Ms. Rockel Gladstone, 20, is the most recent beneficiary of support from Three Rivers Foundation, which is assisting her to undergo a much needed kidney transplant in India.
Her father, Frank Gladstone, will be donating one of his kidneys to save his only daughter and they are expected to be in India for six weeks.
The young woman, from Kimbia, Berbice River, along with her father and brother, Randy Gladstone, join a Caribbean Airways flight on Saturday for India, via Toronto, Canada.
Rockel was diagnosed with renal failure early last year, after experiencing ill health since 2005.   She required dialysis treatment twice weekly in Georgetown because of her non-functioning kidneys and her family was struggling to cover the costs.
The girl’s mother said, “She is my only daughter and I would do anything to save her life. She is still very young, the third of five children. When she does not receive the dialysis she gets delirious. On any given day she can only use about 20 ounces of fluid whether it is tea, water or whatever.”
Her father said, “We had to pay $80,000 weekly for two dialysis sessions for my daughter plus transportation from Berbice. How can I afford something like that? I am just a poor peanut and red-bean farmer.”
Head of the Three Rivers Foundation, Ms. Jeanette Singh, said that she met the Gladstone family in June this year, when she was in Guyana to accompany Satish Gobin, another beneficiary, to India.
“Rockel held both my hands, looked at me in the eyes and said ‘you are the only one who can help me, you have to help’ in her quiet and ladylike manner,” said Singh.
“I felt her pain and suffering, I could see it in her eyes.  I saw the desperation.  I promised her that I would get her out of Guyana by the end of July.”
The Three Rivers Kids Foundation is a charitable organization dedicated to helping sick children in Guyana whose parents are too poor to afford medical care.
The President of the Foundation told the Guyana Chronicle that those in need of assistance can contact telephone number 225-7758 or visit the Foundation’s website www.threeriverskidsfoundation.org.