KUCHING, March 13: A three-year-old boy, Muhammad Adam Thaqif Mohamad Arshad, who has undergone seven surgeries for congenital intestinal defects, needs RM46,020 to cover the costs of medical tubes and nutritional milk power to survive.
Congenital intestinal defects occur in babies born with defects along their digestive tract that prevent the digestive system from functioning.
Malaysian Da Ai Charity Association person-in-charge Danny Tan said doctors had created a colostomy in Adam’s abdomen to excrete faeces and inserted a catheter (tube) to feed him a specific nutritional milk powder.
However, due to his parents’ poor financial situation, they cannot afford the expensive follow-up treatment costs.
Tan said Adam’s condition was not detected until he was born full-term, where doctors discovered that he did not pass meconium (early stool passed by a newborn soon after birth) within 48 hours as normal newborns do and that he had severe bloating and vomited an unidentified dark liquid several times.
The boy was then diagnosed with Hirschsprung’s disease (congenital megacolon) and bowel malabsorption PN-dependent (short bowel syndrome), which is caused by abnormal absorption of nutrients due to a short small intestine and requires parenteral nutrition.
During Adam’s last surgery, doctors had to remove his large intestine and colon due to serious intestinal obstruction caused by Adam’s intestinal dysfunction. They also created a colostomy outside his abdomen and hung a faecal collection bag to collect waste.
However, Adam’s small intestine was underdeveloped and very short and could not absorb nutrients from food, so he needed to be fed specific nutritional milk powder through a tube outside his body.
Adam’s father, Arshad, is a technician with a meagre income, and his mother, Nor Aisyah, had to resign from her job to take care of him.
Because the nutritional milk powder and medical tubes that Adam needs are expensive, Arshad, with his limited income, cannot afford them and seeks help from the association.
To help the family, Tan said a crowdfunding campaign was launched to collect donations for Adam.
“We appeal to kind-hearted people across the country to help Adam through this difficult time and hope he will grow up safely and quickly,” he added.
For further information, clarifications, and the process of donation to the Da-Ai social crowdfunding platform, members of the public are to call or send WhatsApp messages to Danny Tan at 016-2166706 or contact him at dannytan6706@gmail.com. — DayakDaily
