Cancer patient couldn't take it anymore
Perhaps the pain was too excruciating for her to endure. The cost of treatment perchance became too heavy for her to bear.
And in a desperate bid to rid herself of agony and her family of further financial stress, Sakina Begum, who had been battling with skin cancer for over a year, decided to take her own life.
The body of the 35-year-old housewife was found hanging from a window bar by a scarf in a toilet of the Burn Unit of Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) early yesterday.
She was taken to the DMCH from the National Institute of Cancer Research and Hospital (NICRH) for a surgery, which was due on Sunday, as a large hole developed in her lower abdomen due to cancer.
Sakina, mother of eight, was the wife of Abdul Wahid, who currently runs a tiny grocery shop at his Ashatala village in Bahubal upazila of Habiganj.
Family members said Sakina was extremely depressed ever since she was diagnosed with cancer. She underwent 20 chemotherapy sessions at the NICRH.
While talking to this correspondent at the DMCH yesterday, Sakina's mother Nur Chan Begum said her daughter went to bed after having dinner with her.
"I was lying on the floor beside her bed. Like every other night, I got up to check on my daughter around 4:00am but I did not find her on the bed," said the sexagenarian mother.
"I then went to the washroom to look for her and found the door closed from inside. After waiting a while, I started banging on the bathroom door. When I found no response from inside, I called others," she went on.
On breaking open the door, Sakina was found hanging from the metal bars of the ventilation window of the bathroom, Nur Chan said in a choking voice.
Mariam Begum, a patient of the bed next to Sakina's, said Sakina often would cry in pain.
"She [Sakina] could not sleep on her back. She used to lie on her side. She even had to hunch her way to toilet," she said.
Sakina's teenager son Koyes Mia said they were struggling hard to collect money for her mother's treatment.
"We had already mortgaged the five bighas of land we had for her treatment. My mother used to worry over the family and the expenses," he told The Daily Star.
Partha Shankar Paul, resident surgeon of the DMCH's Burn Unit, said Sakina was going through both physical and psychological trauma and believed that she wouldn't be cured.
"She was unwilling even to undergo the surgery," he added.
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