~Mom has high hopes he will see again~
PHILIPSBURG--After months of lobbying, disabled mother of four Anuska
Brooks has accumulated sufficient funds and will be taking her visually
disabled toddler Jamari Smith to see an eye specialist in Cuba next week
with high hopes that he will see again.
Brown, who had sought the public's assistance to accumulate the funds to
help cover the doctor bills and costs of the trip, is very thankful to
all the persons who assisted in recent months.
In total, the public donated over US $7,000. Brooks singled out human
rights activist Terry Peterson, who she said helped bring the matter to
the public's attention and St. Martin radio personality Jacques "Billy
D" Hamlet of talking Point on SOS Radio 95.5 FM who she said helped
raise close to US $6,000 in a recent radiothon.
The family, along with an interpreter, will be leaving next Tuesday and
returning on November 15. The entire trip, including doctor bills,
amounts to over US $10,000 with the doctor bill alone amounting to US
$8,925.
Baby Jamari is blind in both eyes and although at least two medical
practitioners including one ophthalmologist said his sight will
eventually return, Brooks had desperately wanted to take him to Cuba to
see a specialist.
The one-year-old Anguilla-born toddler and his St. Maarten-born mother
were involved in a severe head-on collision in Anguilla on June 6, 2008.
Brooks broke both of her legs in the accident. Her doctor had said that
one leg had been broken in 100 different places while the other one was
broken in one place. Her eight-year-old son suffered minor injuries and
Jamari, just four-months-old at the time, had been flung from his car
seat and suffered head injuries. Brooks' boyfriend who had been driving
the vehicle at the time, cracked his hip and practically escaped
unscathed from the incident, which authorities had said was the other
driver's fault.
Brooks, who spent several months hospitalised, is fighting to walk
again. She was left disabled and still uses crutches to walk, but her
baby is still unable to see properly. She says he only sees light and
dark, but is unable to recognise anything else.
Shortly after the accident, Brooks and Jamari had been airlifted to the
St. Maarten Medical Center (SMMC) and were later taken to the St.
Elizabeth Hospital in Curaçao for further treatment. At one point he was
also taken to Trinidad and Brooks said she had been told that his sight
was likely to return.
She had to take legal action against an Anguilla-based motor insurance
company, which covered the vehicle that caused the accident, to cover
her and her son's hospital tab as well as the bills for her therapy.
Jamari hadn't medical insurance at the time of the accident, but Brooks
was covered under Social Insurance Bank (SVB).
After eight months of litigation she was paid EC $100,000 (approximately
US $37,000), which went towards hospital, therapy and other expenses.
She recently received another settlement for both herself and her son
and is still in litigation with the vehicle driver.
Brooks was told that she needs some seven more surgeries before she can
fully walk again without the aid of crutches.
Brooks said she had received different prognoses about whether Jamari
would be able to see again. While one eye specialist and a medical
practitioner have told her that her son's sight would eventually return;
others say that he is not likely to see again.
In Cuba she is hoping that Jamari would get further tests including a
Magnetic Resonance Image (MRI) scan to try to save his sight.
She had told this newspaper in an earlier interview that Jamari is still
very young and "I want to try to do something about his eye from now. I
don't want to wait and then be told that it's too late." she says.
"Right now he only recognises light and dark, but not anything else and
we are not sure if he would be able to see again. I have been told that
the doctors in Cuba are very good – and I just want to take him to
determine whether he can see again before it gets too late."
St. Maarten-St. Martin - Baby Jamari off to Cuba (10 October 2009)
http://www.thedailyherald.com/news/daily/m124/babym124.html
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