RIYADH: A 58-year-old Filipino worker was hospitalized here in an unconscious state after he suffered from a stroke on the left side of his body.

Fellow OFWs said Wilfredo Castro, a native of Dinalupihan in Bataan, was brought to a local hospital in the capital on Feb. 22 and was not admitted on that day because his residency permit (iqama) had expired.

With the help of Filipino nurses, Castro is being kept alive at the emergency room of that hospital while waiting for his employer.

Castro is an air-condition technician who has been working in the country for almost 20 years and was planning to leave in October last year, according to Geraldon Arino, a fellow Filipino based in Riyadh.

A nurse posted Castro’s photo on Facebook on Feb. 24 asking fellow Filipinos for help as his sponsor failed to appear. They also sought the possible assistance of the Philippine Embassy for Castro.

“To all my countrymen, especially those who are here in Riyadh, we are bringing your attention the plight of Castro for possible help,” Karla Matienzo-Madtahir, a Filipino, said on her Facebook account. “We are trying to contact his employer for the last two days, but nobody has come to see him in the hospital,” she said.

The post was shared by 5,369 Facebook users including Gerardo Arino, who said that Castro is still in the emergency room and could not be admitted with his expired iqama.