For­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Laven­tille West, NiLe­ung Hy­po­lite has made a pub­lic ap­peal for help af­ter re­cent­ly be­ing di­ag­nosed with Acute Adult T-cell Leukemia/Lym­phoma (ATL), a rare and ag­gres­sive form of can­cer.

Hy­po­lite said that due to the sud­den di­ag­no­sis, he is un­able to get the funds need­ed to get the treat­ment he needs, which can­not be done here in the Caribbean.

He re­quires bone mar­row trans­plant.

The ap­peal was is­sued on a fund­ing web­site called Fund­meT­nT on June 4, with a goal of $700,000. Just be­fore 3pm Mon­day, the con­tri­bu­tions were at two per cent, amount­ing to $16,139.

The fol­low­ing is the plea list­ed on the site:

“Greet­ings & bless­ings, this is NiLe­ung Hy­po­lite. I live at Mt. Hope, Trinidad & To­ba­go. Many peo­ple may know me for wear­ing dif­fer­ent hats when it comes to giv­ing ser­vice. I have re­cent­ly been di­ag­nosed with Acute Adult T-cell Leukemia/ Lym­phoma (ATL).

My doc­tors have ad­vised that this is a very rare and ag­gres­sive type of can­cer which un­for­tu­nate­ly, can­not be treat­ed in the Caribbean. Both him and his team have sug­gest­ed go­ing to Mi­a­mi for much need­ed ur­gent treat­ment.

My course of treat­ment is that of a Bone mar­row trans­plant (BMT) which is the on­ly per­ma­nent cure to save one’s life. This is a sud­den di­ag­no­sis and fi­nance can be a huge chal­lenge.

I re­al­ly need your sup­port in beat­ing this dread­ed dis­ease.

I am ask­ing kind­ly, please make this pos­si­ble by mak­ing a do­na­tion as fol­lows. If you have Linx or a deb­it card, please do­nate to the ac­count be­low:

NiLe­ung Hy­po­lite

JMMB – Tu­na­puna

Sav­ings – 007 700 015 767

Con­tact – 468-2257

Thank­ing you for your sup­port.

We are aware that some per­sons are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing dif­fi­cul­ty us­ing the link. If you are fac­ing this is­sue, please call the phone num­ber list­ed above.”

Hy­po­lite was elect­ed MP for Laven­tille West in 2007 and was ap­point­ed Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Works & Trans­port.

He was re­elect­ed in the 2010 snap-elec­tion, which the PNM lost, but was re­placed by Fitzger­ald Hinds as the PNM's can­di­date in the 2015 gen­er­al elec­tion.