Health system slow to help girl with brain lump

Photo / Sarah Ivey

The life of a Wanganui girl hangs in the balance while the wheels of the health system grind slowly on.

Hope Galliers, 15, a Year 11 student at Wanganui Girls' College, cannot attend school in her NCEA year because she is having seizures and crippling headaches.

The seizures started on April 25. There have been more than 100, coming at any time of the day or night, and they now occur almost daily.

Hope's mother, Anna, says all she wants is to know what is wrong with her girl.

"I just want to know what is happening but we're still waiting ... and have been since April. I know there is a lump on her brain and that's all I know."

Hope has had seizures at school, at home and out jogging and has had to be taken to hospital three times by ambulance.

In July, an MRI scan revealed an abnormality on her brain. The lump is the size of a grape - about 1.5cm long and 1.2cm wide, her mother says.

In his report, Wanganui Hospital consultant Dr Chinweuba Ubani says it is not certain exactly what the lump is.

Meanwhile, Hope's condition has deteriorated as her seizures have become more frequent.

She cannot attend school and her mother has had to abandon her business because Hope cannot be left alone.

Wanganui Girls' College Year 11 dean Wilma Davis says she just cannot believe it is taking so long to reach a diagnosis and get something done.

Wanganui District Health Board communications officer Jannel Carter says the board has arranged for Wellington's neurological unit to see Hope on September 10.

For the next three weeks until the clinic appointment with the Wellington neurosurgeon, Hope and her mother are existing day by day, terrified of the next seizure and the next headache.

"It is no way to live. It is constant worry," Ms Galliers said. "I just want to know what's wrong with my girl.

"I am just so frustrated with it all."

- APN