AU girl raises over Rs 7 lakh for ailing cousin
Rs 10 lakh more needed for my brother’s treatment, says AU student Vartika Maurya
HT Correspondent allahabad.htdesk@hindustantimes.com
PRAYAGRAJ: A plea for financial help by a local budding lawyer desperate to save the life of her ailing elder cousin is getting great response from netizens. Known and unknown people from across the state have already contributed helping create a fund pool of over Rs 7 lakh. Vartika Maurya, a third year BA-LLB student of Allahabad University (AU), has taken to social media to seek help for her 27-year-old elder cousin Sandeep Maurya’s treatment. He ran a small general merchant shop at Pratapgarh’s Kohdaur, located around 20 km from the village, to make a living. “Soon after his marriage he started remaining sick. Doctors struggled to diagnose and referred him to Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGIMS), Lucknow, in June 2021,” said Vartika, 20, who lives in a rented room in Phaphamau in Prayagraj for her studies. “Here he was diagnosed with severe aplastic anaemia, a condition that occurs when body stops producing enough new blood cells, and was advised an urgent bone marrow transplant. Sandeep’s elder married sister Pratima’s bone marrow matched and he underwent bone marrow transplant successfully in November, 2021, at SGPGIMS,” added Vartika who is leading her family’s desperate struggle to generate funds for Sandeep’s treatment. However, the medicines given to lower body resistance to transplanted bone marrow ended up creating a complication that resulted in his developing thrombotic micro ang io pat hi es( T MA) defined by destruction of red blood cells, low platelets and organ damage due to the formation of microscopic blood clots in capillaries and small arteries. This resulted in Sandeep requiring daily plasma therapy. A medicine is also being imported from the Netherlands. “Further complications have resulted in him developing graft versus host disease (GvHD), a condition that occurs when donor bone marrow or stem cells attack the recipient and for which doctors have now advised him to undergo a costly but potentially life-saving “Mesenchymal stem cell infusion”. The family’s appeal to the state and central government has so far resulted in their receiving Rs 10 lakh in two instalments from CM’s Relief Fund and Rs 3 lakh from PM’s Relief Fund. “Sandeep’s father and my uncle Ram Asrey Maurya is partially disabled and walks with a limp. He is a small-scale farmer and Sandeep’s mother Bhanumati is a housewife. We have already spent around Rs 17 lakh on his treatment. Desperate we have turned to social media posting appeals on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram etc. “So far, we have managed to raise over Rs 7 lakh through donations ranging from Rs 10 to Rs 10,000 but need another Rs 10 lakh for which we are hopeful,” said Vartika.