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©2005
Consejo de Latinos Unidos |
Hospital discharges uninsured mom with bullet in her eye
By Kathleen Chapman
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 06, 2006
Ruby Cintṛn was watching New Year's Eve fireworks from her back porch when she
suddenly screamed and fell backward.
A stray bullet fired during the midnight celebration had gone into her eye. The
young mother's first worry was her two small children, relatives said, afraid
that they also had been hit.
But soon, she had new worries. The Cintṛns both work but do not have health
insurance to pay for the surgery she needed to repair her eye.
Three days after the 26-year-old was admitted to Orlando Regional Medical
Center, her husband, Domingo, said, a hospital employee asked how they planned
to pay for her care.
Cintṛn was discharged Tuesday, with the bullet still in her head.
A reporter for the Spanish-language newspaper El Nuevo Dia Orlando told
Cintṛn's story to Consejo de Latinos Unidos, a national nonprofit organization
that helps the uninsured. Executive Director K.B. Forbes said his organization
got her admitted to St. Mary's Medical Center in West Palm Beach, where she will
undergo surgery.
Domingo Cintṛn says that his wife was crying from the pain when Orlando
Regional Medical Center decided to discharge her. He says the discharge order
came minutes after he admitted he could not pay for treatment, and his wife was
not even given time to change her clothes.
Christine Martinez, a spokeswoman for the medical center, said hospital workers
helped Cintṛn apply for Medicaid and referred her to a surgical specialist who
could help her.
The hospital discharged Cintṛn with the bullet still in her eye because a
doctor there thought he might do more damage by trying to remove it, Martinez
said. Surgeries to rebuild the eye are complex and almost always done by
specialists at their own offices, she said. "In no way do we ever turn patients
out for payment status," she said.
Forbes said his agency will pay for Cintṛn's treatment if she doesn't qualify
for Medicaid or receive other aid.
The Cintṛns both work up to 12 hours a day in a photo kiosk they own in a mall,
Domingo said. But they make just over $30,000 a year, barely enough to pay for
two children and the mortgage on their house in Orlando.
Domingo Cintṛn said he has a preexisting medical condition, which raised the
cost of insuring the family to $800 a month. That, he said, was way out of their
reach.
Domingo is a U.S. citizen from Puerto Rico, and Ruby immigrated from Ecuador.
They married three years ago, and Ruby is in the process of becoming a citizen,
he said.
Thursday, after days without rest, he visited his wife again. He worried about
telling Ruby she will lose her eye. And he worried they will lose the home they
worked so hard to buy.
Consejo de Latinos Unidos
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Indiana Street
East Los Angeles, CA 90023
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