I have two beautiful children, a boy and a baby girl. Gratefully, I have been able to get access to healthcare for them both for prenatal and after care. 

My problem is getting care for myself. And when I do get care, I definitely get treated differently from patients with insurance. I can tell just by the difference in room I get from the rooms I see they get. But there’s more difference in the actual care.

A year ago I got an ingrown toenail. I went to a doctor’s office whereby I was told, “No insurance, no treatment.” Going to an ER doesn’t help either. There, my chances are waiting from 9 to 4 p.m. before seeing anyone and then all they do is give you some meds and send you on your way. So you wanna know how I deal with my foot pain? I wear soft, open sandals with socks. Guess how well that works in the winter time when I have to wear things that really hurt?

I also have hypertension arthritis in my back. Again, same thing! Doctors won’t see me and my alternative is an ER where I get no back brace or access to a chiropractor only meds as I am shown the door. So, again, I deal with the pain.

After my son’s birth I had to have surgery. I was in the hospital for 8 days. At the end, they did a sharp debridement which is checking for infections in and around my surgery. Only they opened me up, not in a surgical setting, but in an in unsterile room. Upon closing me and dressing my incision, their diagnosis was that all was well, and I was sent home.  

Once at home, they sent a nurse one morning to visit and teach me how to change the dressing on my surgical incision. As soon as she took off the dressing that was on me, she could see my insides were black, that infection had set in. This nurse, God Bless her, got on the phone and spent literally all day begging the hospital to readmit me which they finally did. 

By 10 p.m. that night I was again in surgery, and one doctor actually admitted that I should NEVER have been sent home in the first place. 

Funny thing: No one mentioned that there shouldn’t have been an incision made in a non-surgical, unsterile setting.

I’m lucky to be alive. 

When you are a women of color and poor, you quickly learn that the health care you get around here is not the same as people with insurance. 

Why is that?