‘Baby Jane thanked everyone’: sacked Filipino domestic worker dies despite beating cancer, as Hong Kong friend vows to fight her legal case
- Baby Jane Allas, who was fired in 2019 in Hong Kong after being diagnosed with cervical cancer, has died at age 40, leaving behind five children
- Hong Kong resident Jessica Cutrera will pursue Allas’ discrimination case against her former employer
Her younger sister Mary Ann Allas told This Week in Asia: “On her last breath, Baby Jane thanked everyone for helping us.”
Baby Jane, a 40-year-old single mother of five, died last weekend in Narra, Palawan, from complications related to a kidney infection. She is survived by her five children aged between eight and 18 years old.
It was an unexpected turn of events for her family, as her cancer had gone into remission after chemotherapy, radiation and finally surgery at Hong Kong’s Gleneagles Hospital. She then returned to Narra in the Philippines, where she was running a small business involving the import and export of textiles.
Jessica Cutrera – a Hong Kong permanent resident who employs Mary Ann, and who housed Baby Jane after she was sacked – raised more than HK$920,000 (US$117,550) through a fundraising campaign to help Allas with her treatments.
She said Baby Jane had been hoping to take another job in Hong Kong once travel restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic were eased.
But it was not to be. Mary Ann said her sister’s health suddenly began deteriorating four months ago.