Bilqis to fly to Semarang hospital today

The parents of Bilqis Anindya Passa, a 17-month-old baby girl with a deadly liver condition, will fly the baby to Semarang, Central Java, from Jakarta on Wednesday for screening at Karyadi Hospital.

The family left their house in Central Jakarta in the morning to catch a flight from Soekarno-Hatta Airport later in the day.

Citra, a coordinator of a group of residents and activists that have been raising money for Bilqis, said they had prepared an ambulance to meet the baby girl at Semarang's Ahmad Yani Airport and take her to the hospital.

“If the hospital refuses to operate on her, we'll take her to Singapore,” she said.

As of today, the donations sent to the Coins for Bilqis movement account have reached a total of Rp 900 million (US$96,300), she said.

Born in August 2008, Bilqis has had to rely on intensive medical treatment since the first weeks of her life. When she was two weeks old, Bilqis stomach gradually swelled and her skin broke out in a rash.

Bilqis suffers from biliary atresia, a rare liver disease, in which the bile duct between the liver and the small intestine is blocked or absent.

The disease, which affects one in every 10,000-15.000 newborns, can lead to liver failure and death. When she was six weeks old, Bilqis parents took her in for surgery but it was not successful.

Her family said they had spent around Rp 400 million on her treatment and now had no money to pay for a liver transplant.