RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Two years ago, Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies stu­dent Chloe Ram­nar­ine learned her can­cer had re­turned. What could have been a mo­ment de­fined by fear in­stead be­came the start of a jour­ney that would open new path­ways for can­cer treat­ment for pa­tients across the re­gion.

While many pa­tients tra­di­tion­al­ly trav­el to In­dia for care, Ram­nar­ine helped chart a clos­er route through Latin Amer­i­ca.

Guid­ed by re­silience and a pos­i­tive spir­it, she has since brought hope to dozens of peo­ple bat­tling can­cer—per­son­al­ly reach­ing out, shar­ing ad­vice, and re­mind­ing them they are not alone.

Speak­ing ex­clu­sive­ly to WE, Ram­nar­ine re­called how the pub­lic ral­lied around her, sup­port­ing her when she was at her low­est.

In 2023, af­ter be­ing di­ag­nosed with Hodgkin’s Lym­phoma, a can­cer of the lym­phat­ic sys­tem, which forced her to pause her Com­put­er Sci­ence stud­ies at the UWI, Ram­nar­ine said she ini­tial­ly went in­to re­mis­sion, but in 2024, the can­cer came back.

Af­ter learn­ing she had re­lapsed, Ram­nar­ine said doc­tors ad­vised that spe­cialised treat­ment abroad was her best op­tion. Like many Caribbean pa­tients, the usu­al path­way point­ed east—to In­dia, thou­sands of miles away, in­volv­ing ex­haust­ing trav­el, ex­tend­ed sep­a­ra­tion from fam­i­ly and an in­creased risk of in­fec­tion for im­muno­com­pro­mised pa­tients.

But an­oth­er path emerged when she got in­to con­tact with HOPE Pa­tient Concierge, a for­eign or­gan­i­sa­tion which took an in­ter­est in her case.

“I reached out to the HOPE or­gan­i­sa­tion for guid­ance,” Ram­nar­ine re­called. “Through HOPE, the med­ical team in Colom­bia agreed to re­view my file. While many peo­ple con­sid­er In­dia, Colom­bia was the first to open its doors to me, and it tru­ly felt like the right path ap­pear­ing at ex­act­ly the right time,” she re­called.

That de­ci­sion would change every­thing—not on­ly for her, but for pa­tients who would lat­er fol­low.

She said trav­el­ling over­seas for can­cer treat­ment of­ten comes with over­whelm­ing fears: nav­i­gat­ing a for­eign health­care sys­tem, man­ag­ing fi­nances, se­cur­ing hous­ing and con­fronting the phys­i­cal toll of long-dis­tance trav­el while ill. Ram­nar­ine said while those fears ex­ist­ed, she re­fused to let them lead.

“My fam­i­ly and I de­cid­ed to look at this as an op­por­tu­ni­ty—one to get bet­ter, as well as an un­ex­pect­ed chance to vis­it a new coun­try and learn. By shift­ing our mind­set, we were able to face what lay ahead with cu­rios­i­ty,” she re­called.

Through con­stant prayer and sup­port of fam­i­ly and friends, Ram­nar­ine said she found strength in mo­ments when her body felt weak­est. She al­so found heal­ing in the en­vi­ron­ment cre­at­ed by her med­ical team in Colom­bia.

“I kept my faith alive through con­stant prayer and be­liev­ing that every­thing will work out,” she said. “My fam­i­ly and friends stood by me, hold­ing up my spir­it and keep­ing that flame of hope burn­ing. The doc­tors, nurs­es and staff in Colom­bia cre­at­ed such a safe and pos­i­tive en­vi­ron­ment that it was im­pos­si­ble not to be af­fect­ed by their light. They re­mind­ed me to take it one day at a time.”

There were mo­ments of vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty—times when de­pen­dence on oth­ers felt un­com­fort­able, even em­bar­rass­ing—but those mo­ments were met with com­pas­sion.

“The med­ical staff al­ways went out of their way to help me. Be­cause the doc­tors and nurs­es cel­e­brat­ed every ‘small win’ with such gen­uine warmth, those mo­ments where I felt most ex­posed be­came the mo­ments I felt most sup­port­ed.”

She not­ed that one of the most strik­ing dif­fer­ences was the im­me­di­a­cy of care.

In Colom­bia, spe­cialised med­ica­tions and ad­vanced equip­ment were read­i­ly avail­able.

