Students to collect donation to help girl suffering from sickle-cell anaemia

Students to collect donation to help girl suffering from sickle-cell anaemia

Mangalore Today News Network

Udupi, March 17, 2016: Students of Dr. G. Shankar Government First Grade College have rallied behind their 19-year-old college mate, who is suffering from sickle cell anaemia, and raise funds for her treatment through door-to-door campaign here on Thursday.

Geeta, a first year student of B.Com, had on March 9 made a public appeal for donations for advanced treatment of her health condition.

A bright student, Ms. Geeta had got 85 per cent marks in II PU and 72 per cent marks in first semester exam of first B.Com. She comes from a poor family.

Her mother, Sheela, works as a domestic help and is the earning member of the family for the last 12 years. Ms. Geeta is her only child. Her father, who went to some other place for work when Ms. Geeta was young, never returned. Now, even Ms. Sheela is suffering from hypertension and age-related problems.

Ms. Geeta is receiving treatment at Dr. T.M.A. Pai Hospital here. Her mother was spending Rs. 5,000 a month for her treatment. But doctors had advised her to get advanced treatment of bone marrow transplantation at Christian Medical College, Vellore. The treatment would cost Rs. 15 lakh.

Addressing presspersons here on Wednesday, Jagadish Rao, principal of the college, said that the college students had decided to go a house-to-house and shop-to-shop campaign here to raise the funds on Thursday. Nearly 25 students in 15 groups would go to different parts of the city to raise funds. The NSS, Youth Red Cross and NCC units of the college too would involve themselves in the exercise.

In addition to this, students had been collecting funds among themselves for the purpose. Ms. Geeta had been getting blood transfusion at the hospital here for the last 12 years. An amount of Rs. 10 lakh had already been spent on her treatment.

“Besides all her earnings, Ms. Sheela has sold the little gold ornaments she had including her ‘mangalsutra’ for Ms. Geeta’s treatment. We will do all we can to help her,” he said.

Her dream

Ms. Geeta’s only dream was to study, get a good job and take care of her mother, Prof. Rao said. A teary-eyed Ms. Sheela said that she would be grateful to all those who donate money for her daughter’s treatment.

For those interested in donating, Ms. Geeta’s account number is: 01102210093646 (IFSC code: SYNB 0000110), SyndicateBank, Catholic Centre branch, Udupi. So far, Rs. 1 lakh had been credited into her account.

Vishu Shetty Ambalpady, social worker, said, “Even if we get Rs. 8 lakh from public donations, we will try to get the rest of the amount from Prime Minister’s and Chief Minister’s Relief Fund.”

Prakash Kramadhar, head of college NSS unit, Ashwini, lecturer and head of Red Cross Unit, Roshan Kumar Shetty, college physical director, Bhavya, student union president, were present.

 

Courtesy: The Hindu