Uninsured mum was left with $136,000 of medical bills
She was an unemployed, single mother with no health insurance when she had not one, but two, babies prematurely.
Faced with more than $100,000 in paediatricians’ bills, she was in serious debt.
The woman, who spoke candidly with The Royal Gazette on the condition she not be named, is one of thousands on the Island without health insurance.
Jennifer Attride-Stirling of the Bermuda Health Council said between five and ten percent of residents risk falling into a similar predicament should they have a major accident and need hospitalisation.<
The Coalition for the Protection of Children deals regularly with 250 families living below the poverty line.
According to chairman Sheelagh Cooper, 80 percent of the women she works with are without health insurance
Childbirth leaves them with medical bills that run into the thousands, she said. Some of the women are threatened with jail and
The single mother who spoke with The Royal Gazette, Ms A, said she couldn’t find work and wasn’t able to afford food and rent, nevermind health insurance.
After the premature birth of her second son she was slapped with a $100,000 bill.
A year later she was pregnant with her third child, a daughter, who was also born three months premature. She was sent a $36,000 bill for that.
Plagued with debt she had no clue how to get rid of, Ms A was both “frustrated” and “depressed”. The pediatrician’s office helped by getting rid of the larger of the two bills.
”The $100,000 bill was wiped out completely,” Ms A said. “They just erased that and let that one go because they knew that would be impossible for me to pay that off.”
”They told me just to worry about the $36,000. At the time I wasn’t working and didn’t have any money to pay on it so that bill ended up going up to [the Bermuda] Credit Association and more [interest] got added on to it.
”Finally I got a job. I have been there for about two years now. I have been paying on it and I brought [the debt] down a pretty good bit, but the type of job [I do] doesn’t make a lot of money. So I do what I can.”
The housekeeper admits there are some challenges that come along with the debt. She is not able to get a phone plan or house in her own name because of her poor credit history.
”It’s such a big deal, it’s going to be there for years,” she said.
The mother-of-three admits she is living from hand to mouth at the moment. After two years, the bill is down to $30,000.
She said: “I know a lot of it has to do with the choices I have made which has brought me here. But there are a lot of other factors that make it hard as well.
”Looking for a job is very hard. I know of a lot of places...because you have children, they don’t want to hire you. They don’t say that, but it means some days you might not be able to come to work because the children may be sick.
"But what they don’t realise is those are the people that need the job the most and would do anything to keep the job.”
Ms A now has health insurance for herself and her kids through her job. She is also taking courses with the hope that furthering her education will help her make more money.
Her three children - two infants of preschool age - are also healthy, happy and doing well, she said.
”They are my heart. Everything is for my children. Just because I am struggling because of the choices I made I am not going to make my children suffer by not being able to have what they need. So I sacrifice. I do.”
She knows there are many others in a similar situation to her own.
”From what I have seen in a lot of cases people may feel like giving up. But when you look at your children you can’t give up, because it’s only going to hurt them more.
”What’s going to happen to them if you give up? You may lose your children and then you are free to do whatever you want really. That sounds good to some people but you have to think about your children - children are the future. To just let it go, I just can’t accept that.”
