Fund to help children with leukemia seeking donations

The Little Angel Fund, a fund under the Chinese Red Cross Foundation to help children with leukemia, needs 180 million yuan ($29 million) to support the treatment of about 6,000 young leukemia patients, Beijing News reported on Tuesday.

The fund said it has received almost 3,000 applications, and will be receiving another 3,000 over the next few months. It was granted 60 million yuan from the lottery for only 1,960 patients, and needs another 120 million yuan to help all the children.

Many families take their children with leukemia to large hospitals in big cities, such as Beijing, because these hospitals provide better medical services than hospitals in their hometown. However, many provinces provide only a small amount of the insurance premium for treatment sought in other provinces. What's more, some of them have set caps for reimbursing the cost of leukemia treatment.

As a result, these families may need donations to support the huge cost of leukemia treatment.

Wang Ce, a 16-year-old boy with leukemia from Jiamusi, the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, is an example.

Wang's father told Beijing News that the boy received a reimbursement of only 70,000 yuan for treating leukemia in the hometown. The treatment already cost 400,000 yuan.

Wang received 30,000 yuan in donations from the Little Angel Fund.