Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the charity and make sure Gift Aid is reclaimed on every eligible donation by a UK taxpayer. So it’s the most efficient way to donate - We raise more, whilst saving time and cutting costs for the charity.

Lorna's Story

She is 29 and had a big stroke, 7th Nov 2012. She is just starting to walk with help, but she will never recover her arm. She has two young children and a husband who works as a janitor.

The issue is this, Lorna spent two weeks in hospital and was unable to pay the bill in full. She had to leave. The family paid half and are left with 10,000 Pesos debt, £152.90. She is now at home and we are providing daily physio for free.

The hospital have taken the family tricycle and motor bike as collaterol. A tricycle is the local form of taxi, like a tuk tuk. The result is they have no motor bike for family transport and Lorna's brother can no longer work as a tricycle taxi driver in order to pay off the debt.

The hospital will charge them 25% interest if it's not paid by 28th Dec and the family is not able to raise the funds. She is quiet about it but it is clearly tiring for all of them and I want her energy for rehabilitation.

What is more infuriating is they pay for a tricycle each day to come for rehab when they own one.  Lorna's sister has taken her teenage son out of school to look after her, so Lorna's husband can go to work and the two young children can go to school.

As a charity The Bristish Palwan Trust is aimed at rehab and medical relief, it can not start paying for everyones medical debts, it would open the flood gates to hundreds of people in the same predicament.  We do contribute to some health costs, tests, treatments etc but not large hospitals bills retrospectively. 

However as a private one time donation, in this instance, it would be good to make it happen and to prevent them incurring 25% interest on an already substantial debt.

She is working hard to get better, with such a supportive family and has no unhealthy habits which may have caused this. 

It is perhaps worth telling you that the cause of stroke has not been identified. The laboratory analysis for her blood is not yet available here on this island. She would need to attend a hospital in Manila (the capital), via plane with overnight stay in hospital. Needless to say they can't afford this either but she needs to get a bit better to be fit to fly and her blood pressure is now managed.

We will pay the hospital directly not the family.  Any additional contibutions will go to further tests to discover the cause of stroke and her long term medication requirements for blood pressure control.

The focus is to get the bikes back and the debt gone! Perhaps then they can find a way for the nephew to get back to school.

Many thanks for taking the time to read her story.