Vancouver author, filmmaker and Filipino community advocate Crisanta Sampang needs help.
Sampang, who is also a contributor with Philippine Asian News Today and the ReyFort Media Group, suffered a heart attack while visiting family in the Philippines.
Hospital costs are piling up, and she needs to be brought back to Vancouver for treatment.
A GoFundMe page has been created to raise funds to help Sampang and her family in arranging her return.
The GoFundMe page was created by former Vancouver Sun editor Joanne Blain, a friend of Sampang and Sampang’s partner Daniel Wood, also a writer.
“After being transferred to a specialized cardiac hospital in Manila, she was scheduled for surgery to implant a stent. That news was bad enough, but after further evaluation, doctors there determined that she needs open-heart surgery, a far more serious procedure,” according to the account at the fundraising page.
“Crisanta did not have any travel health insurance and the costs were already piling up. But with the cost of open-heart surgery in Manila estimated in six figures, along with the additional expense of Crisanta having to remain in the Philippines for as long as six months to recover on her own, Daniel scrambled to find an alternative.
“Daniel and a Vancouver friend contacted MedEvac Canada to try to find a way to get her home and settled on an emergency medivac strategy. They’ve arranged for Crisanta’s daughter Catherine, who has some medical training, to fly from her home in Seattle to Manila, and she is there now to provide her mother with some comfort. And under MedEvac Canada’s guidance, Catherine and a MedEvac doctor will accompany Crisanta on a 14-hour Philippine Airlines flight to Vancouver (in business class for Crisanta’s comfort) on March 20.
“Obviously, Daniel is immensely relieved that Crisanta will soon be home with him and in the care of the Canadian medical system. But in the meantime, Daniel and Crisanta are facing tens of thousands of dollars in bills for her Manila hospital care, the MedEvac Canada services, and airfare — all unexpected costs that they really can’t afford.”
The fundraising efforts aims to collect $10,000.
To donate: https://www.gofundme.com/help-bring-crisanta-home