Response after story offers hope to Micheline
An overwhelming response to the plight of a Vanuatu girl found close to death on a remote island has opened up options for her recovery.
Following a story in last week’s Weekend Herald, more than 330 people have donated more than $50,000 via a Givealittle page set up by round-the-world sailors Nicole and Tobias Janke.
It means a nurse can fly from Europe to Vanuatu to care for Micheline Warri fulltime for a few months if they can’t find a hospital in a Western country to take her.
The Jankes have dedicated themselves to her recovery since finding 10-year-old Micheline last month unresponsive in a mud-floor hut on Pentecost Island, 190km due north of Vanuatu capital Port Vila. She was dehydrated, malnourished, had extensive infected skin sores and thirddegree burns on her legs and feet.
They had her flown to Vila Central Hospital where the Weekend Herald first met them. Micheline weighed just 19.5kg and her blood count was dangerously low.
“It is a short-term issue to survive and a very big one about what next,” Tobias said at the time.
Micheline’s weight has increased to 25kg and she is now able to eat and drink unaided. But the Jankes say her long-term prospects depend on quality of care in the next few months.
A nurse in Switzerland skilled in treating burns patients has agreed to go to Vanuatu at the end of November for three months if needed.
Also a hospital in New Caledonia has offered to take her for one month at a cost of $50,000. And the Jankes are discussing with Ronald McDonald House the possibility of treatment at Auckland’s Starship hospital.
Micheline has the rare genetic auto-immune disease Pemphigus vulgaris.
The Jankes believe if she fully recovers her condition can be managed, probably in Port Vila.