Vodafone saves patient’s eye

Vodafone Ghana, through its Vodafone healthline programme has brought smiles and hope to Charlotte Moloko, an 18-year-old young lady who suffered a severe tumour on her right eye.

The programme, running its fifth season, provides the public with important health tips while assisting people with various health conditions like Charlotte with medical support.

Young Charlotte, who has lived with the medical condition known as neurofibromatosis since childhood, finally received a life-changing surgery at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital to reduce the excess tissue from her eye to the barest minimum.

Charlotte, who was full of praise for Vodafone Ghana for the transformation, said it all began with a boil which developed close to her eye.

“The doctors could not treat it and it kept growing till it covered my entire eye. Sometimes my eye would suffer continuous itching and I was unable to sleep at night,” she said.

Ebenezer Arthur, Charlotte’s teacher, described how Charlotte was always by herself because of the way people shunned her company.

“She desired to fit into society but her colleagues’ constant mockery made life unbearable for her. Additionally, the over-reliance on only one eye negatively affected her grades in school,” he added.

Explaining the symptoms of the medical condition, Dr Opoku-Ware Ampomah, Consultant Plastic Surgeon at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, said neurofibromatosis is a genetic disorder that disturbs cell growth in the nervous system, causing tumours to form anywhere on the nerve tissue.

“The condition is usually diagnosed in childhood or early adulthood,” Dr Ampomah said.

Healthline, since 2011, has paid for and arranged both life-saving and life-changing surgeries for hundreds of deprived patients across Ghana.