Help plea as single mum moves family to Perth

A woman who has lived in Geraldton all her life has been forced to relocate to Perth after her 12-year-old daughter became too sick to live away from Perth Children’s Hospital.

Former Rangeway Primary School student Caliese Jones has a condition where urine travels the wrong way through her body and is on the waiting list for a kidney transplant.

The kidney reflux has put her in and out of hospital for roughly 10 years and during Caliese’s latest hospitalisation, doctors decided she would need to receive haemodialysis three days a week, a service not provided by Geraldton Hospital.

Her mother, 32-year-old Meranda Jones, said the experience had been awful.

“She would keep having urinary tract infections, her kidneys would blow up like water balloons and she couldn’t wee, so they needed to put a cut under her belly so she could wee in a bag,” she explained.

“But she had a bad belly infection from that and they needed to take it out or she could have passed away.”

Caliese needs a kidney and is expected to be placed on a waiting list once she meets the dietary requirements needed to perform the surgery.

Ms Jones said despite the family problems, Caliese remains a happy-go-lucky-child who loves sport and dancing.

The single mother of six said she was staying at Ronald McDonald house with three of her children while waiting for the Housing Authority to transfer her to a metropolitan home.

She said she planned to bring the rest of her children to Perth and needed help turning the State home provided into a place fit for a family, including getting furniture, $330 colostomy bags for her daughter, as well as a car.

“All of our family are up in Geraldton, we don’t have a lot of support down here.”

Contact Meranda Jones on Facebook for information on the family’s fundraising website.