 |
| Photo courtesy of SBS website |
A disabled 17-year-old from a rural town of Hubei province in central China was found dead in his bed on Wednesday while his father and a younger brother were taken away to be quarantined at a facility as reported in Beijing Youth Daily report.
It had confirmed the teen’s death on January 29 with local government officials from Hong’an County, which is situated 60 miles north of Wuhan the center of the coronavirus outbreak.
The 17-year-old, named Yan Cheng, had cerebral palsy, a severe motor disability that requires around-the-clock attention. He died on Wednesday, as local government officials were quoted saying.
According to the report, he was left at home for six days without care while his relatives after they were quarantined on suspicion of having the Wuhan coronavirus.
Yan Cheng’s 49-year-old father and his 11-year-old autistic brother traveled from Wuhan on January 17 to celebrate Lunar New Year in their ancestral village in Huahe township, Hongan county from the central Chinese city where the coronavirus was first reported.
Yan Xiaowen, Cheng’s father, developed a fever three days later. He and Cheng’s younger brother were quarantined by authorities at a treatment facility on Friday, leaving Cheng at home without regular care, food or company. There was no official statement on the cause or circumstances of the teenager’s death.
While Cheng’s mother committed suicide about a year after the birth of the younger brother, the 17-year old boy only relies on the care from his father and younger brother.
Xiaowen got so worried about being unable to get out of quarantine to return to his son, he used the social media platform Weibo, China’s Twitter-like network, on Tuesday to plea to the public to help his son as he feared village officials were neglecting him.
“My eldest son has cerebral palsy, and can’t move his body. He can’t talk, he can’t look after himself,” Yan Xiaowen appealed.
“He has already been at home by himself for six days, with nobody to bathe him or change his clothes and without someone feeding him, and without a protective suit from the local authorities and hospital, I worry that my child can’t make it any longer. ” Yan wrote in a post that included several photos of him and his son, as well as his own medical treatment information and his Chinese identity card.
The post also included a screenshot of his phone record, showing 10 calls between the father and the village party secretary on Tuesday alone.
“The government and hospitals don’t have any protective clothing to spare. I fear that my child will soon die. Please everybody, help send some protective suits to Yanjia village in Huahe township, Hongan county, Hubei province!”
Local officials allegedly only fed Yan Cheng twice in the six days he was on his own but were apparently planning to move the boy closer to his father to receive proper help the same afternoon he died.
A group called Rice and Millet, founded by a former state-media journalist and focused on children with cerebral palsy and other illnesses, posted photos of the boy in a wheelchair and in bed on Wechat.
The group posted a statement on Wednesday saying that Yan’s aunt visited him after his other relatives were taken away but was not able to visit during his final three days because of her own ill health.
0 Comments