By Carolyn Cole
Published on January 31, 2008

A dozen Oklahomans struggling to find health care call Mustang-area resident Reggie Cervantes-Miller each week, hoping she can help them.

Like her, many of them have lost a job because they are too sick to work, which cuts off their health insurance coverage and puts their ability to pay for necessary treatments and their lives in jeopardy.

“It’s demoralizing to me because there is nothing I can do,” she said.

Cervantes-Miller traveled to Cuba last March with seven other World Trade Center rescue workers with filmmaker Michael Moore, who was making a documentary on the U.S. health care system, “Sicko,” which was released last summer. Cervantes-Miller will host a screening of the film at 6:30 p.m. Friday at the Mustang Mandarin Buffet at 1200 N. Mustang Road, in conjunction with the Canadian County Democrats.

Now the president of the Oklahoma chapter of American Patients for Universal Health Care, Cervantes-Miller said she hopes the event will spark debate about the problems within her community.

“We are one of the technologically advanced countries in the world but only if you can afford it, then, it can save your life,” she said.

Seven years ago, Cervantes-Miller was on the second team of rescue workers sent to the World Trade Center towers on Sept. 11, 2001. It was her ninth year working as a volunteer emergency medical technician, and she worked triage near ground zero for three and a half days, caring for people who had come out of the towers and firefighters as they helped others pull close friends from the rubble.

By her fourth day at the World Trade Center, Cervantes-Miller said she was too sick to work. She had worn a thin dust mask for protection, which quickly became clogged with soot and ash. Rescue workers breathed and swallowed toxic fumes, including mercury from lighting and coated glass, silicon from office computers and equipment, asbestos and gypsum from Sheetrock.

“You couldn’t smell anything after being there five minutes, because the air was so thick and corrosive,” Cervantes-Miller said. “They say it’s akin to inhaling Drano, if you could, as a vapor. We just didn’t know, we didn’t know enough about the scene. We had no information.”

Her nose, throat and lungs were burned, but when she first started having trouble breathing, Cervantes-Miller didn’t have health insurance and tried to ignore her symptoms, but soon severe asthma attacks left her gasping for air.

Eventually she was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis, or scarring of the lungs. As the tissues become thicker, they lose their ability to transfer oxygen into the bloodstream. The Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation reports there is no cure, but some patients could receive a lung transplant. The foundation also reports most patients die within six years of their diagnosis.

As Cervantes-Miller struggled to find treatment, she became too sick to work and eventually qualified for Social Security disability and later Medicare. It was still a fight to find a doctor who would treat her, since Medicare still requires the patient to pay for 20 percent of treatment costs, which she couldn’t afford. On a whim, she answered a request from Michael Moore’s production office, which she received through her contact with other WTC survivor groups.

Then Moore asked her to meet with him in his Manhattan office. She made the stop after a doctor’s visit at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City.

Cervantes-Miller said she trusted Moore when he asked her to board a boat bound for Cuba to get medical treatment with other rescue workers. She said she would go anywhere to receive the medical care she needs to survive.

“He took the time to get to know each one of us, and he took the time to talk to us as people,” she said. “He is enraged, he’s just totally enraged.”

While in Cuba, Cervantes-Miller said she saw nine specialist physicians at no charge. She also received several 5-cent inhalers for medications she pays between $80 and $200 each at home.

“I spend more on drugs than on my mortgage,” she said.
Since “Sicko” was released, Cervantes-Miller said she’s had more trouble trying to find a doctor who would treat her and relies on emergency room care when she’s unable to breathe. On Monday, she went to the first in a series of doctors’ appointments and tests at the National Jewish Medical and Research Center in Denver. While receiving treatment, Cervantes-Miller is staying with a family who was also featured in “Sicko.” The couple lost their home and moved into their daughter’s basement as they faced mounting medical bills.

However, the limelight has brought patients struggling to get medical care out of the woodwork, Cervantes-Miller said. Hundreds of people have called her, begging her to call Moore and help them get care.

Their stories are all heartbreaking, she said, including a family who is begging their community to help pay for a treatment that could save their sick child’s life and employees facing life-threatening conditions who are struggling to work even as they take dehabilitating treatments because they are worried about losing their jobs and insurance coverage.

A local doctor fighting cancer told her he was too sick to work and lost his practice, and now he can’t get medical attention. She said he’s afraid to speak out because if he survives the cancer, taking a stand against health insurance companies could jeopardize his ability to get another job.

“I care that other people are not getting the treatment they need, and I care that people are going to die without needing to,” she said. “I see it happening to me, and I don’t want anyone else to feel this awful.”
When Cervantes-Miller started struggling to find health care, she said she felt alone. “Sicko” has taught her she is one among thousands of uninsured Americans, and most others are one catastrophic accident or diagnosis away from sharing their situation. She said she urges those who call her to contact their state and federal legislators and urge them to take action.

“We need to do better,” she said. “If you remove profit out of the equation you can insure everybody in the country.”