Disfigured ear causing boy distress

When he was eight years old, Wayne 'Cori' Griffiths got a cut on his ear, which lead to him developing a keloid scar that has not stopped growing despite multiple treatment attempts.

"I brought him by the Annotto Bay Hospital in 2015, and it was removed and we did the injection treatment, and they said it would be good enough so that it doesn't come back. But after it was removed, it start growing back," his mother, Sophia Dixon, told THE STAR.

Now 13, the massive growth has become a source of embarrassment for Wayne, who is in grade six at the Robin's Bay Primary School.

The last resort is an expensive laser treatment, which his single mother said she is trying her best to finance, but is having difficulties.

"Sometime me feel a way fi him because the pickney them trouble him real bad. Them call him 'Earsie', 'Ugly Bwoy' and all sort of something, and them fight him and jeer him, and mock him. Nuff time him cry bout it," Dixon told THE STAR.

She said the growth has caused her son to become reserved and fearful of going out in public.

"Last year, he was supposed to do the Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT), and because of the way he was fretting on the ear, him don't do anything, and him say him no want to go high school with it," she said.

Wayne sat his GSAT exam this year, and is now awaiting the results, but his mother hopes he will not have to face high school with the massive growth.

Laser surgery

Dixon said she has been doing her best selling provisions at the Coronation Market, and saving through a partner plan, but it is still not enough to pay for the treatment.

"When I went to the doctor who does the laser surgery the first time, they told me that it cost $120,000, but because of how it is growing so fast, the lady said I must expect to pay about three times the amount of money that it was originally set for. So it's some $400,000 me a look pon in all," Dixon said.

Dixon hopes to get the process under way by next Tuesday, when the growth should be cut at the Kingston Public Hospital for free, then the four-part laser treatment can commence.

"I would be so grateful if they could really assist me because it's the really hard, and nothing not really going on in the market because of the violence. I would be so grateful and 100 per cent appreciative of the gesture," she said.

Anyone wishing to assist may contact Sophia Dixon at 796-4395, or make donations to Scotiabank, Port Maria Branch, account number 4177414, swift code, NSOCJMKN 50245.