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| Merle Bonagua, before and after her cancer diagnosis |
A 52-year-old Filipina domestic helper got the shock of her life recently when she was told she had stage 4 ovarian cancer that had already spread to her stomach.
The news came as a further blow to Merle Bonagua, who had
been at wits’ end for months, trying to find out why she had lost so much
weight and suffered constantly from abdominal pain.
Bonagua learned about her illness only on Aug 24, a few days
after she was rescued from her employers’ house in Tseung Kwan O by the founder
and members of an online group called HKOFW, which enlisted the help of the
police.
Before this, she had
appealed online for help to go for a checkup because her employers allegedly
objected to her going to the hospital.
Despite the initial shock from the diagnosis, Bonagua, a single
mother who supports two grandchildren, says she now feels rested.
“Mas maayos na po ang
pakiramdam ko ngayon,” (I feel much better now), Bonagua said from her sick
bed at Tseung Kwan O Hospital
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Two days earlier, the emaciated maid posted on Facebook a
picture of herself sitting on a wheelchair and holding a red backpack on her
lap in the lobby of Queen
Elizabeth Hospital
Bonagua said she was accompanied to the hospital by Welfare
Officer Virsie Tamayao of the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration and
attaché Arnel Deluna of the Consulate’s assistance to nationals section.
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| Bonagua being wheeled by Welof Tamayao in Queen Elizabeth Hospital |
From there she was transported back to TKO Hospital
The maid from Polillo, Quezon, has lost so much weight that she
looks very much older than her age.
She said she lost so much weight because she was given little
food since she joined her employers eight months ago. Previously, she worked
for 17 years for her first employer in Hong Kong .
Bonagua said she began feeling unwell about four months ago.
When she complained about pain in her belly, her female employer from mainland China
The helper said she went to see the doctor on May 9 and was
told that she had gastroenteritis.
When the pain persisted, Bonagua said she asked to go to the
hospital repeatedly, but her female employer always objected saying, “Hospital
Covid, Covid, Covid!”
She said the employer gave her another doctor’s card and a
video on how to go to his clinic. But each time she tried to go, her female
employer allegedly ordered her to do so many tasks that by the time she was finished
doing them, the clinic was already closed.
The male employer reportedly allowed her to go to the doctor
on her Sunday day-off, but the clinic she was meant to go was closed on that
day as a precaution against coronavirus infection.
Bonagua said as days passed, she became more and more
intimidated by the female employer until a friend linked her up with HKOFW,
which ended up rescuing her.
