Netizens inspired by Ryde driver who works up to 12 hours a day despite chronic kidney failure

An anecdote shared on Facebook last Saturday (May 16) revealed the story of one dauntless private-hire driver who’s soldiering on to make ends meet despite two major setbacks: an ongoing global pandemic and chronic kidney disease. 

Vishal Pendharkar met Ryde driver Andrew during a booked ride that day. During their conversation, Andrew got to know about his passenger’s biomedical background and, with reluctance, shared his life story. 

The biggest revelation — Andrew suffers from kidney failure and receives dialysis treatment three times a week for the last six years. The picture Vishal snapped of the driver showed Andrew’s left forearm bandaged up, no doubt scarred from years of getting needles poked into his skin as part of haemodialysis.

The process involves getting hooked up to a machine to filter the blood of a kidney failure patient to prevent a buildup of wastes and fluid in the body. 

The current circumstances have added an extra layer of difficulty for Andrew, who told Vishal that his income has gone down by 60 per cent due to the Covid-19 outbreak. But bills still have to be paid. The man says that he drives every day for eight to 12 hours just to make ends meet, even though he suffers from bouts of hypotension and headaches. 

[embed]https://www.facebook.com/vishal.pendharkar/posts/10157902112686865[/embed]

Despite it all, Andrew loves being on the road and has been doing so for over 30 years in various jobs that have seen him driving school buses, trucks, vans and cabs. 

“Andrew wants to drive until he is bedridden. Andrew knows that dialysis is not as good as kidneys and one day he will succumb to this illness,” wrote Vishal. 

“Andrew will fight the illness as much as he can. Andrew is not afraid of death but afraid of the hospital bed.” 

Andrew’s story provided some welcome inspiration to netizens (and Ryde itself) who couldn’t help but express deep respect and admiration for the indomitable driver.  

After Andrews story went viral, Ryde has since reached out to AsiaOne to assure that the company has waived his service fees and will not be collecting commission fees from him for the rest of 2020. 

ilyas@asiaone.com