Ibaloi women with kidney ailments appeal for help

By Ramon Dacawi

With glazed eyes and pale lips that are the signs of their debilitating and life-threatening illness, two Benguet women last week asked that their cases be published, for Samaritans to read and respond to their need to sustain their life-time hemodialysis treatment for kidney failure.

“Umay kami koma agpatulong, sir (We came to ask for help, sir),” 34-year old Linbeth Lestino said in Ilocano, but with the unmistakable diction of one who speaks the  Ibaloi tongue.  

 Like her, 40-year old Madeline Ranille speaks Ibaloi fluently. While tribal affiliation helped forge their friendship, it was steeled by a common suffering from a costly and life-changing affliction that simply wouldn’t go away.

 

The two met at the Benguet Renal Center, the hemodialysis unit inside the Benguet General Hospital in La Trinidad where they sit four hours every other Wednesday on the 6:30 a.m.-10:30 a.m. schedule.   

They are attached to tubes attached to the machines that do what their totally damaged kidneys used to do – cleanse their blood of waste that, if not filtered regularly,  would poison the body.

Every other week, Linbeth would have two sessions on the Monday and Friday schedule. Madeline would have hers on Tuesday and Friday, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

That means skipping one session every other week as a means of coping with the costs, pegged at P2,400 per treatment.

It’s  a dangerous cost-saving strategy, for doctors even advise a three-times-a-week regimen for some patients.

The two Ibaloi women can’t do otherwise, given the emotional and financial strain their life-time treatment sessions are giving their families.

They’re not alone. Many other patients distributed to the dialysis centers in Baguio also try to survive on empty each time their dialysis schedule comes and they’re not ready with the amount.

Linbeth, who graduated bachelor of elementary education from Benguet State U in 1999, was diagnosed for kidney failure in May last year. She was then working as a salesgirl at SM Quiapo, Manila.

Advised to undergo life-time hemodialysis, she quit her job and came home to her widowed mother, Honora, at 048 Oliweg, Cruz, La Trinidad, Benguet. Linbeth lost her father to bladder tumor cancer in October, 2004. She has two brothers- Daniel, 40 and a farmer, and Celes, 36 and a security guard.

“Their relatives are extending them financial support but it is not enough to sustain all her medical needs,” noted social welfare officer Maribel Ordonia of the La Trinidad social welfare and development office.

Madeline, of  Gueweng, Abiang, Atok, Benguet, is mother to five: Nestor Jr., 21 and a hand in an automotive repair shop; Ryan, 19 and senior computer science student; Jayson, 16 and a freshman in civil engineering; Rinlee, 10 and in Grade V; and Nesline, 9 and in the fourth grade.

 While Madeline is out in search of support to sustain her treatment, her husband, Nestor Sr. manages a small vulcanizing shop at Guiweng.

Like any mother would, she proudly talked of her children. Ryan is on the dean’s list at King’s College in La Trinidad, Benguet., Jayson was last summer’s valedictorian at the Atok National High School.

He’s a freshman in civil engineering at the St. Louis University in Baguio, thanks to a scholarship grant from the Benguet provincial government.

 “I wish there are additional sponsors for Jayson as he’s hard up despite his scholarship because of my condition and the fact that he has to stay in a boarding house,” Madeline said.

She travels from Gueweng a day before her dialysis session, staying overnight in Ryan’s boarding house in Betag, La Trinidad.

Her social case study doesn’t reflect when she was diagnosed for renal failure. “There were times when (she) skipped her scheduled hemodialysis treatment (and it is) aggravating her health condition,” noted social worker Julie Sabado.

   

Samaritans out there can ring up Linbeth’s cellphone (09198575207) or Madeline’s (09109781449). They can go to the Benguet Renal Center inside the Benguet General Hospital in La Trinidad and deposit payment for one or two – or more – treatments with nurses Sandra Sagubo and Cherry Palsic.