Thread: Chicago becoming promised land for illegal aliens with kidney trouble

Chicago becoming promised land for undocumented immigrants with kidney trouble

Published May 18, 2015 EFE

• 
  GETTY IMAGES

Chicago has become the promised land for undocumented migrants with kidney problems, people who in other states receive no medical care due to their immigration status although here they can get free dialysis and kidney transplants.

Religious and community organizations such as Latinos por la Salud (Latinos for Health) and the Mision de Vida, Fe y Esperanza (Life, Faith and Hope Mission) have received requests for help from people arriving from the neighboring states of Wisconsin and Minnesota, while others have traveled much farther, coming from Georgia, New York, Washington and Texas.

"They're all coming with the hope of saving their lives with a (kidney) transplant," the Rev. Jose Landaverde, whose struggle to help undocumented foreigners receive free treatment in Illinois hospitals has encouraged many of those in need, told Efe.

One of the people who has come to Chicago is Salvadoran immigrant Marta Lidia Moran Rosales, 23, who saw a television report about a hunger strike headed by Landaverde and began to take an interest in the matter.

Single and without any family in New York, where she was receiving dialysis treatment three times a week, she called Chicago hospitals and learned that they were treating people without medical insurance and without having their immigration papers in order.

Marta said that in the clinic where she was treated there were many young people like her - people "without hope" - and so she decided to travel to an unknown city with the help of Salvadorans from her home town, Metapan, who took her in.

The young woman, who has been in dialysis treatment for 15 years, with the help of the Mision de Vida, Fe y Esperanza, which Landaverde heads, managed to get Rush Hospital to take a look at her case and now she is optimistic because two donor possibilities have turned up.

For other sick people, like Jesus, who came from Atlanta, the road to a transplant has been more difficult, but at least they are receiving dialysis.

According to Landaverde, Jesus came to the emergency room at Loyola University Medical Center "on the point of fainting," because he had gone 15 days without having dialysis.

"In the Chicago hospitals, they treat them like emergency cases and then they refer them to organizations that can help them," he said.

At a meeting held on Sunday at a church in suburban Glenwood, Illinois, a group of pastors from various congregations agreed to meet to pray for the sick who need transplants and to demand greater political support and support from hospitals in the state.

The Illinois legislature last October passed a law that provides funds for kidney transplants for undocumented migrants, the first such legislation in the United States.

Landaverde acknowledged that the risk of losing funding exists because of the cutback in the state budget, but he said he is confident that Gov. Bruce Rauner will respect the law and will not go to the extreme of interrupting the healthcare services and "condemning thousands of people to death."

http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/new...idney-surgery/

Hmm, and we wonder why our medical costs are so high. Very few things in life are free and medical care is not normally one of them. Someone is paying, in this case it sounds like the taxpayers of Illinois. Moreover, I wonder where these donated kidneys are coming from?