Appeal for help

The young son of a former colleague (Maltesh)is an unfortunate victim of leukemia. Please find below his appeal for help (specifically financial help). The appeal below is mostly one that was made through the Cancer Patients Aid Association. It was originally composed in January, but the date is the only change as of now. The kid still needs help. Please do contribute.

APPEAL BEGINS HERE->
An Appeal to the kind hearted people – CAN YOU HELP SAVE PIYUSH?

“Piyush, the only child to his middle class parents, will complete his 7th Birthday on January 25, 2007” The kid has completed 7 years at the time of this posting.

Piyush (7 Years) was diagnosed with ALL (Acute Lymphoblast Leukemia, a form of Blood Cancer) in February 2004 and underwent the treatment as per the standard protocol at Apollo Hospitals, New Delhi under Dr. Amita Mahajan (Contact No.: +91-11-26925858).

He was recovering quite well and was doing fine, leading a normal life like going to school and playing like any normal kid.

Perhaps all was not well. The tragedy struck his unsuspecting parents when during his routine blood test in December 2006, it was discovered that the disease has RELAPSED, leading to a big risk to his survival. Doctors say that his best chance for surviving this relapse is an aggressive round of chemotherapy, followed by Matched Unrelated Donors transplant or Cord Blood transplant.

Since he is the only child to his parents, the option is MUD transplant. His situation is more compounded by the fact that Matched Unrelated Donors transplants are not performed in India and we need to take him to US or Europe. This entails significant medical related expenses in an outside country, which clearly is an uphill task for his middle class parents, especially compounded by the fact that at this terrible moment for them when their only child is struggling for his life, they have to make arrangements for a large amount of money which is clearly out of bounds for an average income family like theirs.

The estimated cost of treatment in USA (Children Hospital of Pitsburg) is appx. USD $ 350K. (INR 1.60 Cr. Rupees) and the estimated cost of treatment in France (Robert Debre – Paris) is appx. USD $180K. (90 Lacs Rupees). His insurance coverage is USD $7K ONLY (INR 300,000/-)

Presently, Piyush is as inpatient at Dinanath Mangeshkar Hospital in Pune under Dr. Shailesh Kanvinde (Contact No.: +91-20-40151000) and recovering from intense chemo therapy. He needs Bone Marrow Transplant / Cord Blood Transplant as soon as he goes in to remission. He is expected to be in remission in next 4 to 6 weeks time. By Mid Mar’07, he is expected to be ready for transplant.

Piyush is looking forward to going back to school, playing with friends, going back to Casio classes and so on…his immediate dream is to learn skating and wants to become a pilot one day.

We make this appeal to YOU to save a life that has yet to come out of its tenderness and in his eyes holds a lot of hope and promise for his family. Can you help Piyush in realizing his dreams by helping us to raise funds for his treatment?

Many thanks to Cancer Patients Aid Association (CPAA) for supporting us in terms of collecting the donation from all of you. They will directly send the collected funds to treating hospital against actual expenses.

Your may donate to CPAA using a credit card online, cheque or demand draft. The procedure follows.

In case you wish to make a donation, you can do so online on CPAA website www.cpaaindia.org using a credit card. Simply click on the picture of the credit card and follow the three easy steps. In the field marked "Projects" fill in "For the treatment of Piyush." Alternately, you can send a cheque or demand draft in the name of "CANCER PATIENTS AID ASSOCIATION" to the address below. Write "For Piyush" on the back of the cheque.

Shubha Maudgal,
Cancer Patients Aid Association,
Anand Niketan,
King George V Memorial Infirmary,
Dr. E. Moses Road, Mahalaxmi,

Mumbai-400011, INDIA
Phone: 0091-22-24924000
0091-22-24928775
Fax: 0091-22-24973599
URL: www.cpaaindia.org
Email: Shubha.Maudgal@cpaaindia.org

Donations to CPAA are tax exempt under section 80G (50% exemption). You will be sent a certificate of exemption along with receipt and letter of acknowledgement.

For the verification, you may contact Piyush’ father, Maltesh Kolur on the below given address and contact nos.

If you wish to not avail the tax benefit, you may deposit the donations in our following accounts,

In the name of “Maltesh Kolur”

ICICI Account No. Account No. : 002701016473
ABN AMRO Bank : Account No. : 971916

With kind Regards,

Maltesh Kolur
Flat No. 7, Building No. 6-C-4,
Siddarth Nagar Housing Soc, Phase-1, University Road,
Aundh, Pune – 411007
Maharastra – India
Cell No. : +91-9881138337
Email ID : maltesh@rediffmail.com

<-APPEAL ENDS HERE