URGENT HELP NEEDED, PLEASE HELP BY SHARING HER STORY: Local doctors give up on cancer patient, UWI student, 19 y-o KIRBY CAMPBELL...."We have spent close to $3 million already" and now Doctors in JAMAICA can't help. She has $55,000.00 of medication sitting at home. Re-growth of three tumours in her neck...."Basically what my doctor is saying is that I don't have a lot of time so I have to move quickly," Her goal is to go to USA and get treatment.....

By DONNA HUSSEY-WHYTE Sunday Observer Staff reporter husseyd@jamaicaobserver.com  Sunday, June 22, 2014

After being diagnosed with Squamous Cell Carcinoma (SCC) cancer in the neck during November of last year and spending six months in the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI),19-year-old university student Kirby Campbell has been told that she has to seek overseas help as local doctors say that they can no longer treat her.

A distressed Kirby Campbell seeks help to go overseas
for medical treatment as local doctors are unsure of the type
of cancer she has.

"I was told by the hospital that they can no longer treat me for anything at all because they don't know what type of cancer it is," a distressed Campbell told the Jamaica Observer last week.

"So they told me that I should try to go abroad because they don't have the facility out here to treat the type of cancer that they think it is. They are thinking it's sarcoma but as to the type of sarcoma, they don't know.

"They know it's a sarcoma based on the behaviour of the tumour. So I'm here up and down carrying out letters begging for support to go abroad because I found a hospital, MD Anderson in Texas, and just for consultation it is J$3.5 million, and that does not include any treatment.

"Another one, Moffitt Cancer Centre in Florida is for US$5,500. The one for $3.5 million they say that is the best in the world. So now I'm just here going around asking for contribution and support. I found five hospitals, but moneywise those were the two that gave me figures. We are mostly focusing on Moffitt because US$5,500 is better than J$3.5 million just for consultation," she said.

Campbell's story was first highlighted in the Sunday Observer of February 2, 2014, when several people made contributions towards her cause. However, the family said that the money has been exhausted.

"We have been helped by persons all around the world," Campbell's mother Sophia Drummond explained. "But we have exhausted the funds. We have spent close to $3 million already, and right now we owe the University Hospital money because we only paid a part of the doctor's fee. You have one medication for $26,000... one medication! I had to buy two sets of that and one is still at the University Hospital," she stated.

"We have thousands of dollars of medication at home, we also have chemotherapy medication at the hospital that they told us to bring back. We have spent vast amounts of money doing radiation," Drummond said. "We are due to do another set of radiation which is $900,000 but the doctors are contemplating on why start the radiation when that is all we can get," she said.

Kirby Campbell and her mother Sophia Drummond.

"They don't want to compromise what type of radiotherapy the hospital abroad will give me," her daughter interjected. "Basically what my doctor is saying is that I don't have a lot of time so I have to move quickly," she said.

Despite the re-growth of three tumours in her neck, Campbell said that the doctors at UHWI are hesitant in administering more chemotherapy since they have no idea what type of cancer they are dealing with.

"I did the first surgery in the first part of March and then I had to go back in April because it started growing back real fast. There are three more there right now. Two can be seen by the naked eye and one is under the surface. I did a scan and it showed that," Campbell explained. more