RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Of­fi­cers of the So­cial De­vel­op­ment Min­istry have reached out to as­sist Cushe farmer Ramesh Ram­lochan who lost his home in a fire, a day af­ter he cre­mat­ed his wife Cin­tra.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Ram­lochan said a team from the min­istry vis­it­ed his home yes­ter­day and pro­vid­ed forms for him to ap­ply for a grant. Even though the grant is on­ly $15,000, Ram­lochan said this will as­sist in buy­ing some ma­te­ri­als.

Ram­lochan said he al­so went to get doc­u­ments from the Fire De­part­ment to sub­mit with his forms.

“So far vil­lagers and friends have come for­ward with cloth­ing and food to help us but we still need as­sis­tance to get ma­te­ri­als to re­build the house,” Ram­lochan told Guardian Me­dia. He ex­plained that every­thing they owned was de­stroyed.

“We will have to re­place every­thing. We are tak­ing it one day at a time,” he said.

Ram­lochan’s wife Cin­tra, who was a dou­ble am­putee, died last week Fri­day from com­pli­ca­tions as­so­ci­at­ed with di­a­betes. She had been ail­ing for 10 years but on Valen­tine’s Day, the doc­tors at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal am­pu­tat­ed her sec­ond leg.

Her fu­ner­al took place on Sun­day, two days af­ter she died. On Car­ni­val Mon­day when Ram­lochan was head­ing to Mos­qui­to Creek to pick up her ash­es, he got the call that his home was on fire. His neigh­bour James Ce­de­no man­aged to bring Ram­lochan’s 80-year-old fa­ther Deo Ram­lochan out of the burn­ing build­ing. Deo suf­fered smoke in­hala­tion and had to be tak­en for med­ical treat­ment. Even though he was dis­charged, he has been re­ceiv­ing oxy­gen to as­sist with breath­ing. 

Of­fi­cials of T&TEC are ex­pect­ed to pre­pare a re­port about the cause of the fire.

In the mean­time, Ram­lochan is ap­peal­ing to the pub­lic to help him pur­chase build­ing ma­te­ri­als. Ram­lochan works as a gar­den­er and the van he us­es to trans­port goods, was al­so de­stroyed in the fire. Any­one want­i­ng to as­sist Ram­lochan with pur­chas­ing build­ing ma­te­ri­als can call him at 770-7893 or his daugh­ters Ani­ta at 348-6742 and Savi­ta at 357-7135.