A race against time: Desperate parents seek funds to get their one-year-old a liver transplant
Desperate, they walked into our offices on Tuesday, travelling from early morn to plead for help to take their baby to India for a life-saving operation.
Even as the tears flowed, to be brushed aside hastily by both father and mother, W.A. Susantha Weerasuriya (38) and P.M. Malani (33), the precocious little one, Sinumi Imanshi, oblivious to the gravity of her condition, gives us brilliant smiles, extending tiny hands towards us.
Eleven-month-old Sinumi with her mother. Pic by Akila Jayawardena
Eleven-month-old Sinumi, who turns one-year-old on October 22, this year, may not live to celebrate her second birthday, if urgent help does not come her way. She is suffering from biliary atresia, a condition which has affected her liver and she needs a liver transplant as soon as possible.
In biliary atresia, as Sinumi’s bile ducts are blocked, bile which should normally flow from her liver to the small intestine, builds up in the liver damaging it. She is currently in end-stage liver disease.
Susantha: Walking the streets looking for money
There had been no visible issues when Sinumi was born last year, says Susantha, explaining that it was when she was three months old that trouble began with her eyes being tinged with yellow.
Living in a line-room on the estate of Mirawatte Pahala Kotasa, off the Welimada-Bandarawela Road about 10 kms from Welimada town, the world of this little family, impoverished but contented, collapsed. Susantha had been attending to the gardens of a hotel in Negombo, while Malani was a tea-plucker. They have another seven-year-old daughter.
With much regret, the parents had been informed by doctors that with the baby’s complicated anatomy, the risk of surgery would be very high. The parents have decided to take her abroad to save her life. They wish to take their precious Sinumi to the Rela Institute in Chennai, India. The cost for the operation as well as the stay there is estimated at Rs. 15 million.
“Api den paarata bahala, mudal hoyana (We are walking the streets, looking for money),” says Susantha, with indications that many are the meals the parents are foregoing. “Badaginney innawa, salli preveshamen pariharanaya karanna.”
As Sinumi entertains herself, blowing bubbles and making “th…th….” sounds, we realize that the parents have not had dinner the night before or breakfast and even a cup of tea the morning they walk into our offices.
The couple had got someone they know on the estate to drop them off in a trishaw at the main road, 4 kms from their line-room and then taken a bus to Welimada town where they boarded the 1.40 a.m. bus to Colombo on Tuesday.
Susantha says how he has slept at bus halts when Sinumi was in hospital so that he could see his wife and daughter the next morning…….how he has been in the same clothes for days, so he could get his wife some food.
They say Sri Lankans are very generous – some person hearing their pathetic tale while they were travelling to Colombo had given them Rs. 1,500, while the trishaw driver who brought them from Pettah to our offices at Hunupitiya Cross Road, Colombo 2, charged only Rs. 300 though the full fare was Rs. 450.
| A chance to help them | |
| Please help our baby, is the heartfelt plea from Susantha and Malani. Generous donors may send their mite to the Bank of Ceylon, Welimada Branch, Savings Account: 88318414, with the Account Name: P.M. Malani. Susantha may be contacted on: 0713676529 or 0759403479. |
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