A professional teacher and mother of a child living with autism, Mary Kuffour, has revealed the tribulations she has gone through in the hands of some Ghanaian pastors while on a journey to find the ‘cure’ for her daughter’s medical condition.
In an interview with Kofi Adoma on his show ‘Kofi TV’, Mrs. Kuffour stated that at the time, she had very little knowledge about her daughter’s medical condition.
“When I gave birth to her, nothing showed there was something wrong. Even at the age of two, she was speaking. She used to say, ‘I will drink water’. But at the age of 3, I realized she had begun to isolate herself. She lost consciousness, and even if you speak to her, you will not get a response. She doesn’t sleep at night, and she used to make irritating sounds,” she said.
As a result, she saw the need to seek spiritual help from so many places as she still could not determine, at the time, that her daughter was autistic.
“I’ve been to a lot of prayer camps. I have roamed a lot,” she added.
Mrs. Kuffour recounted an encounter with such ‘men of God’ who told her to feed her autistic daughter, Nana Ohenewaa Kuffour with leftover food from the market to heal her of the condition.
“I was told to go to the market in the evening, around 6:00 PM to 6:30 PM to collect left over food from the market women when they are done selling their foodstuff. I was instructed to cook and feed them to my daughter. Spiritually, it showed that my daughter is not struggling with anyone over anything. So if someone had tied her spiritually, the person should let go,” she explained.
Nana Ohenewaa’s mother mentioned that it was very challenging for her, considering that she was a professional teacher who should know better but she was willing to do whatever she could to make her daughter ‘better’.
“I picked plantain and cassava, at the Achimota market. I was even shy when I was picking them, especially because I am a teacher,” she said.
Bathing her daughter outside at 12:00 AM and walking backwards to her home was another nightmare she faced in the hands of pastors in the quest to seek cure to her daughter’s condition.
“I remember I met a pastor at Trade Fair who told me to use a white handkerchief to bath my daughter at 12:00 AM. He told us to walk backwards to our room after I have bathed her and we both fell to the ground in the process. I did that for two days, but the third day was extremely difficult, and that was when I gave up,” she concluded.
