Youngest dialysis patient gets fund support

MARY Joy Ligudon, the youngest dialysis patient at the Baguio General Hospital, and her adoptive mother got a breather of sorts when two Samaritans sent P2,000 and 300 euros after learning the kid blew her 13th candle while hooked to the cleansing machine at the Baguio General Hospital.

“I hope the amount could help ease the continuing financial burden of keeping the kid alive,” said Igorot expatriate Julian Chees after sending the euros from his base in Germany.

It was the second financial support from Chees, a former world champion in Shotokan karate and now head of the Julian CheesShoshin Kinderhilfe, a support foundation for the needy in his native Cordillera.

Earlier, the Igorot blackbelt from Maligcong, Bontoc, Mt. Province sent P16,452.25 that covered more than half of the kid’s unpaid hospital bills.

Also greeting the kid with a modest P2,000 donation was a school teacher who coursed her support through dialysis nurse Carmen Bumatnong.

Mary Joy turned 13 the other Monday and Baguio journalists brought her a birthday cake the following day, as it was her scheduled dialysis.

A fellow dialysis patient, barangay kagawad Bernardo Torcedo of Hillside, Baguio, also brought another cake, adding cheer to the other dialysis patients of all ages having their treatment at the hospital.

“These cash donations will be used for the rental of an airbag oxygenator we had to rent as Marie Joy needs oxygen support to improve her breathing,” Gina Epe, the kid’s adoptive mother, said.

Marie Joy was first confined at the Baguio General Hospital in 2003,when the toddler had to be brought from Ifugao for urinary tract infection.

Epe and her twin daughters – Jordynne and Lordynne, were then visiting a sick relative when they overheard the kid’s father telling a nurse he had no money to buy her daughter’s medicines.

“My twins asked me money which they used in buying the prescriptions,” Epe recalled. “As the kid needed regular hospital check-ups, his father asked if she could be under our care, explaining how difficult it was financially for his family to be traveling now and then to the hospital.”

“We took the child, a decision the whole family wanted, especially my twins who developed an attachment that bloomed when they were delivering meals for two months to Marie Joy while she was confined,” Epe said.

She recalled, too, that after she delivered her twins, an Ifugao woman at the hospital nursery offered her breast-milk to help her nourish her babies.