Zhang Yang

    nicolezyyy@163.com

    THE story about a 5-year-old girl with leukemia in Shenzhen has caused a butterfly effect on WeChat and a media firestorm in the city. Over 2 million yuan (US$317,000) in donations has been raised for her, but public opinion took a sharp turn after an outburst of misgivings and conspiracy theories as some details of the fundraising campaign were revealed to the public.

    After some people claimed that Luo Er, father of the girl, Luo Yixiao, has three apartments in Shenzhen and Dongguan, and the whole thing was actually a marketing campaign for a local online financing company, many people voiced concerns about Luo’s integrity and real purpose of the fundraising campaign.

    According to the father, he had bought an apartment in Shenzhen for 200,000 yuan in 2001 and two apartments in Dongguan for 1 million yuan by borrowing 400,000 yuan from banks, and he pays 5,000 yuan in monthly mortgage. However, both of his apartments in Dongguan cannot be traded because he hasn’t obtained the property ownership certificates, according to the Southern Metropolis Daily.

    According to Luo, he has earned 4,000 yuan per month since his magazine closed down early this year, and his wife is a housewife with no income.

    Liu Xiafeng, Luo’s former colleague and founder of an online financing company who helped launch the donation campaign, said in his latest WeChat post that Luo’s family had spent over 200,000 yuan to cover Yixiao’s medical costs and other necessary expenses since she was diagnosed with leukemia in September.

    A press release from Shenzhen Children’s Hospital, where the girl is being treated, yesterday said that Yixiao’s medical bills totaled 204,244 yuan, and that she had been hospitalized three times, but that her medical insurance covered 82 percent of the costs and Luo’s family only needed to pay 36,193 yuan. The statement has been confirmed by the city’s social security bureau.

    But the hospital did not say how much money Yixiao’s future treatment will cost. The girl remains in critical condition.

    Zhong Liyin, head of the city’s civil affairs bureau’s charity department, said in a phone interview yesterday that the bureau has launched an investigation into the fundraising campaign and the result would be made public when the investigation is finished.

    In the past few days, many Shenzheners have reposted stories about Yixiao on WeChat. Yixiao was diagnosed with leukemia at Shenzhen Children’s Hospital in September and transferred to the ICU last week after she got a severe infection.

    The father has been posting stories about his daughter’s fight against leukemia on a WeChat account he had created after his daughter was hospitalized.

    Luo’s friend, Liu Xiafeng, founder of a Shenzhen-based online financing company, posted an article on the company’s official WeChat account Sunday after rearranging several articles written by Luo about his daughter. Liu promised that his company would donate 1 yuan to the girl each time a reader reposted the article on WeChat, while readers could also donate money by sending a money reward to the post, and the donations would go directly to Luo.

    The post made a stir on WeChat and donations reached the 50,000 yuan daily donation limit for a WeChat post within five hours. After midnight when the donation function was available again, donations hit 50,000 yuan again within two hours, leading to the shutdown of the account’s donation function for a week.

    Meanwhile, Luo’s official WeChat account also received 50,000 yuan in donations each day for two consecutive days and the account’s donation function was suspended as well Tuesday before resuming service yesterday.

    “We’ve raised enough money for my daughter. I hope people will stop donating money to me on WeChat or in other ways, said Luo in the latest post on his WeChat account yesterday morning.

    According to a post on Liu’s company’s WeChat account yesterday afternoon, around 2.7 million yuan in donations have been raised for Yixiao, including 2.07 million yuan donated by followers on Luo’s WeChat account, 306,342 yuan donated by Liu’s company based on the number of reposts, 101,110 yuan donated by followers of the company’s WeChat account and some donations made by Luo and Liu’s friends.

    Liu said in the post that they would reserve enough money to cover Yixiao’s medical costs and establish a foundation for leukemia patients with the rest of the money.

    According to the city’s chronic disease control center, there were 651 new leukemia patients in Shenzhen last year and 21 percent of them are children below 15 years old. The center noted that 90 percent of children with leukemia in Shenzhen have lived in apartments that have been decorated or refurbished within half a year.

    In a previous post by Luo, he said one of the possible reasons that caused his daughter’s illness might have been when their apartment was repainted two years ago.

    An obstetrician at Peking University Shenzhen Hospital, who identified himself as Miao but refused to disclose his full name, also transferred over 114,820 yuan to Luo on Tuesday. The money was donated by Miao’s readers and friends after he posted an article about Luo on his official WeChat account.

    “I helped Luo because I saw myself in him. Many middle-class men like us, who are seemingly living a decent life, could be crushed overnight if something like this happened to us,” said Miao in a phone interview with Shenzhen Daily.

    Miao said that he understood why Liu, as a businessman, offered such a solution to Luo instead of just giving him money. “It’s a win-win for both sides because Liu can market his company and Luo can raise enough money for his daughter,” he said.

    Instead of donations, Miao said that he believed what Luo really needed was encouragement and support from the public. “I can imagine that he is going through a really hard time and feeling isolated. He will become more stressed if ill-disposed people keep accusing him,” he said.