One by one, Mohd Sayed Ahmed and Ishrat Parveen have lost five of their 11 children to a congenital heart disease, and accepted it as their fate. Now that a sixth child has the same disease, they have turned to the prime minister and Jharkhand’s chief minister for help. Umme Aiman, 8, might possibly be saved by a heart transplant at a higher medical centre, doctors at RIMS-Ranchi have told her unemployed parents. “So far, I have taken the deaths of all our children as the will of Allah. But I want to try and see if fate has something else in store,” said Ishrat, who is in her early forties. [related-post] “When Aiman fell ill, I had lost all hope and was not keen even to get her admitted. But my wife insisted,” Ahmed, around 50, said after posting letters to the PM and CM. Married for 25 years, they lost the five children between the ages of five and eight. The disease was usually detected around age five, they said. The other five children are healthy, the youngest 3, the eldest 24 and supporting the family with his private job. Ahmed used to work in Odisha but has been out of work for six months; he says he has since got a BPL card. “Doctors have told me the only possible solution is a heart transplant, which can be done at AIIMS or CMC-Vellore and will cost an estimated Rs 10 lakh,” Ahmed said. “The father of the child in the next bed suggested I write to the PM, who I often hear is doing a lot for the girl child. Maybe God wants this girl to survive.” The disease is called dilated cardiomyopathy, in which the heart cannot pump blood into the body. “Doctors have told me it is due to a gene pool defect. My wife is a close relative of mine,” Ahmed said. RIMS deputy superintendent Dr Kumari Vasundhara said, “As per my information, the couple has had a problem of losing children due to a congenital heart disease. The case will have to be referred.” The prognosis document says the patient should be referred to a higher centre to look into the possibility of a cardiac transplant.
