A family from Lanzarote has been trying to raise money for several days to be able to transfer Mateo, a one-year-and-nine-month-old baby who has been in the ICU of a hospital in Bali (Indonesia) for eight days, where he has been diagnosed with severe autoimmune hemolytic anemia due to cold antibodies.
The minor, a resident of Spain, traveled to the Asian country with his parents on April 13 to visit his grandfather, who resides there. However, his parents - who were planning to return to Lanzarote these days - decided to extend the trip until Christmas, running out of medical insurance.
A disease without a cause
As Claudia Domínguez, the child's aunt, informed La Voz de Lanzarote, Mateo began to be "tired and apathetic, noticing an intercostal pull" approximately two weeks ago, but when going to the health services "they told him it was nothing".
The situation worsened when, a week ago, "the child's hemoglobin level decreased until it reached two points, becoming unconscious and needing urgent blood transfusions".
Currently, Mateo is hospitalized in the General Hospital of Denpasar, where he is already on his fifth transfusion, which is the only thing that keeps him alive.
However, Domínguez has explained that the little one is not responding well to the treatment offered in this place: "They are not treating the real cause of the disease because they do not have sufficient means to find out, they are only trying to keep him stable by treating the anemia, but he does not even respond to corticosteroids".
"In Bali the child is dying"
Domínguez has commented that for now, with the savings that the parents had and the aid received - thanks to the donation fund that the family itself opened - they have been able to administer the blood that he has needed.
But each of the transfusions costs more than 1,000 euros, "an expense to which the stay in the hospital is added, because in Bali if there is no money, there is no treatment or assistance either".
Beyond this, there is another added difficulty, since "it is being very difficult to find someone with Mateo's blood type, in this time only one person has come to donate", the child's aunt has indicated.
For this reason, the family has requested a medicalized plane from the Spanish Embassy to return the child to Spain: "In Bali the child is dying, if he does not leave there he will never be diagnosed", Domínguez has clarified.
The family member has indicated that today, from the Embassy, they have conveyed to them that they will study the case to make said plane available to the baby and his parents, "but before moving him it is necessary to stabilize him, because in this means of transport transfusions cannot be done, so we still need blood".
Regarding this, Domínguez has remarked the importance of obtaining funds "because if this institution does not help us, we will have to pay for a plane of this type ourselves".
Likewise, Domínguez has pointed out that the San Juan de Dios Hospital, located in Barcelona, is maintaining conversations with one of the doctors who attends to Mateo in Bali, so that the minor can be admitted to this Spanish city.
