UAE Helping Hands: Mother in urgent appeal to save cancer-stricken son

The Yemeni mother has already spend all the family's savings bringing the boy to the UAE for treatment, only to find that he needs a bone marrow transplant operation overseas.

A mother’s relief to see her cancer-stricken son cured has proved to be short lived.

Doctors told the Yemeni mother that her son’s life is at risk unless he is sent abroad immediately for treatment.

Last year, the mother of seven left her husband and five of her children in Yemen. She spent all her savings and took a risky journey to the UAE to get her youngest son treated.

The nine-year-old’s stomach was bloated and he had lost more than half his weight. Doctors in Yemen said there was nothing wrong with him.

“I knew in my heart that something was wrong,” his mother says.

Arriving in the UAE in August, a private clinic found that the boy had a mass growing in his stomach and diagnosed lymphoma cancer.

“I can’t describe how it feels to be told that your baby has cancer. There are no words,” she says.

Her consolation was that her son was referred to a Dubai government hospital and was being treated.

However, two weeks ago, doctors called her for an urgent meeting. Her son was not getting better. Months of aggressive chemotherapy were no help. The cancer had spread and leukaemia was diagnosed. His only chance of survival is a bone marrow transplant, which is not available in the UAE.

As he lies in a Dubai government hospital, doctors have told his mother that unless arrangements are made for him to travel abroad for treatment within the coming weeks, they will send him home to die.

She is inconsolable. “I don’t know what to do,” she says. The family cannot afford to send him abroad.

“I was going to take him home, and we had so many plans; now they tell me that my baby is dying because we can’t afford to save him.

“I thought I was suffering watching him go through chemotherapy – the vomiting, hair loss, the pain - now I realise it was nothing compared to what I’m going through now. I can’t believe that there is a chance that he will leave us. His father and brother and sisters will never get to see him. They won’t have the chance to say goodbye,” she says.

For the time being, doctors are keeping the boy under their care in the hope that someone will help send him abroad for a bone marrow transplant that will save his life.

Hisham Al Zahrani, manager of zakat and social services at Dar Al Ber Society, said: “Time is very critical and the boy has to be sent abroad for treatment as soon as possible.

“We have spoken to his doctor and they have informed us that the cancer is in its later stages, so it is crucial that he gets immediate attention.”