Introducing Richard

Richard an 8 year old boy was born a normal child but @ 2yrs old, he suffered severe ilieoileal intussuseption with hypertensive shock and cardiovascular collapse leading to multiorgan dysfunction. This led to severe anoxic brain injury and resulted in severe generalised spaticity and global developmental delay.

His condition was not detected by the general practitioner and he collapsed @ home 2 days later. (In layman's terms, his intestines were stuck due to a growth which if detected earlier could have been operated upon and today he'd be a normal boy).

On 15 dec 2003, he was brought to the Gleneagles hospital in a comatose state, was resusticated on 2 occasions.An emergency laparotomy was done to remove the gangrenous distal ileum and Meckel's diverticulum.

However, a week later on 23 dec 2003, a second episode of ilieal perforation required a repeat laparotomy.He suffered further complications of sepsis, lung collapse and was in coma for ~ 2 weeks.

When the second attempt @ extubation on 6 jan 2004 was carried out, he was transferred out of Gleneagles that same morning to the National University Hospital where he spent another 3 months in pediatric intensive care.
He had to leave Gleneagles because the medical costs had wiped out all medical cover and additional costs there were crippling.

By God's grace, he has gained in strength these past 6 years.