Former domestic needs to sustain hemodialysis

By Ramon Dacawi

Erly Dumansi was working as a domestic help in Moscow, Russia when she was hospitalized due to dizziness, headache and nausea. She was diagnosed for hypertension and advised to be on maintenance medication and to take a rest.

 “I was diagnosed on Feb. 20, 2012 and, four days later, on Feb. 24, I was sent home to the Philippines,” she recalled last week. “In lieu of my last salary, my employer paid my return air fare.”

 Two weeks after her return here, she was told her kidneys had totally failed and was advised to undergo twice-a-week hemodialysis.

 “I went to Russia in May, 2011after I my application as a domestic I filed with a Russian agency through the internet was approved,” she explained.

 “My salary was supposed to be $900 a month but I received only $1,800 total for the period  I worked due to repayment of P300,00 placement fee, aside from processing fees and air fare.”

 A native of Lubon, Tadian,  Mt. Province, Erly quit school after her junior year in high school. To support her parents, both marginal farmers with  eight kids to raise,  she left home and worked as a house help in Manila.

 After two years, Erly, the second in the brood, moved to Baguio, again to work as a domestic. Here, she met Ryan Dumansi, whom she married in 2000. She later bore him two children – son Christian, now 13 and in grade 8, and Kristine, 11 and in the sixth grade.

 To help her husband, a construction worker with no regular income, she applied for work in Moscow.

 “She confided that the work was very difficult because she did all the household chores and at the same time acted as nanny of her employer’s child,” noted social welfae officer Rodel Amano in a social case study report. “As a result, she had only a couple of hours sleep during the night.”

 In-between taking care of her kids, Erly, now 33,  spends her days seeking help to  be able to raise P2,200 for every hemodialysis treatment, set at 11 a.m. on Wednesdays and at 4 p.m. on Saturdays at the Baguio General Hospital and  Medical Center.

 To ease her family’s stress, her brother-in-law has accommodated them in his residence at 426 Maria Pucay, Pinsao proper Barangay here, and to pay only their electric and water consumption.

 People who can help may contact her cellphone – 09086957318.