UAE Helping Hands: Family provider cannot afford life-saving heart surgery

Filipina Brenda Dalit needs help to pay for the live-saving heart operation that she urgently needs.

Brenda Dalit will undergo a major heart operation in nine days time. But, with no health insurance, she cannot afford the Dh40,000 surgery. Jeffrey E Biteng / The National

DUBAI // Brenda Dalit, who suffers from a heart disorder, gets her strength from her 21-year-old daughter and belief that “God is great and only wants what’s best”.

The Filipina has repeated that phrase a million times over the past two years since doctors told her about her condition. But, while her faith and her daughter have helped, she is starting to worry and is appealing for help.

The single mother has mitral valve disease, where one of the main valves in the heart does not function properly.

“I first went to the hospital because I had abdominal pain and shortness of breath. I was always very tired and dizzy,” she says.

When doctors informed her of her condition, she began to panic. Ms Dalit had come to the UAE to find a job that would let her put her daughter through law school, and support her brother and his son.

“We had a very difficult life. Both our parents died and we had nothing. I didn’t want my daughter and nephew to have the same life we had.”

She found a job as a clerk at a travel agency with a salary of Dh3,000.

“I didn’t know what mitral valve disease was and my question to the doctor was, ‘will I be able to continue working?’” she says.

Doctors told her that she needed to have a procedure where a balloon is used to open up the valve.

“I tried to have the operation in the Philippines because I thought it would be cheaper, but I found out that it costs one million pesos [about Dh80,000].”

She took a Dh30,000 loan to have it done in the UAE but a month before surgery she suffered an attack and was taken to hospital. The money all went to hospital bills and medication.

“Because of this loan, I couldn’t send money to my brother any more. I am grateful that I can still pay for my daughter’s college and my nephew’s school but I’ve failed my brother.”

This month doctors told her that the valve was now badly damaged and she must have immediate surgery to replace it because she is at risk of dying at any moment. She is due to have the surgery in 10 days.

“God is great and I have faith that He will put in my path people who will help me,” she says. The surgery costs Dh40,000 and, with no health insurance, Ms Dalit cannot afford to have it done. Her daughter in the Philippines has started raising money for her mother’s operation but has not been successful so far.

Hisham Al Zahrani, manager of zakat and social services at Dar Al Ber Society, says: “What makes many of the cases that our representatives come across so heartbreaking is the realisation that an entire family depends on one person, and that they do not have the luxury of not working because of a serious medical condition. Almost always their first concern is to get treatment so that they can continue supporting their family members and not for themselves.

“We hope, as always, that readers will be able to help Brenda and her family.”