Child E.F.
Kasese Child & Family Protection Unit passed EF to NOTDEC in February 20XX when he was aged 3. His parents had seemingly died, leaving him to his bedridden grandfather who simply could not look after him properly.
At the time, that was the information given to NOTDEC. Subsequent investigations have revealed something much closer to the truth.
EF's mother was from a Catholic family, his father a Jehovah’s Witness.
When EF was born, his mother bled profusely and nearly died because her father-in-law forbad a blood transfusion on religious grounds. When her own family found out, they rushed her from the clinic where EF had been born to Kilembe hospital for a transfusion.
It played on the mother's mind that EF's father had had lots of children by several different women and had not settled with any of them. Eventually, she decided to leave, depositing EF with his bed ridden grandfather: she was no longer willing to live with — and have the babies of — a man whose family would not allow the very blood transfusion that had saved her own life.
After EF left, the Family and Child Protection Department visited the family and passed the child to NOTDEC. The wider family was burdened with looking after the grandfather and many more children that his son had fathered, and they could barely cope with them let alone another child.
Later, EF's paternal grandfather fell ill, sold his land in the village, and proceeded to visit various hospitals seeking advice about treatment. In due course, he was taken to Kagando hospital where his foot was amputated, but he died — largely because of blood loss and his refusal of a blood transfusion.