“In Trinidad, we have amaz­ing, ded­i­cat­ed doc­tors who do their ab­solute best, but they are of­ten fight­ing an up­hill bat­tle with lim­it­ed re­sources,” she said.

Wit­ness­ing that gap re­shaped how Ram­nar­ine un­der­stood re­silience—and pur­pose.

“If you had told me be­fore this that I would go through all of this, I wouldn’t have be­lieved you,” she re­flect­ed. “I’ve learned that re­silience isn’t al­ways a big ex­plo­sion of strength. It’s the way small wins add up over time, even when you can’t see the progress in the mo­ment.”

Ram­nar­ine said it was on­ly af­ter she be­gan in­ter­act­ing with oth­er pa­tients—an­swer­ing ques­tions, shar­ing her ex­pe­ri­ence and of­fer­ing re­as­sur­ance—that she re­alised her jour­ney had be­come some­thing larg­er than her own re­cov­ery.

“It wasn’t some­thing I re­alised at first,” she said. “Hear­ing their sto­ries and see­ing how my ex­pe­ri­ence gave them hope made me re­alise this jour­ney had a pur­pose be­yond my own.”

With­out in­tend­ing to, Ram­nar­ine said she had helped open a new med­ical path­way—one that now of­fers Caribbean pa­tients ac­cess to high-qual­i­ty can­cer care in South Amer­i­ca, clos­er to home and with few­er trav­el-re­lat­ed risks.

“I’ll be hon­est, I didn’t re­alise I was ‘open­ing a bar­ri­er’ while I was in treat­ment,” she said. “I was just a girl de­ter­mined to get bet­ter and come back home. It was on­ly af­ter­wards that I saw the door had been opened for oth­ers. Now I am grate­ful to help re­move the bar­ri­er of the ‘un­known’ so oth­ers don’t have to feel lost.”

She said her sur­vival has now led to some­thing even larg­er.

Ear­li­er this year, Aishell Sanchez, In­ter­na­tion­al Mar­ket­ing and Mar­ket Di­rec­tor at Fun­dación San­ta Fe in Colom­bia, trav­elled to Trinidad to ex­plore long-term part­ner­ships for can­cer care.

“Chloe showed us that Trinidad has many pa­tients, es­pe­cial­ly young ones, and not enough re­sources or spe­cial­ists to man­age all cas­es. We want to work to­geth­er to help.”

Fun­dación San­ta Fe al­ready ac­cepts pa­tients from Cu­raçao, Aru­ba, Ecuador, Pana­ma, the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, St Vin­cent and the Grenadines, but Sanchez said Trinidad and To­ba­go holds a spe­cial place.

“Colom­bia is a great op­tion be­cause our cul­ture is sim­i­lar to yours,” she said. “We have the in­fra­struc­ture, the tech­nol­o­gy, and many spe­cial­ists will­ing to help.”

She hopes that fu­ture agree­ments will al­low more Trinida­di­ans ac­cess to high-com­plex­i­ty treat­ments such as bone mar­row trans­plants—with­out lengthy wait times or over­whelm­ing costs that place ad­di­tion­al strain on fam­i­lies al­ready in cri­sis.

For Ram­nar­ine, ad­vo­ca­cy now comes nat­u­ral­ly. She does not see her­self as a cam­paign­er or spokesper­son—just some­one will­ing to help.

Her moth­er, Thilly­er Nee­ta Ram­nar­ine, said the en­tire fam­i­ly has be­come deeply in­volved in that mis­sion, pro­vid­ing dai­ly care while al­so sup­port­ing oth­er fam­i­lies nav­i­gat­ing sim­i­lar jour­neys.

“I would love to see a wider range of life­sav­ing drugs avail­able in our pub­lic hos­pi­tals,” she said, point­ing to ad­vanced chemother­a­py, im­munother­a­py and greater ac­cess to PET scans. “Every­one de­serves a fair chance at re­cov­ery.”

She said their long-term vi­sion is root­ed in dig­ni­ty and con­nec­tion.

“We want to cre­ate a com­mu­ni­ty where pa­tients can in­ter­act with sur­vivors and tru­ly be seen,” Ram­nar­ine said.

Any­one need­ing as­sis­tance or ad­vice from the Ram­nar­ines can con­tact them at 490-8119.