Nigerian actor, Chukwuma Kabarachi, who has been on sickbed for 20 years, is in urgent need of financial assistance.
The actor sufferred a spinal cord injury in an accident on August 28, 2001, in Lagos.
Kabarachi, in a chat with Punch, said his doctor referred him to a medical facility that can provide him medical services. He was billed between N3.5m and N3.8m at the hospital in Lagos but he couldn’t afford it.
He said “His estimate was between N3.5m and N3.8m. This was made a long time ago and may have changed as a result of many factors, including other health complications.
“I am now seeking financial assistance to enable me to undergo a thorough medical treatment in a specialised tertiary medical institution, so that if I cannot stand again, I can, at least, sit comfortably in a wheelchair.”
Narrating his ordeal on the sickbed, the actor said “I had an accident in Lagos which resulted in spinal cord injury. I was rushed to a private hospital for medical attention. Unfortunately, the hospital had neither the required medical personnel nor the equipment to take care of my medical needs.
“After five months, I was moved away from the hospital as my health condition got worse with nine bedsores two of which required plastic surgery. It’s almost 20 years since I had the accident and I am still on a sickbed with bedsores around my waist and a fracture a little above my left ankle.
“It is still on these bedsores I lie down after they are dressed every day. The pain I go through is indescribable, and the mental torture is better imagined than experienced. I now depend on pain relieving drugs every day to reduce the pain.
“For many years I have been confined to a room in my father’s compound and this is where I was when I lost him and my step-mother who were supposed to enjoy their old age under my watch and care, having earlier lost my dear mother and my sister.
“Now I have found myself at a lonely and secluded part of life where loneliness, feeling of abandonment and betrayal have become my day-to-day companion. ”
Reflecting on how his current plight had short-lived his marriage, he said on several occasions he had wished for death.
He continued “There were times I wished I had died. When I look at the face of my younger brother who has borne the brunt of taking care of me all these years, and I remember the young lady that left her people in Ondo State for a marriage of two years and eight months and our son of about two years and six months, I weep like a baby for becoming an unexpected burden to them.”