All 50-year old Ruth Hurst-Dun­can wants is $50,000 more to get heart valve re­place­ment surgery.

She is mak­ing an ap­peal to the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) for fur­ther as­sis­tance.

The Scar­bor­ough woman, who suf­fered a bout of rheumat­ic fever as a child, did a sim­i­lar surgery in 2009 and was giv­en a pig's val­ue, but the valve has now col­lapsed.

As a Je­ho­vah's Wit­ness, she must get a blood­less surgery as her re­li­gion does not al­low pro­ce­dures in­volv­ing blood trans­fu­sion.

This means that even though the surgery is avail­able in Trinidad, it can­not be done there as med­ical fa­cil­i­ties on­ly of­fer blood trans­fu­sion surg­eries.

How­ev­er, Cu­ba of­fers the same surgery with­out blood trans­fu­sion for $178,000.

Hurst-Dun­can hasn't worked for years, due to her ill­ness and is get­ting a pub­lic as­sis­tance grant. Still, she raised a lit­tle over $30,000 through do­na­tions and bar-b-que sales.

The THA, through the Di­vi­sion of Health, Well­ness and Fam­i­ly De­vel­op­ment, has promised $104,000.75¢.

Her funds cou­pled with the mon­ey from the THA, fall short of the full amount need­ed for the surgery. The short­fall in funds is ap­prox­i­mate­ly $50,000.

With­out that mon­ey, she has months to live.