|
|
|
Every year Americans give millions of dollars to childhood cancer research and important progress is being made. However, there is another important issue related to childhood cancer that isn’t being addressed. It’s about the financial devastation of a family that has a child with cancer. When they need extra money the most, they actually have less. Households depending on two incomes suffer drastic budget shortfalls when Mom quits her job to care for the sick child. Income is lost along with additional Insurance benefits.
A national study indicates families who have a child with cancer endure a thirty percent increase in household expenses based solely on changes in lifestyle. Long hospital stays require meals away from home, lodging, transportation, increased long distance costs and child care for siblings. Hospital parking alone can cost families from sixty to one hundred dollars per week at Houston hospitals. Medicine not covered by insurance is a continuing drain on the family budget. One mother recently delayed two days in getting an important prescription because she had to borrow most of the eight hundred dollars it cost. The average road map for a child’s cancer treatment is eighteen months. However, many children struggle for up to three years and relapses can cause additional years of expensive treatment. Single parents have the most difficult time, losing all income when they quit work to care for the child. Public assistance helps with medical costs but not with the practical, everyday costs described above. One single father works three jobs to maintain insurance for his son. The little boy, age three, has only the nurses to comfort him. Due to the work demand and driving distance from Galveston, his father is lucky to see him once a week.
How does the Compassion Fund help? |
