HEALTH: Workers and angels

This is a letter of appreciation for home health care providers. I am a disabled veteran, and the V.A. provides me with a home health care worker. On Tuesday and Thursday, she helps me bathe, does small house work, and would cook for me if I needed it. Above, and beyond.

I lost my right leg to diabetes, and when I developed an ulcer on my left foot it had to be cared for, and dressed daily. My health care worker, came every day to dress my foot, on her own time, to try to stop the infection. We lost, and I developed Mersa, and was in rehab for six weeks. While I was in rehab, she visited me every day and brought me tacos, burgers and pizza, or else I would have starved to death. The food was so bad that I longed for hospital food.

Since I live alone, and my family lives elsewhere, she took me out for a Thanksgiving dinner on her Thursday. Her pay is $10 an hour. She gets no holiday pay, no vacation pay and no personal days. Her schedule changes periodically. If a client isn’t at home she has to wait 20 minutes, and if they don’t show, she gets no pay. When traveling distances, she gets no travel time.

I am going to lose her because she is moving out of state so she can lead a normal life, and she can have somewhat more than $1.98 at the end of the month. So thank you to her, and all of the other home health care workers, in Coeur d’Alene. A question for Donald: Do you think that Mexicans are going to cross our border to take these jobs?

TERRANCE WOLFERMAN

Coeur d’Alene