Update Sept 23, 2020: Megha's treatment has been shifted to CMC Vellore hospital for the bone marrow transplant. Accommodation has been arranged. She will be admitted to the hospital on 28th and expected to be in the hospital for a month. After that another month she will have to meet the doctor every 3 days to assess the progress. Family is leaving to Vellore on 27th and expected to stay there for at least 2 months. Pallium India registration process has been taken care. During the admission time they will get the instructions on how to make the payments directly to the hospital.

Update Sept 18, 2020: With the new test results, Megha needs to go through bone marrow transplant. Luckily her father has been identified as a perfect donor match. Bone marrow process pushes the total cost to Rs 22 - 25 lakhs (~$30,000). Another result is awaited from a lab in Delhi. We will have the new treatment estimate from the doctor once this result is available around Sept 22nd.

Sept 12, 2020: Megha is the youngest daughter of a clerical worker in the sales department of a distributor based in Ernakulam. She showed the symptoms of chronic coughs and on further evaluations, she was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia - a form of blood cancer. For the first phase of the treatments, the estimated expenses are around Rs 10 lakhs (~$15,000). Chemotherapy has been started. Further tests are done, and its likely that she may have to go through bone marrow transplant. If thats required expenses would go up to Rs 25 lakhs (~$35,000). We are trying to help the family with the first phase of the treatment. With the savings family have, and with the local fundraising they have almost around Rs 3 lakhs. Through this fundraiser we are trying to find the remaining Rs 7 lakhs ($10,000).

On top of Megha's case, the fundraiser will also support equipping the Govt hospital in Pathanamthitta with a ventilator and supporting Seattle Children's Hospital.

We are partnering with Dallas based group of friends called "Stand With Kerala" and Seattle based Kerala Association of WA's Charity wing (www.kaow.org/kawcharity.html) to find the necessary funding for all the above projects.

FAQ:

1. What’s the plan to transfer the funds?
For Megha, we will transfer the funds to Pallium India (www.palliumindia.org) and they will distribute the funds either directly to the hospital or reimburse based on the bills. Care & Share has been working with Pallium India for the past 14 years, and have supported many individuals through Pallium India.

2. Why are you sending the funds through Pallium India?
Pallium India supports serious life threatening patients. They have FCRA approval from Indian government to accept foreign funds. This account goes through rigorous auditing by the revenue department on the fund utilization. This gives us added confidence on the usage of the funds we send. We never send funds to individuals as it can't be audited.

3. Who is the point of contact to get the details?
You may contact Ashley Elenjickal 425 273 6021 or Jojo Kottackal 972 904 1857 or anyone with KAW team https://kaow.org/team.html to get more information.

4. Why do Care & Share specifically support this case?
Care & Share’s policy is not to use general funds for the treatment expenses of individuals as we can’t scale to the requests and doesn’t have resources to verify all the details. But we always extend our framework to anyone who are interested to do ad-hoc fundraisers like this. Other requirement is that there should be an organization in India with FCRA approval to accept foreign funds. Thanks to Sreeraj from Mourya Groceries in Seattle for taking genuine interest in this case and making efforts to support Megha. Interest from 'Stand With Kerala' and KAW Charity further anchored this case. We could also get the help of Pallium India to route the funds to hospital.