Before
my experience here at Crossroads, I always thought going to the doctor was a
normal, annual process that everyone was able to do. I never once considered
that maybe a trip to the doctor’s office would cost someone their meal for the
night, or that going to get medicine for a cold would leave a child in their
house all alone. Before interning here, I never imagined that anyone could
consider anything else more important than their health—without health, how was
anyone to function normally in life? It was silly to me that some people would
skip the doctors because they wanted to work instead, or because they just
couldn’t find the time to go. I was shocked that people just never even considered
going to the doctors because to me, health is something that should be
important to everyone. If you had to skip work or school to go to a doctor’s
appointment, then you should do it because it is important. I was naïve,
however, because I never put myself in the shoes of those who could not merely
skip work, who could not simply get to their appointments, or those who could
not simply afford the appointments. Interning at Crossroad Health Center has
really opened my eyes as to why the doctors isn’t always the biggest priority
in everyone’s mind.
If
a person is living in poverty, having the insurance, money, and transportation
to attend the appointment is extremely difficult to do. There are many times
that I have to call patients to remind them of their appointments the following
day, and end up having to quickly call the doctor’s office and cancel that
appointment because the patient doesn’t have the money to pay for it right now.
There has also been several times that a patient is turned away from a doctor’s
office because of their insurance, even though they may be facing a serious
medical condition. I never understood until now that for some people, making
and attending a doctor’s appointment is not worth the trouble of dealing with
their cold, depression, or aching foot. To call off work might mean calling off
dinner for the rest of the family so they can pay for the appointment they
needed for their liver problems. Until I actually interacted with patients, I
never understood how much is actually going on in their lives to make going to
the doctor obsolete.
There
has also been too many times to count where I have had to cancel appointments
because someone had lost their brother, aunt, mother, father, cousin, uncle, or
child, and was not in the state of mind to attend that appointment. I have
never had to deal with losing someone like that, so I never even consider
losing someone as a factor as to why people could not go to the appointments
made for them. When someone is living in poverty, it is hard to make something like
health a priority when a million other more important things are going on
around them. Work must always come first
because money is essential to surviving in that lifestyle. Without work, there
is no way to pay for anything, thus resulting in more poverty and making it
harder to live a healthy life style. A life in poverty is a domino effect, and
I wish there was some way to implement health without having to take from
everyone’s pocketbook.
Before coming to Crossroads, I never
understood why something so simple to me, was not done by millions of others
who needed it. I didn’t understand that giving up a day to go to a checkup, or
to figure out why your headaches are so bad, was a huge problem to those living
in poverty. Crossroads has opened me up to experiences that I have never faced
before, allowing me to understand why my job there is so essential to the
program. It isn’t easy for everyone to just take off wok and come see a doctor,
nor is it easy to not get help and work in order to put food on the table.
Health in poverty needs to be looked at more seriously and more closely, and
thanks to Crossroads I am now able to do just that.-- Erica Lampert
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