The girl Maria Sofia Araujo Freiria, 12 years old, had to go down 14 floors of stairs, without electricity, last Thursday (11) to arrive at the Children’s Institute, Hospital das Clínicas, in São Paulo. The rush to the hospital had a serious reason. Maria Sofia is a kidney patient, on the transplant waiting list and, for medical reasons, cannot go more than 24 hours without undergoing the dialysis procedure.
The race to the HC was accompanied by his mother, Daylyana Araujo, 42, who was trying to contact Enel to emphasize the need to restore power supply to the apartment where they live, in the Mooca neighborhood. Indeed, on normal days, the young girl can undergo treatment at home, with her mother, while she sleeps.
The power started to go out in the family home between Monday and Tuesday. On Tuesday, the cyclone arrived in São Paulo, bringing intense rain to the city and causing the number of properties without power to skyrocket. On Wednesday, when the phenomenon caused a gale, 25% of the city remained in the dark. Although it started before the greatest chaos in the metropolis, Daylyana’s energy problem had a delay in repair due to the “high demand” for service, an Enel official said, on the phone to Daylyana, in messages also heard by GLOBO.
— Maria Sofia suffers from kidney failure. We spent 50 days hospitalized between August and October. She had surgery and had to have catheters inserted for dialysis. In this case, the procedure can be carried out at home. We received the equipment from the HC, the agreement and returned home with a better quality of life — says the mother. — This is a process that would normally be done at night because the person is connected to the machine for 10 hours. This way you can sleep and complete the procedure in the morning.
Tuesday afternoon there was no light in the apartment. Initially, he was informed that the service would resume that day around 10 p.m., due to the priority that Sofia’s health requires. Which was not done. On Wednesday morning, the mother was asked to send documents relating to the girl’s health. With no response or forecast from Enel regarding the resumption of service at home, however, Sofia had to be taken to the hospital so that she could undergo the dialysis procedure, which was vital for her, in hospital.
— We went to the hospital, we admitted him ourselves. Power was restored yesterday around 4 p.m., but then we couldn’t go out, because we had to wait to be unloaded – he explained. — We went down 14 flights of stairs to get to the hospital. The ideal, in these cases, is to carry out the procedure with the machine that we have here at home, but it weighs 20 kg and it was very difficult to transport it in the dark.
The family’s plan is for dialysis to continue to take place normally at home. To achieve this, they invested in UPS equipment capable of temporarily facilitating service stability. The investment was R$1,200.
— Our priority is their comfort. In addition, turning off the machine once the procedure has started is not easy. Because there is a very high risk of infection. It’s not that simple to switch on and off – he says. — At night she prayed and said: Lord, I know there are many people in need. But just send me the (electric) light and I won’t ask for anything else.
When contacted, Enel did not respond because it took a long time to reconnect service at Daylyana.
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