Jacob's Story

Jacob joined Watsi on May 27th, 2015. Eight years ago, Jacob joined our Universal Fund, supporting life-changing treatments for a new Watsi patient every month. Jacob's most recent donation traveled 1,900 miles to support Anne, a toddler born with a hole in her heart from Haiti, to support the expenses of cardiac surgery to repair her congenital heart defect.

Impact

Jacob has funded healthcare for 103 patients in 16 countries.

Patients funded by Jacob

Yi is a 52-year-old mother who lives with her husband, two sons and a daughter in a conflict area called Rakhine State. Her husband, daughter and younger son are unemployed while she is a homemaker. Her older son works as a taxi driver but does not always have work. They are financially supported by Yi's third son, who is also a taxi driver and lives separately. In her free time, she like to meditate and read Facebook posts relating to health. Yi first felt unwell in 2010 when she experienced severe joint pain. Later on, she also developed difficulty breathing and heart palpitations. She was diagnosed with a heart condition requiring surgery, but she could not afford to pay for it. Over the years, she tried to manage her symptoms through medication, but they would only help her feel better temporarily. Currently, Yi tires easily and does not have energy to do anything. She cannot walk long distances, and she cannot walk downstairs. If she does, she experiences chest pain and difficulty breathing. When she talks a lot, she feels tired. She has no appetite and cannot breathe well. She also has chest pain and cannot sleep at night. In May, she went to Pun Hlaing Hospital in Yangon, where the doctor diagnosed her with mitral valve stenosis and tricuspid valve regurgitation. She now needs to undergo surgery to have two valves in her heart replaced. Yi is scheduled to have this surgery on July 20th with our medical partner Burma Children Medical Fund (BCMF). They are requesting $1,500 to fund her procedure. Her son said, “Thank you so much to the donors and the organization [BCMF] for helping with the cost of my mom’s surgery. I worry about my mom and want her to get surgery as soon as possible.”

$691raised
$809to go

Meet Nafissa. She is a 25-year old woman who shared that she tends to be very shy and reserved. She lives with her parents and her young child in an area of Burkina Faso where conflict is currently impacting their lives deeply. When she was a child, Nafissa developed a painful growth on the left side of her chin. This swelling in her lower jawbone affected her ability to eat, and was determined to be a benign tumor that needed to be removed. Her parents were able to secure the funds to send Nafissa to a hospital in Togo, where she could be treated at no cost to her family. The growth was removed, and for several years, Nafissa did well. However, the growth recurred, and in the middle of last year, Nafissa returned to Togo, where the second growth was excised. This time, however, the surgeon determined that her whole jawbone would also need to be removed. As the doctor in Togo did not have the necessary training to perform the surgery that Nafissa needed, he referred her to a physician with our medical partner, African Mission Healthcare. Miraculously, Nafissa is now scheduled for a major jaw surgery with the leading team at AIC Kijabe Hospital in Kenya. As Nafissa's husband abandoned her because of her condition, and provides no support to Nafissa or their child, Nafissa and her parents are looking to you to help fund the $1,500 procedure, which will finally relieve Nafissa of the pain and symptoms that result from the tumor. Nafissa says: “It pains me that I have to stay at home with no friends. Making it worse, I cannot work to provide for my child.”

$1,500raised
Fully funded

Jayden is a sweet baby and the last born in a family of 5 children. His parents separated before he was born and his mother does laundry for neighbors to provide for the family. Shortly after Jayden was born, his mother noticed a large swelling on his back. She did not have the money to take him to a doctor at the time but, when he was seven months old, she took him to the hospital where Jayden was examined and was sent to another facility for a scan. Unfortunately, the scan was not done because Jayden's mother could not raise the required amount of money. She shared her plight with her boss who got in touch with one of the ambassadors from BethanyKids hospital in their village. The ambassador reached out to her the following day and helped bring Jayden to the hospital. Upon examination, he was diagnosed with spina bifida and urgent surgery was recommended. Spina bifida is a type of neural tube defect in which the spine does not properly close around the spinal cord. Without treatment, Jayden is at risk of lower-limb paralysis, infection of the exposed nervous tissue, development of tethered cord syndrome, and possible developmental delays. Our medical partner, African Mission Healthcare, is requesting $1,151 to cover the cost of Jayden's spina bifida closure surgery. The procedure is scheduled to take place on June 21. This procedure will hopefully spare Jayden from the risks associated with his condition, instead allowing him to grow and develop along a healthy trajectory. Jayden’s mother says, “I have been praying for a long time for Jayden’s healing and I now believe that he will be treated.”

$1,151raised
Fully funded