Emirati sponsor’s act of kindness for Ethiopian maid with cancer

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When Hajo Jara Tolu was told she had tongue cancer the Ethiopian’s first concern was not for her health but that she might lose her job as a housemaid.

Instead, kindness and generosity from her Emirati sponsor Shabeeb Al Hajri, 60, has overwhelmed the 38-year-old.

Not only did her sponsor of three years insist that, instead of returning to her home country, Ms Tolu stay in Abu Dhabi and get the best treatment locally, Mr Al Hajri also offered to pay for the estimated Dh150,000 cost of the operation and follow-up care that her health insurance did not cover.

Mr Al Hajri — who described the housemaid as “a member of the family” — also insisted he fund a six-month trip for Ms Tolu to go back to Ethiopia to see her five children and husband once she is well enough. In the meantime he has hired Ms Tolu her own maid to care for her while she recovers from her operation.

“She has been with us for three years — she is like part of the family,” said Mr Al Hajri, a father-of-12 from Al Rahba.

“She is like a mother to the children. After she knows she has cancer, she says ‘I will go to my country to get treated there’. But I said no — because treatment there is not good.

“Every family should be doing this (for their maid) when she is sick. All the family said they will collect the money to pay if the insurance refused to pay for the surgery.”
Doctors at Mafraq Hospital, where Ms Tolu was treated, said Mr Al Hajri not only waited outside the operating theatre during his housemaid’s surgery, but also made daily visits to her bedside in the days after.

Sitting up in her hospital bed ten days after the operation, Ms Tolu is frail but beaming. She smiles profusely when she is asked about the generosity of her sponsor.

“I give thanks to him. He is good. Every day he comes to see me,” she said.

Ms Tolu said her health began to deteriorate three months ago after suffering a mouth infection.

After numerous tests, Ms Tolu was finally told she had tongue cancer.

“When they told me it was cancer I thought I do not want to get into trouble,” she said.

“I requested to go home but my sponsor said ‘no — you get treatment here and get well soon.’”

Dr Muqdad Al Hammadi, a consultant plastic surgeon at Mafraq Hospital, who headed up the team operating on Ms Tolu, said the operation was 100 per cent successful.

It involved a complex, 10-hour procedure to rebuild Ms Tolu’s tongue, which had to be severed in half to completely remove the tumour.

Reconstruction specialists patched up the tongue using tissue from her arm.

Ms Tolu will be discharged from hospital in a week and will undergo radiation therapy. She then faces extensive follow-up care with speech therapists to practice talking and eating with her newly reconstructed tongue.

Had she returned to Africa, Ms Tolu might not have had the specialist care she needed, according to Dr Al Hammadi.

This could have led to the cancer returning and spreading, he said.

Dr Al Hammadi say hospital staff have been struck by the kindness shown by Mr Al Hajri.

“The sponsor — really I don’t want to say I am surprised — but I find it very kind and very nice of him to respect the housemaid as a member of the family,” he said.

“He can easily have said ‘she is sick’ and send her home.

“But I found kindness from him — to keep the patient here, to do surgery here.

“I think there are a lot of people who are kind and nice, but this is the first case I have seen like this.”