Help Shalini

Many of you will know Shalini Fernandes who is one of our senior nurses in Rheumatology at the Bristol Royal Infirmary. Shalini has worked in Bristol, at the BRI, for the last few years. She lives in Bristol with her daughter Liesel who is at school in Bristol.

Last week Shalini received some devastating news, completely out of the blue, regarding her son Levin who lives and studies in India. Levin had become very unwell and was rushed to hospital. After investigations it was found that he had an Intracranial haemorrhage (bleed on the brain), he was critically unwell and required surgery to reduce the pressure on his brain and them remove a clot that had formed. He was diagnosed as having an AVM, which is a malformation of arteries and veins in the brain that can then rupture and haemorrhage. This condition often has no symptoms before a bleed occurs and this was the case for Levin who was previously a bright, fit and healthy 21-year-old.

Levin is in his final year at university studying compute science engineering in Mangalore. He loves developing games and websites, watching movies, listening to music and spending time with friends and family – just like very many other 21 year olds and had his whole life ahead of him. He was planning to work as a software engineer after university.

Levin has spent the last week in ITU and even now the full extent of the impact this bleed has had is unknown. He has made some encouraging signs, sometimes seeming to understand what is happening but he currently remains very unwell. What we do know is that this will be a very long road for Levin and his family and he will require ongoing support and rehabilitation for many months to come.

On top of all of this Levin has limited medical insurance and even now the insurance company are trying to deny he is covered, even though that would only cover a few days of his current care and treatment. There is no national health service in India and so Shalini and her family are having to thousands of pounds every week to support Levin. Shalini needs to remain with Levin and so is currently also unable to work, another financial concern.

We are hoping to raise as much as possible towards Levin's medical care, no one knows to what extent this will be required at the moment but we know this will be a significant sum of money.

Please help as much as you can, share this with those that know and have worked with Shalini and her friends in the Bristol community. We cannot change what has happened to Levin, nor the effect this is having on Shalini and her family but we can try and do as much as possible to show her our support and help in some small way towards Levin’s medical costs and ongoing treatment.

Let’s show Shalini how much we care.

Thank you