“I feel that if she had received the vaccines, her system might have been reinforced, but my Mariana went three weeks without her medication; then she was hospitalized for a month and two weeks after she was discharged from the hospital, she passed away. ”
These are the words of Judith Torres, mother of Mariana Pérez, a seven-year-old girl who died on July 5. Judith believes that the shortage of medicines for cancer patients at the Federico Gómez Children’s Hospital of Mexico (Hospital Infantil de México Federico Gómez: HIMFG), during the month of March was decisive in her daughter’s death.
“They put her in another treatment called thymoglobulin, it was a second treatment, they applied it, but since my daughter didn’t have enough defenses, she got very weak, and after two weeks she got stomach sick and passed away,” Mariana’s mother added.
However, her conclusions contrast with the opinion of Luis Juárez, head of the HIMFG Department of Hematoncology. “Attributing Mariana’s death to the lack of a medication is something that cannot be proven, the mortality we see in children with cancer at present time, is in most cases related to infectious processes and not properly to the disease. ”
That was the doctor’s answer when questioned about Mariana’s case on August 27.
The shortage of medicines, specifically that of methotrexate in this and other hospitals where children with cancer are treated, resulted in the demonstation of August 26 at the terminal 1 of the Mexico City International Airport.
Filgrastim was the medication that Mariana stopped receiving to treat her aplastic anemia, a preleukemic syndrome. “That medication was vital, because it stimulates the defenses, my daughter’s defenses did not work normally, so she had to be injected with that substance two to three times a week,” Judith explained in an exclusive interview with news outlet Imagen.
The battle of Mariana
Mariana was the third of six children of a Mexico City single mother, she was seven years old and even with her condition she went with her mother to the demonstrations on the month of March, when parents protested the lack of purinethol, vincristine, temozolamid and filgrastim in several hospitals where children with cancer are treated.
This gesture of the little girl in her fight against cancer was not forgotten by the parents who confronted Pedro Flores, head of the Administration and Finance Unit of the Ministry of Health, who was sent to dialogue with protesters on Monday’s act at the Mexico City airport.
“They told us that it was not going to happen again, and it happened for the second time, how many more children have to die due to lack of medication? ”, asked Omar Hernández, one of the protesting parents to the Health official who failed to give any answer and just kept silent.
“Marianita fought cancer bravely, she wanted to go to the demonstration because she knew this was important for her and for other children, so I feel that this protest has to continue until the government pays attention to us and realizes that there are children fighting for their lives,” Judith concluded.
The Yucatan Times Newsroom with information from Excelsior
