Table 2.
Emotional and financial stress of lacking health insurance | Fear of exposing one's immigration status to a health care institution |
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Every year my sister [who is undocumented] used to get these huge fevers!…I remember one of the nights that my sister got very ill. She got admitted to the hospital and I remember seeing her while she slept, all sweating…I remember asking myself “What is going to happen to my sister?”…[After that] my sister could never go to the bi-monthly physicals [because of her lack of insurance]…[the doctors] detected a tumor in her brain and they has to do a surgery and because she can't get insurance it would cost us $10,000…My sister had to go to get financial help like five times to try to get a payment plan…it really sucks to see my sister in surgery and be thinking [about]how we are going to pay for it (America, 19 years old). | Once someone gets health insurance it's another whole world when you go to the doctor because I think my parents didn't take us to like the dentist or the doctor because we didn't have health insurance and my parents didn't speak English. So they couldn't…like there were things to help us out but my parents just didn't know how to ask for them since they didn't know the language…Growing up we never seeked any help like that and also my parents were really afraid of asking for help because “la migra” (ICE) was going to get us (Nadine, 31 years old). |
I have never requested or been able to [access community resources and hospitals]. I mean the only times has been like…hum… going to the doctors to “La Familia” [Clinic] because of the discount but that's it… if you don't have a social security number or health insurance it's not the same… that's what I have discovered. Once someone gets a health insurance it's another whole world when you go to the doctor because when you don't have a social security number or health insurance they don't do so much for you but once you have a health insurance they would do every single test they can to find whatever you have (Juice, 31). | My mom would avoid any sort of public assistance. The only time I and even my mom would go to the hospital was if it was an emergency[…] most people that are not undocumented, when they feel bad they go to the hospital and they schedule an appointment with a doctor… that was not the case for me and my family… we were just told to rest and have some remedy from my grandma or something like that… but only a few times we had to go to the hospital … we wanted to avoid it as much as possible though[…] in general I would say that as an undocumented person you fear that (Raul, 29 years old). |
Dependence on community health clinics | Seeing hospitals as the last resource |
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I do remember going to the hospital once but it was because I broke my nose…well someone broke my nose…[In the past], I had friends that needed an ambulance and the ambulance actually came for them but that bill was…and friends who were also undocumented actually…and the bill was a $5, 000 bill just for an ambulance. SO, knowing about the bills, [when that person broke my nose], I decided to get up the next say that I went to a local clinic to get and x-ray and MRI, actually. If I was [an]adult, that MRI would have cost me $5,000 plus [the] ambulance that would be $10,000, plus service for re-breaking my nose and putting it back into place was another charge (Juan, 28 years old). |
[My dad] got very ill but it wasn't until they forced him to take a week off so he could rest, then he did it…like people had to force him to take care of himself. Otherwise, he would continue going to work…I think that's true as a community though…we turn to go to the hospital until we are dying or like when we really need to go and we don't know of resources…So, it's like we don't go because we don't know of resources and when we do know we don't go because we don't have money for it (Luz, 19 years old). |
We had access to community clinics so like… the first choice clinics. Yeah I think it was the first place we visited because for school you had to be vaccinated and they wanted to make sure you had the shot record and all that so that was the first place… It was actually one of the first and accessible places that we had because we couldn't go to the hospital because it was really expensive and all that (Tina, 23 years old). | …if we went to the doctor we went to the emergency room. We didn't have like a regular doctor we would go to… and we didn't know of any clinics that would take you if you didn't have a social security number … so, we knew we could go to the ER but I remember at that time my mom would give a… a fake SSN [Social Security Number] but like…. It wasn't until later in New Mexico that I realized we didn't have to have a SSN to get emergency care[…] My brothers had regular doctors…but like my brothers are US citizens! (laughs) But… I don't remember how often we would go, but my mom has suffered from hypertension and like… Cholesterol and things like that… so there was no other option, we would have to go to the ER (Adela, 24 years old). |
The voice of each participant has not been changed and kept in close linguistic interpretation as possible. Noted are the emotional, social, cultural, political, economic, and structural/institutional challenges faced by undocumented immigrant youth and their families.