The two brothers who were severely burnt during an incident at their Corentyne, Berbice home last week departed for the United States yesterday afternoon where they will receive emergency medical treatment.
Non-governmental organisation Saving Hands Emergency Aid (SHEA) in a Facebook post yesterday announced that one-year-old Besham Sohan and his brother Gansham Sohan, 4, departed the country at 4 pm yesterday via air ambulance.
“They will be transported to the United States where they will receive emergency, lifesaving surgery,” the post noted.
The incident occurred around 7 pm last Friday at the boys’ #48 Village, Corentyne, Berbice home.
Prior to their departure, they were both warded at the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH) Burn Care Unit where their conditions were listed as critical.
SHEA in a previous post had said that treatment for the brothers was not available in Guyana and as such a decision was made to have them taken overseas.
A US hospital has since agreed to treat the brothers for free.
Reports are that the children’s mother, who singlehandedly maintains her six children, was in a hammock breastfeeding the youngest child. She lit a small fire for the smoke to get rid of mosquitoes when another of the children reportedly threw dry grass on the fire causing it to spread rapidly. As a result, both Gansham’s and Besham’s clothing caught afire.
The cost to medevac them is $45,000 USD equivalent to $9.4M.
SHEA’s local representative Sita Sugrim had told this newspaper that the cost does not include other expenses while adding that the brothers will also need to do follow-up treatment.
“Plus all the logistical others, for example their housing, boarding, etc all of that need to be covered. And from our experiences, these cases will have to go back for treatment like three or four times, so we really need to raise funds for them,” Sugrim had explained.
Donations can be made to: https://savinghandsemergencyaid.org/Gansham-and-Beham-Sohan or via the organisation’s Facebook page.
