Hi my name is Joep.

My kids and I are DEVASTATED by the loss of Mary - who passed last Friday at 23:45

I am starting this Go Fund Me for some of the hospital & funeral expenses (both only partly covered by the insurance) but mostly to help her unemployed kids having a smoother transition into more self- reliance.

Since I returned to Kenya as widower 14 years ago, our beloved nanny Mary helped me raise my baby Jesse (6 months old then) and two toddlers (2 and 4 yr old). Mary was amazing with my kids, skilled at the art of distracting them when needed, and with the right mix of humor, love and strictness, she made herself very much respected by my kids! Plus she made them cakes and clearly loved and cuddle them as if they were her own! {PS. She first shared this care for my kids - and the housekeeping chores - with Agatha and later (since 2018) with Christine.}

The last few months Mary was suffering from persistent coughing and pneumonia/chest pains. She went on sick leave before the summer. And in July she had a small investigative surgery in Kenyatta Hospital; we were then relieved to learn that it was NOT lung cancer (!) but 'only' a persistent, deep bronchitis. ‍♂️ But then.. {I am very mad/angry with} the Medical Doctor who went MIA for several weeks after that (!) without sharing the test results, and without making a plan to treat her! I only found out weeks later, because Mary - sweet as she was - did not want to bother me with it :/

Meanwhile she had been religiously taking the few meds she was given, for her blood pressure and thyroids medicine. But that was just treating part of the symptoms. None of the Doctors who saw her since went the extra mile to actually investigate WHAT infection she had in her lungs. And when we sent her for a second opinion last week - she already had difficulty breathing; She was given oxygen therapy for a collapsed lung, but that Doctor also observed that her liver was a bit enlarged. And yet he sent her home!

Again I learned of this later, and I feel guilty that I had not been on top of it. With my 19 years in Kenya I should know by now that Mary was not empowered enough to question the Doctor..

And so she suffered on.. and after a visit and meal with her best friend on Thursday night, things really turned bad that night. Her daughter Margaret (who lives in he same house) rushed her to Nairobi Hospital by 3am. Again you would think they would do something, but they kept her there for 12 hours in the Emergency room (whereas I thought we were paying for her to be in HCU). We finally had her transferred to West Nairobi Hospital, where they have good nursing and excellent equipment, but the ambulance that was to bring her there ran out of Oxygen (!*#$%) so she had to be resuscitated upon arriving there, and she was put on Dialysis right away. The very able staff there fought to try to keep her alive for 9 hrs, but they started a match they could not win.

She died of scepsis and i think that is really a sign of not having been treated on time, or not in the right manor. I am so angry because I feel this death could have been avoided; Because honestly in Nairobi we have good medical facilities (if you can afford them) and good Doctors! But you need to be really assertive and a go getter to get the care you need!

Mary was a brave woman - who divorced when she was pregnant of twins! She also had a good sense of humor, but could also easily be fooled (in her naivety). She had been in school and completed her A-levels, and with that was more educated than the average housekeeper in Kenya. She knew what she wanted and could be quite stubborn (and so am I ;) but when we travelled - as my kids were very young - we were a good team and we didn't need much words to understand who was doing what.

BTW. I am convinced my late wife in heaven was eagerly awaiting the arrival of Mary‍ to ask her to tell her about her children!

Mary leaves behind 4 children, and several grand children. Two children are working - one is married. But also two children are unemployed :/ Her older daughter Margaret - who took care of Mary these last few months - had just returned from work in the middle east, as she was unwell herself.

So in summary: Mary was the bread winner in a house with two adult children and 3 grandchildren! Please help them not get destitute. I will certainly do my best as well - with help of my colleagues - but this is a large financial burden for us to carry.

This fundraiser is meant primarily to assist this family for the foreseeable future. With my business we will spread the payment of her 'retirement' benefit as much as we can (14-21 months) but it would be nice to cover them 10-12 mths longer [budget KES 345k] - To help them transition into this new reality.

Secondly there is the cost for the funeral (to be held this Friday) of which a small part [75k] is covered by insurance, but it would be good to have 200k more! [Update: The local fund raiser was quite successful so the funeral cost were covered.]

Lastly, only if budget remains, we could really use your help with some of the medical bills we had to advance last week - this is budget I had to borrow from my business.

{NB. Since the experience with our other house help [Christine] last year, I thought we now had a good Medical cover: of up to KES 1m hospital expenses. But he insurance (Jubilee) has shrewdly compartmentalized this into separate budgets :/ and off course they arbitrarily decided that this was all one 'chronical illness' so that overall they would only award 350k for it this year; and much of that budget had gone into the surgery earlier this year. A balance of only 88k remained. }

So last week I advanced 367k and we are only getting [UPDATED:] 42k refunded. [bal of 325k]

Thanks you for your generous contributions towards giving Mary a decent funeral (she will be buried at Langata cemetery) and the aftercare for Mary's nuclear family!