals in vain. Joseph was diagnosed with cancer of the lymph nodes and began his treatment in AIC Kijabe hospital pediatric wing.
Speaking to KTN News, Joseph’s father disclosed, " They told us when they come out of the lab, they would inform us, at that time my wife had accompanied our son, she called me and informed me that our son had been diagnosed with cancer."
The treatment that required eight chemotherapy sessions saw Joseph successfully undergo four of them in early May 2019 but was nearly killed by the fifth.
Joseph’s parents, who were frightened by the turn of events, quickly returned little Joseph to the hospital where doctors admitted him in the High Dependency Unit (HDU), raced against time doing everything medically possible to save the young life.
“What we did was just walk around our wards and asked clinicians and nurses and the people who ended up actually volunteering were three nurses, one clinical officer and one of our security guards who literally were just on duty coming to the end of their shifts and when they heard that there's a child who needs blood, they volunteered,” explained one of Lawrence’s doctor.
At the same time, another three-year-old South Sudanese patient also benefitted from the hospital’s dedicated pediatric oncology unit.
Ajok Adeng, a father whose son suffers from Neuroblastoma, cancer that affects some of the nervous tissues, was admitted in the HDU after developing complications from chemotherapy and also found refuge in the same hospital.
Speaking to KTN News, the relieved father stated that he was referred to Kijabe due to the prevailing political tension in his country which made it difficult to get suitable medical help for his child.
Video courtesy of KTN News.
