The 7-year-old boy, Raudel Alfonso Garcia, suffers from portal hypertension, a potentially fatal disease that produces high pressure in blood flowing from several organs to the liver. Cuban doctors don't have the facilities to treat him.
Ned Walsh, a retired Baptist chaplain at North Carolina State University, is lobbying the Cuban and American governments to clear the way for the emergency trip.
Walsh learned about Raudel during an August visit to Cuba and enlisted other members of a Baptist congregation to help convince Cuba to let the boy go to North Carolina for surgery.
To speed up the process, the liberal Pullen Memorial Baptist Church asked Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C. – a staunch supporter of the U.S. embargo of Cuba, who opposes efforts to allow the sale of U.S. medicines to the island – to intercede on Raudel's behalf.
The senator asked Secretary of State Madeleine Albright for an emergency humanitarian visa for the boy and his mother. Cuban authorities might meet this week to discuss it, Walsh said.
An unidentified Cuban-American benefactor has told Duke Medical Center that he would cover Raudel's medical expenses, which could reach $750,000, Walsh said in a telephone interview.
Raudel's mother said she is thankful for the efforts being made on her son's behalf.
"I don't know them, but I want them to know we really appreciate all this generosity, all this humanity, that they've shown for the boy," Idalmis Alfonso Garcia said in an interview with Associated Press Television News.
Garcia spoke in her home late Wednesday in the small rural town of Triunvirato, east of Havana. She cradled her son in a rocking chair as she described his worsening condition.
Raudel has had two life-threatening bouts of internal bleeding around the esophagus, the most recent one in September. His two sisters, born with the same condition, died as infants.
Walsh said he hoped authorities would look past politics in the case.
"I'm hoping the Cuban authorities see this as a win-win situation for themselves," Walsh said. "We want to bring the boy here to save his life."
© Copyright 1999 The Associated Press