Mom raising funds to pay for sick son’s ventilator

Derick Joshua San Juan

To protect her son from the new coronavirus disease, Mary San Juan took him home from the Philippine Children’s Medical Center in May.

Before that, 6-year-old Derick Joshua had been confined at the hospital since Jan. 6 for cerebral palsy, a condition he was born with. He cannot walk, talk or see and takes in food through a hole in his abdomen. Despite his condition, he smiles a lot because his sense of hearing is strong, San Juan told the Inquirer.

“Around March, the hospital asked us to go home because he might be infected with the coronavirus. But we did not leave because we do not have a ventilator at home and my son can’t breathe without it,” she said.

She and her husband, a company driver, finally brought Derick home on May 25 after they bought a secondhand ventilator for P90,000.

“We borrowed P25,000 from my friends which we used as downpayment for the ventilator. We will pay the balance of P65,000 in six monthly installments of P10,833. After that, we can start paying back my friends,” San Juan said.

To raise money, she asks for donations on her Facebook account or goes to the Department of Social Welfare and Development in Caloocan City that gives a P5,000 subsidy for Derick’s medical expenses every three months.

“I am appealing for help from your readers because it is hard to solicit online. I am already behind on my third monthly installment,” San Juan said.

She can be reached at 0930-1439955. Donations can be deposited into her husband’s East West bank account (Santos S. San Juan Jr., Account No. 2000-2159-0613).