Being a pregnant mother isn’t easy, as you are literally making a little human being inside your body. It’s the miracle of life! When it comes the time to deliver your baby, it is all worth it just for that precious little one. For this Malaysian couple, they were happily expecting their baby to arrive, but when their baby boy was prematurely delivered, they faced another set of problems.
A recent GoFundMe page asking for £50,000 (approx. RM284,100) set up by the couple, Dr Irina Ishak, 35 and her husband, Hakam Razak, 36 explains the issue they are facing. Apparently, they decided to vacation in England to visit Irina’s sister in Oxford at the end of July.
Their obstetrician had also given them the all clear to travel for both the mother and baby at a 28-week gestation period. Unfortunately, Irina suffered from preterm premature rupture of membrane (PPROM) and she gave birth to Amin Mikael on August 3 in Oxford. He was prematurely born 10 weeks earlier than his due date, when he was just 30 weeks and 2 days old. Poor little baby!
While the baby is currently stable, the couple is at their wits’ end as they need a large amount of money to pay for their son’s hospitalisation fees.
Hakam explained, “Due to his premature condition, he is required to stay in the NICU until he is stable enough before being discharged. Although he is gaining weight overall, he is still having complications and the hospital has advised us that he is safe to travel back home only when he reaches his full term corrected age at 38-40 weeks.”
They have estimated that the medical charges could come up to more than £2,000 (approx. RM11,360) a day, which could sum up to a grand total of over £100,000 (approx. RM568,000) ever since little Amin was delivered. That’s a lot of money! That’s because they are international tourists, so they have been charged 150 per cent of the UK National Health Service’s (NHS) standard rate for treatment.
The page also said, “We also now realised that our insurance coverage is insufficient and that our entire savings won’t be enough. We still don’t know what the final costs are as the total amount will only be disclosed to us on the day he is discharged, and the charges will be depending on the treatment given to him.”
“We have requested if the hospital could consider reducing the charges but it is not possible and we acknowledged that. We only hope that our baby’s health is progressing to be better so that he can be discharged soon.”
Irina works as a surgeon in Kuala Lumpur and Hakam is an engineer. Amin is their second child as they have another 3-year-old daughter named Alya. They are also grateful that the doctors and nurses at the hospital have helped them so much and praised their “world class” treatment.
Ever since their GoFundMe page was launched a month ago, many well-wishers and kind hearts have heard their pleas and have been donating to them. Currently, they have already collected more than £33,000 (approx. RM187,400).
If you want to donate to the couple and for little baby Amin Mikael, you can click here. We hope that he will grow up to be a strong and healthy boy!
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