11-year-old with renal failure writes to PM, says he wants to live

Aligarh: Rakesh Singh of Sadabad town in Hathras district, who is 11 years old, has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying that he needs his help as “both his kidneys have failed.” A student of government school and son of a labourer who is no longer strong enough to work, Rakesh’s mother died in grief of her son’s disease.

He mentioned in the letter that his father has sold his 4 bigha agricultural land, all that the family had, to have him cured, but his condition has not improved. “Every fifth day, I have to go to Agra, which is 45 km from my village for my dialysis. And even there, doctors have told my parents that I haven’t got much time left,” the boy writes in his letter.

Expressing his wish to live, Rakesh writes, “I will be very thankful to you if you could help me get treated. I could live longer and see myself grow into a man.”
Talking to TOI, his brother Bhura Kumar, who studied till class 8th and left school to be with his brother, said, “We have borrowed Rs 5 lakh from people in the village to be able to bear the expenses of my brother’s treatment. My mother died of grief, my father is not so healthy anymore. We do not know what future awaits us.”

Dr Vibhanshu Gupta at Agra’s Moolchand Hospital said, “This is a case of renal failure and the boy’s ultrasound shows that his kidneys are shrunken. He needs a transplant. He also suffers from recurrent episodes of breathing problems.”

Rakesh’s brother said a lot of their time was wasted earlier as they were turned away from one hospital to another without even proper diagnosis of the disease.

“In Delhi’s Safdarjung Hospital, we were told about his renal failure. But we were turned away from there and from other known Delhi hospitals on the grounds that there were too many patients and not enough doctors. At one of the hospitals, the staff told us to go somewhere else. If PM intervenes, my brother’s life will be saved. I am very hopeful he will survive,” he said.
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