Isabella (5) from Karlsfeld suffers from an extremely rare lung disease.
Now the family is getting help - from Karlsfeld.
Karlsfeld - Five-year-old Isabella from Karlsfeld became a little celebrity almost exactly two months ago.
After numerous press reports - including in the local newspaper and the major Munich tabloids - the TV stations were soon lining up: There were reports on BR, RTL and Sat1.
But what all the media attention failed to do was to find an intensive care nurse for the seriously ill child, who suffers from an extremely rare lung disease.
At the beginning of the year, Isabella's father had desperately distributed leaflets in front of the clinics in the entire Munich area calling for applications to be made to the desperate family.
But nothing has happened to this day.
The health insurance company persistently refuses to recognize the parents, who look after the daughter who is dependent on an oxygen device in two twelve-hour shifts, as caregivers.
The fund would pay EUR 300,000 a year for intensive care, but this care may only be provided by specially trained staff.
Since these are not available on the market at the moment, “we just have to do it, free of charge”, as father Fritz P. explains.
Since neither he nor his wife Christina can work due to the domestic situation, the family's reserves, which also include their nine-year-old son Kilian, are soon used up.
"The state lets us starve to death with outstretched arms," said the 49-year-old.
He is all the more welcome to the campaign initiated by entrepreneur Elke Dietl, owner of the Osterholzer car dealership in Karlsfeld.
After hearing about the girl's fate through the article in the Dachauer Nachrichten in January, Dietl turned to the family and offered help.
In addition to two car repairs, it turned out that there is actually a proverbial construction site in House P.: Little Isabella, who almost exclusively lives in the family's living room hanging on her devices and machines, needs a playroom.
Dietl then turned to customers and neighbors and immediately found supporters.
In the meantime, she says, the project has “taken on a dynamic” that surprises her - and the P. family simply thinks it is “really great” and “fantastic”.
Isabella can currently only play in the living room, where she can keep her parents in view: If the five-year-old loses her air tube in the heat of the game, she would die.
By converting an adjoining room to the house, including windows from which the parents can keep an eye on their daughter, Isabella has gained privacy and family life a little more peace, as father Fritz P. emphasizes.
However, this conversion is time-consuming, and even if the craftsmen work for free, the materials have to be paid for.
According to Elke Dietl, these include - among other things - insulation materials, two windows, flooring, electrical equipment and heating.
In total, the entrepreneur calculates, the helpers would need 20,000 euros to build a warm, safe environment for the little patient to play.
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In the living room intensive care unit: little Isabella P. with her parents Fritz and Christina.
The five-year-old suffers from the surfactant protein C deficiency syndrome.
© Norbert H Farewell
Together with Christian Lehmann from the company CL Altbausanierung GmbH and Michael Gold from the Engagierte Unternehmergemeinschaft (EUG) Karlsfeld, Dietl has therefore launched a neighborhood aid that collects money for Isabella's playroom.
Building materials could be handed in directly to Christian Lehmann, he answers questions on 01 60/99 60 86 71;
There is also a Paypal account for donations, the details of which Elke Dietl would give on 01 73/5 97 13 72.
The P's have not given up the hope that they will eventually find caregivers for their child.
Isabella will start school next September, at the Karlsfeld Association Primary School.
An institution for the disabled makes no sense, says the father, and his daughter is intellectually developed normally.
In the best case scenario, she would have a companion by then who will make sure that her oxygen devices are working properly.
Applications are still welcome by email to isabella.pro@gmx.de.
STEFANIE ZIPFER