All a Gazan mother could wish for nowadays is to have regular daily portions of the formula milk “Galactomin-19” for her six-month-old baby Khader al-Shaqra or else he would suffer excess blood acidity spleen and liver enlargement fever and life-threatening diarrhea.
Shaqra’s health suffering began immediately after his birth when doctors found out that he had a persistent decrease in his weight and severe dehydration which confined him to neonatal care units in some hospitals before he was diagnosed with an inherited disorder called glucose-galactose malabsorption (GGM) in Makassed Hospital in Occupied Jerusalem.
Since last December his mother Samya al-Shaqra has been living in the children’s ward of Mubarak Hospital in Khan Younis after she failed to secure the formula milk for her baby.
Although his case is a rare health problem among children in Gaza and can be cured his suffering lies in his parents’ inability to get the only formula he can survive on not to mention that the health ministry in Ramallah refuses to supply Gaza hospitals with Galactomin-19 which can be found plentifully in its warehouses.
The health ministry also persists in ignoring the appeals made by the child’s family through the media and turning a deaf ear to all calls for sending shipments of this milk which it is expensive (roughly $100 a can) and unavailable in Gaza. Khader al-Shaqra needs two to three cans a week of this milk substitute in order to thrive.
Ahmed al-Farra head of the department of pediatrics at Mubarak Hospital described the infant’s serious case as preventable if he was provided with the formula milk.
“If he had that special milk substitute he would live a normal life otherwise he would suffer from blood acidity enlarged liver and spleen fever and diarrhea until he dies’ Farra said.
