Boy lives with bone sticking out for three years

[WARNING! GRAPHIC PICTURE BELOW] Ivan Opio got a freak accident in 2013 while playing with his sibling. The result was a compound fracture. (Credit: Tolbert Edait)

SERERE - A 12-year-old son of a reportedly negligent man in Serere district has had to painfully endure three years with a freak bone sticking out of his arm.

Ivan Opio, who was sent out of school by administrators because of his unattended to medical condition, says he regrets being born to irresponsible parents.

At school, fellow Primary One classmates would avoid him because of an awful stench from the affected area, and even worse, they would often tease him.

This was at a private school called New York Nursery and Primary School in Serere.

The first-born of five children, Opio seems resigned to living with his compound fracture.

It all happened in 2013 when he was swinging with his younger sister at home while their mother was away - and he fell very awkwardly. Strangely, when his mother got back home, the injured boy did not tell her what had happened.

The events at the time are not clear and the little boy does not offer a clear explanation of how he managed to conceal his badly injured arm. And neither does his mother.

"When I returned home, my boy did not tell me what had happened," says Joyce Mary Asana, adding vaguely that she would only find out later.

She says when the boy's condition worsened, that's when she realized that the boy had had an accident and so she took him to Soroti Hospital where doctors "put a ‘plaster of Paris' [cast] without carrying out an X-ray.

Her recounting of events after the hospital trip gets even vaguer.

But what is clear is that the boy says he experiences a lot of discomfort with a bone sticking out of his body - especially during bed time. He says the protruding bone shakes sometimes, sending a gush of pain through his arm.

It also gets painful when the bone digs into the mattress or when anything brushes it.

Asana with her five children at their home in Serere district. (Credit: Tolbert Edait)

‘A very difficult man'

His former teachers at school say Opio loved to study but that if unattended to, his injury might not allow him to ever get back to school. The school's headteacher Joseph Peter Ejoku admits he was forced to send him back home when his parents proved negligent.

"We could not accept to keep the boy at school under that condition after proving that his parents did not bother about treating him."

But Opio's mother is pointing the blame finger at the absent father, John Peter Otim.

"The problem is, my husband is a very difficult man. He is only interested in impregnating me and taking care of his children is none of his business yet he is a businessman with a vehicle that generates money on a daily basis," Asana tells New Vision.

She goes on to reveal that Otim has abandoned her with their five children for whom he does not buy anything. "Not even a Panadol whenever they fall sick," she says.

He can take as long as a month without returning home and whenever he does, he does not carry anything along. "Not even a bar of soap or sugar for us," laments a hapless Asana, who struggles to take care of her young family in the remote village of Olepi, Akujatoi Kyere sub-county.

With no support from her husband and with her barely living on the edge, Asana hopes that a well-wisher will come to her eldest son's rescue.

As he grows, Opio's observation over time is that the freak bone appears to be growing as well.

New Vision tried to get to Otim - the father - for comment, but all the avenues remained futile. Local police is now looking for him.

Florence Adong is the officer in charge of the child and family protection unit at Serere Central Police Station. She says the irresponsible father will be arrested and answer several counts including child neglect.

"The problem we are facing in Serere is the mentality of men leaving their married women and ending up supporting ‘side-dishes'," she says.

Both parents are to blame though, as it had to take a tip-off to Kyere Police Post by concerned residents for the boy's condition to come to light. It emerged that his mother had not sought further help for him.

Meanwhile, Dr John Ekure, the director of Kumi Orthopedic Centre, says the boy can be treated, especially considering he is still young.

"Only money might become a challenge but there is room to lobby from NGOs and well-wishers who could come and pay the medical bills if the parents become serious."