Kidney dialysis patient, Jose Cruz, needs your help

Jose Cruz

He has been vocal on the quality of kidney dialysis treatment and now Jose Cruz is in need of your help.  Cruz is in danger of losing two of his fingers if he does not receive quick medical treatment.  And that procedure will cost him fifteen thousand dollars.  But he is not alone.  A group formed in 2009 to help others in need has started a fundraising drive to help Cruz.  We spoke to Mark Usher, leader of People Reaching Out to Others and to Cruz as he completed another dialysis treatment this afternoon at Belize Healthcare Partners in Belize City.

Mark Usher, Leader, PROTO

“We went out and we collected as much of the five gallon water bottles that have holes that people no longer use to hold water and then we stick on a little flyer on them then we find organizations and business houses where we can place these bottles so people can drop in their dollar. Now I’ll tell you, since today we have had a number of place, I’ve gotten calls from Brothers Habet on Cemetery Road; I’ve put a bottle at RFG, several places requesting the bottles so that is one aspect of it.

Mark Usher

Another aspect was to see how we can tap into parents through their kids by going through the schools. Now you know schools normally do fundraising by having what you call a rags day where you don’t wear uniform and you pay a dollar. So we are sending letters to the different principals to get permission from them to allow the student council in each school to do a rags day dollar drive if possible. That’s primary school, high school, probably even pre-school if anybody wants to replicate this countrywide, that would be really excellent.”

Marion Ali

“So if you raise more than the thirteen thousand that he needs what will you do with the rest?”

Mark Usher

“When I talked to Miss Elena at N.T.U.C.B. she came up with another brilliant idea, she said Mark if we raise more money than Mr. Cruz needs we can take the rest and we can offer it to the young man who still needs some more money, the little man that went up with the skin problem, Tarrell Sutherland, right and I told her that’s an excellent idea.”

Jose Cruz, Needs Urgent Medical Treatment

“I’ve developed a condition which is micro vascular disease whereby my small veins and my nerve ends are blocking up so the result of it is either to get a treatment done that I need to do in Guatemala or start or they will start amputating like what happened with my foot.  Presently I have two of my fingers on my right that are in jeopardy of getting amputated. It burns a lot. The treatment is very expensive because I need to stay over in Guatemala for like a week which will then incur dialysis costs, dialysis, blood testing costs so the doctor is saying it will be roughly around fifteen thousand dollars Belize to do the whole treatment.”

Marion Ali

“It’s a treatment so one time only or…”

Jose Cruz

“It’s supposed to be a one-time treatment.  What they will also do is they will clip the plasmatic nerve in my neck. That’s the nerve that usually controls the blood flow in the body.  They’re going to try to trick the brain in a sense to get it flowing again.  The problem is that I have this thing and I can’t prolong it.  If I don’t get it done the more pain I’m getting into, the more problems I’m running into.”

Cruz says so far he has raised just about two thousand dollars.  Meanwhile Four year old Tarrell Sutherland is expected to begin treatment on his skin in the US. Usher urges the public to call Tarell’s mother, Nicole McDougal, at 610-0363 if you wish to help her son.