How hope saved the life of a four-year-old

Paramita Purkayastha Thursday 12th January 2023 00:25 EST
 

Not every day does one read a happy story that inspires and makes one want to do good things. But the story of Rishab Singha is one such story. In December 2021, a woman who had learnt to use WhatsApp very recently came across the story of four-year-old Rishab suffering from Aplastic Anaemia, a life-threatening disease that is curable in children at a great expense. The woman got in touch with her son Rajeeb Dey, a British-born Bengali residing in London who is the founder and CEO of Learnerbly and the youngest recipient of a Queen's Award for Enterprise (MBE). At first, Dey was sceptical, considering the unreliability of donation appeals on the internet.

However, upon researching, he realized that he had met the co-founder of Milaap more than 15 years back while attending a conference at NUS Singapore as an undergraduate at Oxford. That reassured Dey about the genuineness of the campaign. Rishab's father, meanwhile, was struggling for funds while getting his son treated in Apollo Hospitals Chennai by a pediatric haematologist. He had already spent 20 lakhs INR (£20,000 approx) in Kolkata for little Rishab’s treatment. As Rishab was not responding to it, he mortgaged his flat and his wife's jewellery and moved to Chennai. But the immunosuppressive therapy treatment took time to work and Rishab’s health deteriorated, costing the family 1.5 lakhs INR (£1500 approx) a day, which was more than they had expected.

Rishab's paternal aunt started a crowdfunding campaign on Milaap but according to Niladri Singha, Rishab's father, the money pouring in from the Indian crowd was simply not enough. And that was when the campaign caught the attention of Dey's mother. Dey decided to launch his own fundraiser on Milaap a few days before his 36th birthday. "My parents have always brought me up to do something positive for those less fortunate. Every year for our birthday (my sister and I) [our mother] arranges donations to ensure children at various ashrams or orphanages could have a special meal to celebrate on the day of our birthday. Growing up, this had a big impact and on a few occasions, I've had the pleasure of being in Kolkata and visiting the ashrams and distributing food first-hand, and spending time with these underprivileged children which have been extremely fulfilling and rewarding and in part inspired me to undertake this initiative myself," Dey told Asian Voice. “I decided to launch my own fundraiser a few days before my 36th birthday in Dec 2021 and said to my friends and family that I would personally match anything up to $5000 raised by my contacts. To my surprise and delight, I hit the $5000 target within 24 hours and then increased it to a $7500 match. We hit that too so within 72 hours had managed to raise $15000 for Rishab’s campaign." In fact, the campaign went on to collect more than 19,000 USD within the first few days, according to Mubeen Ali Khan from Milaap. And thus, Rishab was saved. It was like magic, his father said and was possible only by God's grace. The entire ordeal had taken its toll on the family. Watching their beloved child suffer so much for nearly two years has affected the parents' health. Singha himself developed diabetes and high cholesterol, but he said it was nothing compared to watching his child having abdominal and lung infections, low platelet count, nearly zero WBC, blood coming out from his stool, pipes inserted all over to take food in and out of his body, and being admitted in the ICU for days. He did the only thing a parent could do, which is have faith. Rishab still has a long way to go. He still has eight months to a year to complete his treatment.

He has not been in school all this while and has not lived like most children of his age. His birthdays were spent on pipes and injections. But his father is as ever hopeful and would continue doing everything to save his son. He does not have words to describe his gratitude to all the donors, who feel like family to him now. Dey's family talks to him and Rishab almost daily and on December 2022 Dey flew down to Kolkata to meet Rishab in person for the first time. While talking about the sheer unaffordability of quality healthcare in India, Singha appealed to everybody getting to know about his son's case to do a great service to society by keeping a percentage of their income for the treatment of diseases which are beyond the reach of the common Indian.


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