Help for Baby Kate

This is Baby Kate Guevarra Lozada.

Let me tell you about this little girl.

She is 7 months old and she has a congenital heart disease known as Tetralogy of Fallot. It basically means that she has 4 defects in her heart namely: pulmonary stenosis or atresia, dextroposition of the aorta, ventricular septal defect and right ventricular hypertrophy.

It is basically a critical condition of the heart wherein not only 1 but both valves of the chambers of the heart have defects which causes reduced oxygenation to the blood, causing the heart to work harder and eventually would lead to heart failure and worse, death.

Kate was seen by Dr. Amatong, a well-known Pediatric Cardiologist in Perpetual Succor Hospital, Cebu City. The doctor advised immediate open heart surgery in order to save baby Kate's life.

She has to be operated on as soon as possible because once the arterial pressures (the pressures in the heart) reach a certain level which is very high, it would be totally impossible to do the surgery.

Ideally, the defects should have been corrected after she was born. The longer the surgery is delayed, the riskier it is for Kate.

My old high school classmates and I are trying to help this baby because her mother was our batchmate: SUHS Class of 1984.

She is Dinnah Guevarra Lozada and she is a staff pharmacist in the Pharmacy of Silliman University Medical Center.

They need to raise from 400T to 500T for the operation but they do not have the means to do it in time for the surgery which is urgently needed.

The cost would have been less if Baby Kate could qualify as a charity case in the Phil. Heart Center, but you see, she was rejected because she has Down Syndrome.
Apparently, the policy is to reserve slots only for otherwise normal individuals whose quality of life would be improved after the operation. It looks like Baby Kate has been categorized as not worth helping, a hopeless case. How cruel is that? Cant you feel the injustice of this policy? How sad it is for Kate who has been having one hard blow after another even before she was born.

The surgery is riskier for Kate because she is a special child. And even after such surgery, her quality of life wont be improved because she is mongoloid. But we cannot just give up on her and just wait for her heart to give out! Even a child like Kate has a right to live!

So far, our batch has raised around 150T. These are mostly donations from classmates who are abroad.

This fund-raising was spearheaded by our classmate Dra. Joan Davis delos Santos, daughter of Dr. Davis, an anesthesiologist in Holy Child Hospital . She is one great lady!

There is also another great lady who is into helping Kate wholeheartedly. Her name is LilyAnne Nichols and she is the voice in the Lifestyle channel. She is also a DJ at 923 Joey in Makati. She circulated a letter around her friends and co-employees telling them about Kate and would you believe, she raised more than 30T!!!!

Anybody out there who may also want to help this poor baby? Please ..........