Help comes for Aaron through Children’s Life Fund

RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­[email protected]

Eleven-year-old Aaron Ed­wards, whose des­per­ate fight against a rare liv­er dis­ease cap­tured na­tion­al at­ten­tion last week, is now a step clos­er to re­ceiv­ing life­sav­ing treat­ment af­ter both Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Health Min­is­ter Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe in­ter­vened to se­cure as­sis­tance through the Chil­dren’s Life Fund.

Aaron’s moth­er, Neeru­pa Ed­wards, told Guardian Me­dia that health of­fi­cials con­tact­ed her last week to say arrange­ments were be­ing made for her son to un­der­go the crit­i­cal pro­ce­dure, which will be fi­nanced through the Chil­dren’s Life Fund.

She said she was in­formed that a spe­cial­ist from Ar­genti­na would be flown to Trinidad to per­form the surgery at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex, Mount Hope.

“The call gave us hope,” Ed­wards said. “We are grate­ful that peo­ple lis­tened and that help is fi­nal­ly com­ing.”

In a mes­sage to Guardian Me­dia, Bo­doe con­firmed that the Min­istry of Health (MOH) had be­gun the process of as­sist­ing the fam­i­ly.

Since Guardian Me­dia high­light­ed Aaron’s plight, rel­a­tives have raised an es­ti­mat­ed US$20,000 need­ed to fund the op­er­a­tion.

His moth­er said Aaron has been un­able to at­tend school for the past two years as his con­di­tion has steadi­ly wors­ened.

She re­vealed that in 2024, he was di­ag­nosed with Budd-Chiari Syn­drome, a rare dis­or­der in which the veins that drain blood from the liv­er be­come blocked.

Ac­cord­ing to med­ical re­ports, the ob­struc­tion has caused se­vere por­tal hy­per­ten­sion, en­large­ment of his liv­er and spleen, re­peat­ed flu­id ac­cu­mu­la­tion in his ab­domen and dan­ger­ous­ly en­larged veins in his oe­soph­a­gus and stom­ach that have bled sev­er­al times.

His most re­cent dis­charge sum­ma­ry from the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal record­ed that he was ad­mit­ted af­ter suf­fer­ing a ma­jor up­per gas­troin­testi­nal bleed, re­peat­ed­ly vom­it­ing blood and pass­ing black stools.

Ed­wards said spe­cial­ists at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex de­ter­mined that Aaron ur­gent­ly re­quires a Tran­sjugu­lar In­tra­hep­at­ic Por­tosys­temic Shunt (TIPS) pro­ce­dure to re­duce pres­sure on his liv­er, pre­vent fur­ther bleed­ing, con­trol the flu­id build-up and slow the pro­gres­sion of the dis­ease.

How­ev­er, the spe­cialised pae­di­atric pro­ce­dure is not avail­able lo­cal­ly. Be­cause Aaron is too weak to trav­el over­seas, an in­ter­na­tion­al med­ical team re­viewed his case and agreed that a spe­cial­ist from Ar­genti­na could per­form the surgery in Trinidad once fund­ing was se­cured.

Ed­wards said the or­deal has tak­en a heavy emo­tion­al and fi­nan­cial toll on the fam­i­ly.

Aaron’s fa­ther, Ryan Ed­wards, died sud­den­ly in 2021, leav­ing her to care for their chil­dren while man­ag­ing mount­ing med­ical ex­pens­es.

Aaron’s sis­ters, An­gel and Vic­to­ria, said it was dif­fi­cult to cope with the emo­tion­al strain of watch­ing their younger broth­er bat­tle the life-threat­en­ing ill­ness.

“To live through some­thing like this with your own broth­er... the emo­tions are over­whelm­ing. It’s de­press­ing. It’s stress­ful. All I want is for him to have a long, healthy, peace­ful life with­out doc­tors around him all the time,” An­gel said.

Al­though the fam­i­ly is now op­ti­mistic fol­low­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s in­ter­ven­tion, Ed­wards said they re­main grate­ful to every­one who do­nat­ed, shared Aaron’s sto­ry and of­fered sup­port dur­ing one of the most dif­fi­cult pe­ri­ods of their lives.

Any­one want­i­ng to do­nate to Aaron’s af­ter­care can make con­tri­bu­tions to Neeru­pa Ed­wards Re­pub­lic Bank Sav­ings Ac­count 500 040 338 131 at the Pe­nal Branch or call An­gel (868) 365-7405 or Ed­wards at (868) 490-5189. A Go­FundMe ac­count can be reached at https://www.go­fundme.com/f/help-with-ur­gent-life­sav­ing-med­ical-treat­ment-for-aaron.