–  mother is his donor
A 19-year-old will be given a second chance at life, again by his mother, who is his donor, as they depart today for kidney transplant surgery in India.

Satish Gobin of Lot 5 Seaview, Anna Catherina is being sponsored by the Three Rivers Kids Foundation.

President of the Three Rivers Kids Foundation in Toronto, Canada Jeanette Singh said that they took up Gobin’s cause in April and will be paying for his operation in India.

Gobin, who was diagnosed with kidney failure in February of this year, will be undergoing the operation at the Pushpawati Singhania Research Institute for Liver, Renal and Digestive Diseases. Singh is accompanying Gobin and his mother and father and said that they will spend six months in India.

When Gobin returns to Guyana, follow-up treatment will be done at the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH).

According to Singh, the hospital and officials at the Ministry of Health are very supportive and receptive to the work of the foundation.

Gobin who worked as a geographic technician with a private company said he was diagnosed with the illness when he was a patient of the Intensive Care Unit at the GPH. Since then he has been on a three-day-a-week dialysis treatment from the dialysis centre.

His mother, Shureen Ragbeer, had been going from door to door in his community to seek financial assistance for his treatment. She eventually took her plight to the media and the local office of the Three Rivers Kids Foundation began standing the cost of his dialysis treatment.

As his condition worsened, his parents were tested for matches and his mother was a match. They both had the same blood group which Singh says meets the 80% acceptability for the operation. Singh is a practicing nurse.

Singh says she has 100 per cent faith in a successful operation. She praised the doctors in India, saying medical care in that country “far surpasses anything I’ve ever seen”.

Meanwhile, Gobin said that there are no words to express his gratitude to the foundation for the assistance and especially to his mother who will be sharing her kidney with him.

His mother too was grateful. She said, “He is getting a second chance at life. His pain and suffering will be over and hoping the surgery is a success.”

Ragbeer also thanked Singh “for the things she has done for my son”. This is the second kidney case that the foundation has undertaken, Singh says.

Persons who are seeking medical assistance Singh says can call the Three Rivers Kids Foundation local office located at Woolford Avenue in the Gandhi Youth Organisation building on telephone numbers 225-7758 or 616-7618. Contact can also be made via its website www.threeriverskidsfoundation.org