Sometime in July 2016, this video of a young Nigeria woman, Mayowa Ahmed, a sickle cell carrier, who is currently battling stage 4 ovarian cancer went viral. She was appealing to Nigerians to help save her life by donating towards the $100,000 needed for her treatment in Emory hospital, Atlanta.
Amazingly, less than a week after the video came up, Nigerians donated generously to the GoFundMe account opened in her name and the $100,000 goal was completed.Mayowa’s campaign was so touching, controversial Nollywood actress, Toyin Aimakhu paid her a visit and even tried to cheer her up.
Also, Aramide Kasumu from Lifestake Foundation, an NGO in Lagos, visited her and ensured her admission into LUTH.Just when it looked like Mayowa was going to get a chance at saving her life, an unverified news source claimed the #SaveMayowa campaign was a scam.
According to this report, the doctors at LUTH said Mayowa’s life was beyond saving and the family simply took advantage of her sickness to cheat Nigerians.This outrageous report made several Nigerians reach out to the family for explanation. And emails the family shared with representatives of some hospitals overseas were released.
They also shared Mayowa’s current medical status with Nigerians in a bid to clear their family’s name.Her medical story shows how she became ill in 2015 and was misdiagnosed in LASUTH for almost one year. When her condition worsened, they contacted Emory Hospital in April 2016 and were asked to deposit the sum of $100,000.
According to the medical report, “Ahmed, Mayowa Shukura has been a known healthy HBSS patient from her early years and because we detected it early…. but after graduation she seemed to have more frequent cases of hospital visits with Ulcer being the diagnosis most times, we began to manage Ulcer in LASUTH. By July 2015, the ulcer as it was diagnosed, became worse as it had progressed from pangs to vomiting and stooling blood so frequently. At this point, our confident in LASUTH was not firm anymore because it just wasnt working and we were not getting enough care so we tried another place- Isolo General Hospital as we knew a Management Doctor there. It was fine for a few days but then we went back to status quo.”