Samaritans light up kidney patients’ hopes

By Ramon Dacawi

BAGUIO CITY -- The kindness of people, some of whom the beneficiaries they reach out to have never met and will never meet, is keeping alive  the hopes – and the lives, so to speak – of seriously ill patients who use up all their waking hours figuring out how to pay the cost of the next hemodialysis or chemotherapy session.

Tired of figuring out the cost, one such patient, 25-year old Dinton Banta, a carrot washer from La Trinidad, Benguet, had himself anyway attached to the dialysis machine before noon last Monday at the Baguio General Hospital and Medical Center.

As she helped him for the four-hour treatment, Benita, his 56-year old mother, a farmhand from Kapangan, Benguet, just kept hoping her cellphone (09465507988) would ring with a call from a Samaritan.

           

Only the day before, the weeklies carried a news item on her son’s case and her hope a reader or two would respond to enable Dinton to pay for her next dialysis treatment for kidney failure.

           

No one called. Instead, ShoshinKinderhilfe, a small foundation established in southern Germany sent P2,200 to cover the cost of the treatment.

           

The call came last Tuesday morning. A woman who introduced herself as Au, asked Benita to meet her in front of the Baguio Cathedral.

“She handed me P5,000, saying it came from her office superior who declined to be identified,” Benita said. “It’s more than enough to cover his treatment on Thursday and next Monday,” she added, her face glowing with sheer relief.

           

As this was being written last Friday, the head Shoshin, former world traditional karate champion Julian Chees, e-mailed he had raised 161 euros over the week-end.

           

As it was not enough, he asked Renate Doth, the foundation secretary, to lend and round it up to 200 euros.

           

“This will give Dinton two more treatments and another two for his fellow kidney patient, MarilouMatias from Pangasinan,” Julian said.

Shoshin had used up its earlier funds with a P10,000 support to Cecilia CosapePatol who is suffering from leukemia.

           

Previous to this, the foundation helped sustain the hemodialysis treatment of Amor Orpilla, Eduardo MagatSabinoAdianMilagrosTait  andRequinoTidlem, aside from medicines for Wilma Tomas, KthlynEspada and Moreno Orpilla.

           

The foundation supported a concert for ailing lawyer-folksinger NesMondoc and the transport of patients and their relatives to and from the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office in Quezon city to follow up their applications for fund support.

           

Beyond providing medical support, Shoshin also provided school fees for two orphaned children whose father, forest guard Andres Realina, was killed when a mature pine fell on him at the height of a storm three years ago inside the Busol watershed.

           

Among the donors this month was engineer Leonard Licanio who extended dialysis fund support to  John Mark Tiyad, Madeline Ranille. LinbethLestino and several other kidney patients.

           

Among regular benefactors is a family along Session Rd. whose latest support was a P1,500 donation to Dinton.

           

Last Thursday evening, volunteer driver Jerry Manaois transported 12 patients or their relatives bound for the PCSO, with support from the city social welfare and development office, Rob Ocampo, a couple  and a city hall employee who both requested anonymity.

           

Others looking for a cause to support may visit the renal center of the BGHMC and sponsor a dialysis patient at P2,200 per session. Those in La Trinidad, Benguet may proceed for the same purpose to the Benguet Provincial Hospital where Ranille and Lestino report for dialysis.