Maria’s story
When Maria got laid off in 2004 from her job of 15 years, she found herself without a steady income or health insurance. A mother of three and grandmother of two, she had worked since she was nine and earned her bachelor’s degree in sociology just as she entered retirement age. Now, she was forced to take occasional temporary jobs, live off food stamps, and suffer through her medical conditions.
With chronic health issues, pressures of unemployment and no coverage, her health deteriorated. She struggled with back and knee problems, a legacy of long years of migrant farm work. She suffered from diabetes. Having undergone a triple bypass surgery in 1994, Maria’s heart problems were the most serious worry.
As a result of rationing her pills because she couldn’t afford new prescriptions, her heart got worse. She had angina attacks every day. “I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t sweep my house without fainting,” she said. “I felt like, ‘One of these days, I’m just going to keel over.’ You don’t know how badly you need help until you’re all alone and screaming inside, in the darkness, for help. I couldn’t do for myself things we take for granted, like going to the bathroom or shower. And I had nowhere to go.”
She faced difficult choices. “I was the first one in my whole family to buy a house, to go to college, to have children who all graduated from high school. To think I was going to lose my house just to pay for medical bills was a terrible thought.”
It took several months for Maria to be admitted to the Rosewood Clinic, where she got all the medication she needed for her heart condition and other conditions. “It was a godsend,” she said. She still needed an angiogram, but there were no slots available.
Dr. Allison Mitchell referred her to Project Access. About three months later, she was called to fill out an application. Two weeks later, she underwent an angiogram and, based on the result, an angioplasty. Of what happened after, Maria said, “I had not felt that good in a long time. After the procedure, I felt like I had an extra lung. I could breathe better. I felt as if I’d been reborn. I can sweep my house now. I take walks. I will be indebted to Project Access for the rest of my life.”
Requesting and getting help affected Maria as well. “When you grow up working hard and not asking for anything, asking for help is a very humiliating experience. You let strangers from different organizations into your life, you’re under the eye of those agencies. It feels like you’re a child, like there’s someone watching you all the time. You feel guilty when you come home with an emergency food basket. You feel like you did something wrong.”
At Worksystems Inc. she helped Latinos train and get jobs in professions like welding or health care. There, and at other jobs, she’d done a lot of community outreach work with migrant farm workers. “I was very fortunate to have a family, and to have found the resources available,” Maria said. “But I worry about other people who don’t have access to services, because they can’t afford them or are ineligible. If you don’t have insurance or job to pay for care, how do you find out about services and access them? In a lot of ways, I was lucky I came across Rosewood Clinic and Project Access.”
(March 2009)
Photo credit: Andie Petkus Photography
