By Ramon
Dacawi
Forty six-year old Marcela Fontanila, a
farmer’s wife and mother of four, was told that Ana, her youngest child, was
the youngest among 160 or so patients undergoing twice or thrice-a-week
hemodialysis treatment for kidney failure at the Baguio General Hospital and
Medical Center.
Ana, who turned 14 last June 16, learned of
her life-changing -and life-threatening - predicament early last April.
That was when she experienced dizziness and
was admitted to the Rosario District Hospital in La Union where
she was diagnosed for Stage V (end-stage)
kidney failure.
That meant life-time treatment through
expensive dialysis or blood cleansing sessions twice a week, scheduled four
hours at a time. Ana is on the 11 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. shift every Wednesday and
Saturday at the BGHMC, which offers the lowest cost hereabouts at P2,200 per
session.
Now and then at a loss on where to raise the
amount for the next treatment, Marcela and Amado, her 47-year old
farmer-husband, can only shrug off any suggestion for them to consider the more
costly alternative – a kidney transplant that would require about a million
pesos.
Ana is supposed to be in third year high
school now. For one so young, schooling is no longer of the moment.
Sustaining treatment and nurturing the will
to survive are and will be.
“That’s why I’m signing this,” her mother
told this writer, when she came to knock on and open up to Samaritans out
there.
She signed an authorization for “the
publication of a news item regarding the medical plight of my youngest child
who is suffering from end-stage kidney failure, with the hope that readers
would respond and extend their help to sustain her life-time hemodialysis
treatment”.
She had left Ana at the BGHMC dialysis room
where another patient failed to report for treatment, allowing her to be
attached to one of the blood-cleansing machines earlier than her
schedule.
Mother and child used to take the bus or jeep
from their home at No. 14, Barangay Tanglag, Rosario for Ana’s treatment rounds
at the BGHMC. Last August, Helping Hands, a half-way house for young patients
at Camp 7 here, took her in so she would be nearer to the medical facility.
Until last week, the family was unsure
whether she would be able to make it to her Wednesday treatment schedule.
“The family could hardly make both ends meet
with their present predicament because farming is the only source of income,”
noted municipal social welfare and development officer Grenaflor Magsakay.
Her mother said Ana had already used up
P17,600 in the form of a guarantee letter issued last September by the
Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office. She would be eligible for additional
support only by next February.
“I wanted to apply my Philhealth benefits for
her dialysis support but was told the amount had also been exhausted by her
hospitalization before and after her diagnosis,” Marcela explained. “We have
stressed the kindness of relatives and friends and had used up guarantee
letters of P2,000 from Senator (Antonio) Trillanes, P2,200 from Senator (Allan
Peter) Cayetano and P1,500 from Bayan Muna.”
She showed her last card – a guarantee letter
for P2,200 (the cost of one treatment session) issued last Monday by two aides
of former Rep. Risa Hontiveros of Akbayan.
“She’ll need another P2,200 for her treatment
this Saturday, same amount for next Wednesday and so forth and I don’t know
where to turn to,” Marcela admitted.
Gentle souls out there looking for
substance to this season of giving may ring up Marcela’s cell phone number:
09479483480.
Also wanted are donors in kind, particularly
blood needed by John Mark Tiyad, a 22-year old dialysis patient confined at the
BGHMC also for liver and heart ailment.
The
boy, an Ifugao woodcarver’s son, is in need of type A-positive but donors with
other blood types can also donate to replace what has been transfused.
Blood donors may ring up John Mark’s sister
Gloria (09297661705).
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