THE Filipino nurse once praised by former US President Barack Obama for her heroism in the wake of Hurricane “Sandy” in 2012 needs help to beat a debilitating kidney disease, her daughter says.
Menchu Sanchez, the nurse who worked in New York’s neonatal intensive-care unit, is suffering from IgA nephropathy or Berger’s disease, her daughter Michelle says in GoFund Me.
Menchu’s ailment can lead to chronic kidney disease and kidney failure or end-stage renal disease. The American Kidney Fund describes Berger’s disease as an illness in which immunoglobulin A (IgA), a protein that helps fight infections, forms clumps inside the kidney’s tiny filters.
Because Berger’s disease has no cure, the only way for Sanchez’s life to be saved is through a kidney transplant.
“As a family, we learned that there could be more potential matches in our motherland the Philippines, but her medical insurance won’t cover surgery outside the United States. The surgery would cost $100,000 to have it done there,” Michelle said.
Sanchez has been on the transplant list for three years due to the delay in the gathering of the funds needed for her surgery.
In 2012, Sanchez devised a plan to save 20 at-risk babies at the New York University Langone Medical Center when its power was cut off at the height of Hurricane “Sandy,” the second-costliest tropical cyclone on record in the US.
Obama and the Outstanding Filipino Americans in New York praised Sanchez for her ingenuity and heroism in the face of overwhelming odds.
“We should follow the example of a New York City nurse named Menchu Sanchez,” Obama said during a State of the Union Address.
“When Hurricane Sandy plunged her hospital into darkness, her thoughts were not with how her own home was faring–they were with the 20 precious newborns in her care and the rescue plan she devised that kept them all safe.”
Sanchez was diagnosed with Berger’s disease shortly after she returned from her home province of Quezon to receive the Quezon Medal of Wisdom award for her feat.
Before working in New York as a NICU nurse, Sanchez worked in Saudi Arabia to support her mother and brother and pay for their house.
Donors may help fund Sanchez’s surgery through her GoFundMe page.
They may also contact the NYU Transplant Institute at (212) 263-3621 or the National Living Donor Assistance Center at (888) 870-5002 to check if they are a match with Sanchez.
