After four desperate days watching 79-year-old Cinderella Williams decline from an aggressive form of blood cancer which remained undetected until she was critically ill, and the shocking discovery that a single machine — the only one of its kind in the island that could have confirmed the disease and telegraph the exact treatment — had been down for two years, her family, determined to save lives in her memory, has launched a GoFundMe campaign to raise the US$200,000 towards the purchase of the equipment.

The Flow Cytometre machine, which also served patients at the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI) operated under the Department of Pathology at the University’s Mona Campus in St Andrew. The critical diagnostic machine used to identify blood disorders became inoperable almost two years ago and has not yet been replaced. Today, blood samples requiring flow cytometry must be sent to Florida for testing. Because shipments are limited to specific days of the week, patients can face critical delays in diagnosis and treatment.

Flow cytometry is a diagnostic tool that helps doctors confirm and monitor leukaemia and lymphoma, determine the stage, and predict how aggressive the cancer might be and decide treatment options. They can also check how well treatments are working or if cancer has returned.