I am Matron of Sergeant’s boarding house at Winchester College. Mario, our much-loved, dedicated and hardworking head chef, has recently become a Grandfather for the first time. Mario and his wife Luzon, who also works at Winchester College, are from the Philippines. Sadly due to complications during pregnancy with their daughter, Marla Marie, their little grandson had to be delivered extremely prematurely on January 18th - at only 24 weeks gestation. He weighed just 11 ounces. Margel Mateo is a little fighter and, having come through infections and blood transfusions, he is slowly making progress. His weight is now 1lb 10z and he is just 34cm long. Marla Marie, has also required significant hospital treatment, due to the ongoing post-delivery complications, and has recently had to have an unplanned operation.

There is no NHS in the Philippines and any medicine, treatments or intervention of any kind, have to be paid for in advance. Marla Marie is dependent on Mario and Luzon, who have already used their life's savings, taken a loan, and borrowed from family and friends, but their bills and debts keep mounting. Every day they have to consider what they can pay for in the hospital and what medicines they need to source from elsewhere. Every cost they can control they’ve tried to keep to the bare minimum. With weeks, if not months, of medical costs ahead of them, we wanted to do something to try and help. The debt to date is already at over £14,000. Margel Mateo is still in need of life support and will remain in an incubator for several weeks to come. His original due date was the 15th of April.

The treatment that we in the UK, are blessed to receive completely free of charge, is sadly not the case for Margel Mateo and Marla Marie, As you can imagine this is causing huge financial distress to this lovely family. The burden has become too heavy for them to carry alone, so whatever you can give would be so gratefully received and will give this little baby and his mother the care they need. We would be forever grateful for any donation to help this family.

Thank you.

Claire.