An Octogenarian, Madam Susan Adegoke, has appealed to the Oyo State government to extend medical attention to her mentally-challenged children.

A statement issued on Sunday in Ibadan by the state Ministry of Information quoted Adegoke as saying that three out of her seven children were mentally sick until one of them, Oluwole, got help from the state government.

The aged woman made the appeal on Friday when Mrs Faosat Sanni, the state Commissioner for Women Affairs and Social Inclusion, on behalf of the state government, reunited Oluwole with his family.

Narrating her story with tears, the 80-year-old said that she gave birth to seven children and that three of them, who are males, had mental challenges.

She said that life had not been fair to her, as she laboured and used all her investments and resources to take care of the sick children in order to bring them out of their predicaments, but to no avail.

“My first, second and sixth children are mentally unstable. I had sought for help, both spiritually and medically, with lots of financial implications, but all efforts have still proved abortive.

“Oluwole, who is 50 years of age, was a panel beater’s apprentice before he had mental challenges.

“I have been neglected by their father’s family. Since the incident happened to my children, it has been between myself and God. Even at my old age, I still manage to do menial jobs to take care of them,” she said.

The octogenarian thanked Gov. Seyi Makinde for his efforts and used the opportunity to seek the extension of the gesture to her other two children still in that condition.

The commissioner said that Oluwole Adegoke, who had suffered from mental illness for 20 years, was among the mentally-ill persons evacuated by the state government recently.

“Adegoke, who hails from Fiditi in Oyo state, lives at Alapa compound, Idikan in Ibadan; he had battled mental illness for 20 years before help came his way during our last raiding exercise.

“Based on the little information Oluwole gave us about himself, the ministry, together with the partnering NGO, traced his mother, Madam Susan Adegoke, who is over 80 years of age.

“On getting to where Oluwole claimed he lived at Idikan, we met a collapsed building where his two mentally-unstable elder brothers, Olusola and Abiodun, born of the same parents live. In fact, it was a pitiable sight,” she lamented.

Sanni, who described the case of Oluwole being reunited with his aged mother as pathetic, advised parents to take good care of their children and wards at early childhood.

She observed that many of those suffering mental illnesses were either products of broken homes or parental carelessness.