Offers of help coming in for kidney failure patient

Calls have started to trickle in and there may be hope for Nalini Mohammed nee Shivram, the woman who has been undergoing dialysis for the last two years.

Shivram, who suffers from end-stage renal disease, has been advised by medical practitioners that she needs dialysis three times weekly. The woman only got one treatment last week and is yet to receive one this week.

Shivram and her husband, Rasheed Mohammed, have exhausted their financial resources over the last two years obtaining treatment for her.

In their desperation to get help they stood in front of the National Cultural Centre last Thursday, at the opening ceremony for the 30th Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government, with placards which read “Save my wife” and “Jagdeo/CARICOM I will die within days, Can’t afford dialysis”. The display did not have the desired effect and the couple is still in need of help.

Each treatment, according to an invoice from the 5G Dialysis Centre, costs just over $36, 000.  Shivram told Stabroek News on Tuesday that she does not expect dialysis to be provided free of cost. However, the woman stated that it would be of great help if the cost could be subsidized.

Shivram’s husband had indicated that he was willing to donate a kidney to his wife but said that if both of them were bedridden then they would have no one to take care of them. However, the man said yesterday that he is “beginning to realize that it might be the only solution to our fix”.

The woman needs dialysis until August when doctors who are able to perform the transplant will be in Guyana.

Anyone who wishes to help the couple can contact them on telephone numbers 220-2294 or 619-6854. Persons can also make direct contributions to the couple’s bank account. Their account number is 30:591 at the Guyana Bank for Trade and Industry (GBTI).

“People have been calling,” Shivram said yesterday, “some of them promising to help but I waiting to get the actual help.”