Girl disowned over medical treatment

It was a case of damned if you do it and damned if you don’t.

If 14-year-old Emily Masigale had left her festering wound untreated, she would be in big trouble today, but her decision to seek medical attention has landed her in even bigger problems.

Emily, who lives in Matchereza Village, Traditional Authority (T/A) Phambala in Malawi’s central district of Ntcheu, is staying with well-wishers after her parents disowned and abandoned her for defying their order not to go to hospital for treatment.

It is now over a month since the family of Alick Makisandwe took custody of the Standard Eight girl after incurring the wrath of her parents following the decision to take her to Phalula Health Centre in Balaka where her ankle wound was treated.

The situation was so bad for Emily that her classmates at Matchereza Primary School would abandon classes because of her wound. This forced some teachers at the school and Makisandwe to intervene.

But it did not occur to the good Samaritans that more trouble awaited Emily because of their intervention.

In an interview at the village last week, Makisandwe said for three months Emily’s parents, who are members of the Church of Jesus, refused to take her to hospital because their faith forbids members from seeking medical attention.

He said the parents insisted that through prayers Emily would be cured of the problem.

“I went to their house to reason with them to take her to hospital, but they said their faith does not allow them to take drugs. They threatened that whoever took Emily to hospital would have to keep her.

“I didn’t want to argue too much with them because it was clear that they had made up their minds on the matter,” said Makisandwe, who is an induna for village head Matchereza.

He said in late April, a primary school education adviser (PEA) visited the school and called out names of pupils in the class.

He said when Emily could not respond to the roll call, the PEA asked the head teacher to investigate what had happened to her.

According to Makisandwe, when teachers inquired, they discovered that it was the wound that had kept the girl away from school because of the stigma it had created for her among her schoolmates.

It was at this point that Makisandwe and the head teacher, only identified as Kamangafisi, decided to take Emily to the health centre for treatment.

“The first thing teachers did was to write the village head and the parents to ask them to take the girl to hospital. But this did not happen, so on April 29 2013, we took her to Phalula Health Centre.

“To our shock, when we returned home, we found that Emily’s parents had left her clothes and other personal effects at my house. When I asked them why they did this, they said ‘this is what we said,’ referring to their warning that whoever took Emily to hospital should be prepared to keep and take care of her,” said Masikandwe, whose house is a few metres from the Masigales.’

But Emily’s father, Andrew Sadya, who goes by the name Masigale in the area, said while the family had initially decided to disown the girl, they have since changed their minds.

He said the girl, his first born daughter, is still living with Makisandwe out of her choice.

“Our church is against taking medicine, so we gave her the option of going to hospital or seeking healing through prayers. She decided to seek medical attention.

“Since then, she has been living with the Makisandwe family, but it doesn’t mean we disowned and abandoned her,” said Masigale, who has three other children.

Speaking to Nation on Sunday last week, Emily said on several occasions she asked her parents to take her to hospital, but they refused, insisting that through prayers she would be cured.

“They said we should continue praying but my condition did not improve. Since I went to the hospital, there has been a change in the condition. I stopped going to school because of the pain I was feeling and the insults I was getting from some people,” she said.

Kamangafisi refused to discuss the matter, saying he needed authorisation from his bosses to grant the interview.

The issue of shunning medical drugs on account of faith is not a strange phenomenon in the country.

In 2010, the Mchinji Magistrate’s Court sentenced a member of the Zion Church to three years with hard labour for denying his six children access to medical treatment after they suffered from measles.