Ximena Nancumil saves Jan. 21 as a special date on her calendar. That day, her father, who was ill with prostate cancer, had not wanted to drink or eat anything, but his face changed with the news that the Chilean Senate had approved the withdrawal of pension funds for terminal patients.

“The day my dad found out he was very deteriorated, he didn’t even had any water, but when he heard the news it was like a balm for him, that day he wanted to eat, and he said that it would help us […], because he was our fundamental pillar before he got sick,” Nancumil told Anadolu Agency.

Although the law will begin to operate until July 1, some patients will be able to access their funds from the month of March.

Ximena hopes that her father can make the retirement before he passes away. “I think it’s difficult, but my father wants to pay debts from the disease, we asked for many loans. When he stopped working there was no more income, I had to stop working to take care of him.”

And when Juan Neyiman Diaz fell ill four years ago, all the income of his family, who live in the southern province of Futrono, was drastically reduced, to the point that his daughter Ximena had to use the savings that she had programmed for her home to face her father’s cancer.

“I’m totally young and I can fight, but my dad isn’t, he’s no longer receiving chemo and he’s in palliative care because the cancer is already very advanced,” she said.

Like Juan, in Chile there are at least 140,000 terminally ill patients. Among those, 40,000 face late-stage cancer, which prompted the Socialist Party deputy, Marcos Ilabaca, to present a law that would allow these patients to make use of their funds of pensions to help pay for their expenses and those of their families in the midst of an economic crisis.

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