KOCHI: Leaving many Kochites in tears, 11-year-old Sneha Paul,who was undergoing treatment for kidney and liver failure, died here on Saturday.
Sneha, the eldest daughter of K G Paul and Reema Paul of Kumbalangi, was suffering from kidney failure from the age of three. There was almost a social movement here to extend financial aid for her treatment.
A Class VI student of St Peter’s High School, Sneha breathed her last at the Amritha Hospital in the early hours of Saturday, following a renal failure. She had shown signs of recovery after a liver transplantation surgery held on November 6. On Saturday, she was supposed to undergo a surgery for kidney transplantation.
The teachers and students of all schools and colleges in Kumbalangi, and even the private bus operators and auto drivers, were grief-struck to hear the news. The private buses plied on the route later carried hoardings with Sneha’s picture and a caption, which read ‘EE Chiri Mayilla’ (this smile won’t fade). In the evening, her body was kept at the school, where over hundreds of people, including students, teachers and local people, paid their homages.
“She was ‘our daughter’,” said Gloria Joseph, a faculty of St Peter’s school. “On Friday, she was healthy and I had talked to her mother. Later, I came to know that she vomited blood,” she said. Gloria recollected that Sneha’s mother had approached her five months ago seeking financial assistance for providing quality treatment for her daughter.
“With the help of panchayat and other well-wishers, we managed to provide `21 lakh,” she said.
As the news about Sneha spread, there was a flow of funds from different quarters, raising over `50 lakh for her treatment. The owners of Facebook page ‘Smile4Sneha-Lend your hand to Heal Baby Sneha Paul’, which was exclusively created for collecting donations from the public, had on November 15 posted an update on liver transplant surgery and her condition. They also requested the public to help her with a kidney of O+ve blood type. However, ‘Kerala Network of Organ Sharing’ had found a donor.