Mantas Lavrenovas is a Lithuanian citizen. He turned four on September 25. The boy has congenital rhabdomyosarcoma of the urinary bladder. It is an extremely malignant tumor, and Lithuainian doctors failed to help Mantas. Finally they said that they could not treat him any more and advised the family to go to Moscow. However, they provided no documents confirming the necessity of treatment abroad, and it proved impossible to receive at least partial financial help from the Lithuanian authorities. There was no time to go through all the bureaucratic procedures: the boy's condition was very grave, and an immediate operation was required. Aushra, the kid's mother, risked and took him to Moscow.
Doctors of the Oncology Department of the RCCH have been trying to save the boy's life for seven months. Surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, then chemotherapy again. It seemed that the worst was over. There was no relapse of the tumor, and the family were planning to go home in autumn. But suddenly multiple metastases were observed in the lungs at the end of this summer. The situation seemed hopeless, but the doctors decided to fight. New and very severe radiation therapy greatly reduced the metastases, and then intense chemotherapy also contributed to the positive result. Now an operation should take place as planned. Should, yes...
But one day at the Department of Oncology for any non-Russian citizen costs 5000 roubles ($175). The sum raised by the boy's relatives was sufficient only to pay for several days of medical examinations right after their arrival. And other people, a lot of kind people from Russia, paid for all seven months of treatment. They learned about Mantas through the Internet, newspapers, and, above all, through the Vremechko TV program. In spring, Mantas' story on TV brought $15,000, and $13,000 more was raised via the Internet. The final sum was sufficient for treatment up to September 1. In September, when it became clear that the treatment must go on, the same TV program showed Mantas' story twice, but this time the public reaction was no longer so enthusiastic. Now there is money only up to October 11. Chemotherapy is not yet over, and an operation is planned. The boy has spent several days in the intensive care unit because of an intestinal complication, and only now his condition has more or less stabilized. But, in less than a week, Mantas will have to leave the hospital and to go back to Lithuania. Where the doctors refused to treat him.

When a child dies because contemporary medicine cannot help him or her, it is an inevitable tragedy that we have to put up with. When a child dies because there isn't enough money for the treatment, it is a moral disaster for the whole society, for everybody who puts up with it.

Mantas and his family are Roman Catholics. We would be whole-heartedly grateful if you could urgently distribute this information among Roman Catholic and other Christian communities that may be willing to help this little boy.

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