Social Security Denies Life-Saving TreatmentsA 42-year-old Newton woman is almost out of medical supplies needed for dialysis. The Social Security benefits she has relied on for two years to pay for the supplies has been cancelled.
Elias Johnson
Reporter
July 31, 2009
VIDEO:
http://www.whotv.com/news/who-story-dialysis-medicare-073009,0,2311076.story?track=rssA 42-year-old Newton woman is almost out of medical supplies needed for dialysis. The Social Security benefits she has relied on for two years to pay for the supplies have been canceled.
Inside Dawn Garner's small, one bedroom house, there's a lot going on.
"We're looking at my daily solutions," Dawn says referring to a bed full of bags and tubes, "These three bags I hook up to my cycler machine."
What may look like a stockpile of medical supplies, is actually about to run out. "It will last about half a week, maybe a week at the most," Garner says.
Garner has had problems with her kidneys since she was a child. Two years ago the situation worsened.
"A doctor told me within five years I'd have be going on dialysis; five years turned into one month later and they put a catheter in," says Garner.
Diagnosed with the end stages of kidney failure, Dawn was forced to give up her position as a certified nurse's assistant.
"I miss working with people; the CNA work. I love it but I can't do it,'' Garner says.
She spends eleven hours each day on a home dialysis machine. The only way to pay for it is by drawing disability benefits through Social Security. This past month she learned the benefits were canceled.
"I get a delivery every two weeks and without my insurance, I can't even pay for it," Garner says.
When asked what would happen if she runs out of supplies, Garner gave a straight answer, "I'll probably end up dying."
According to the Social Security Office in Marshalltown, Dawn's husband received an inheritance when his father passed away in 2007; therefore Dawn was over paid more than $10,000 in benefits.
Dawns says the couple has been separated for over a year and the divorce will be final on September 12th.
"They're saying he received too much money, over the limit I'm allowed to receive and nobody received anything. All I got was what they were giving me every month and that was the only income I lived off of," she says.
"If somebody were to inherit something, if they were to go the work, get a different job, a pay raise it's very possible they could exceed these income limits,'' says John Garlinger with the Social Security Office in Kansas City, "That's why we have people on S.S.I. report directly and one of those things they also report is their living arrangements."
While time ticks away and supplies dwindle, Dawn's friend Judy Rowe is doing all she can to help, "We're down to the wire of day by day and it's not a good feeling. It's not a good feeling at all."
Their last hope is an appeal to Social Security to reconsider.
"At this point to take away everything is the same as signing a death notice and I disagree with that. Everybody has a right to life," Rowe says.
"I'm going to be running out here pretty soon and I don't know how I'm going to do it. It'd be the end and I'm afraid of dying," says Garner.
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