Pinoy widower loses hope, to return home

MANILA, Philippines - Arnel Cabrera is tired and has lost hope he could ever find justice for his dead wife. Four years after a potent anesthetic was wrongfully administered to his newly-given birth wife, Mayra, Arnel is at the end of his rope in fighting for his family’s right to remain in Britain. On May 13, Arnel would take the flight back to the Philippines to be reunited with his son Zachary who will be turning three on the 17th. The 38-year-old father was quoted in a report as saying that he is giving the Home Office until Tuesday to act on his request to remain in Britain. Since Mayra’s death, Arnel had been fighting deportation because his immigration status was conditional on his wife working in Britain. Upon his return to the Philippines, Arnel would have totally given up on his dream to raise his son in Britain and work there. "I have promised him a holiday on 17 May as a birthday treat which I am not prepared to cancel under any circumstances as I have missed his last three birthdays," Arnel said in a statement. Mayra, 30, died shortly after giving birth to Zachary on May 11 of that year after an epidural, a local anesthetic administered into the lower spine to relieve labor pains, was wrongly injected into her arm during childbirth. She has worked since 2002 as a theater nurse at Great Western Hospital in Swindon, Wiltshire where she died from a heart attack two hours after giving birth to her and first baby. During the inquest last February, hospital midwife Marie To has denied mistakenly feeding an epidural drug Bupivacaine into Mayra's hand via an intravenous drip instead of her spine. To, a midwife for more than 20 years, said she thought the drug was a saline solution or Gelofusine, a blood volume expander to boost blood pressure. The inquest ruled that Mayra was unlawfully killed.- Mark Joseph Ubalde, GMANews.TV