My name is Sarah Messina and I am 81 years old. I became Deaf when I was two years old. I was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio by my parents who were Italian immigrants. We had six children in our family. My father's small income from working in a knife factory was not enough to support us. We lived on welfare for several years. When I was in 10th grade my father passed away and I had to leave school to look for work. I have been through a lot of hardships in my life and have always been afraid I might end up living on the street.
I now live in a mobile home park and receive only Social Security and a small pension income to live on every month. Every year Social Security gives the senior citizens only a small cost of living increase, like less than 2%. This is so difficult for me and many other seniors to live on with food, rent and other bills rising. After I pay my bills each month, I only have a little money left over for food and nothing else. I applied for food stamps before but they told me my income was too high to qualify!!! I can't believe that because I struggle so much every month to make ends meet for my budget.
In September of 2003 I had a bad car accident and three weeks later I had a mini-stroke. Recently, when I started to feel pain in my leg I pushed the button on my "lifeline" machine and the ambulance came to my house right away. I asked the EMS person to call Parma hospital and tell them to get a sign language interpreter for me. When we arrived at the hospital, however, there was no interpreter! A few weeks later, I had to call the ambulance again to go to Parma hospital, but the EMS said they had to take me to a different hospital and I believe this is because Parma Hospital didn't want to get an interpreter for me again.
This is very frustrating, especially because our organization, the Deaf & Deaf-Blind Committee on Human Rights, demanded that Parma hospital improve their services to Deaf people last year (and the agreed to) but again we are having problems getting the interpreters! All Deaf people should have the right to interpreting services, especially at the hospital when it could be a life or death situation!
I feel the situation we are living in today is horrendous. Our government is denying us the right to healthcare, communication, and other basic rights. I believe it is like the "new American slavery" for us suffering with poverty. We all pay taxes to the government and what do they do with the money? They spend it on war and give it to big corporations while they ignore our basic needs! I would like to say to the president of the United States, "All people should have health care" but he just ignores our needs. We need universalhealth care now!
