At 4:30 a.m., Mona Barrow, 80, woke up and then got on a bus from Dunbar to Charleston for a chance to see an eye doctor.
She lives on a tight budget, and her Medicare and Social Security don’t cover the eye care she needs.
“You have all these responsibilities, and work all of your life,” she said. “And you still have to pay big money, just to be covered.”
On a Saturday last month, about 200 health care providers and other volunteers provided free medical, dental and vision care at an all-day event at West Virginia Health Right’s Charleston East End location.
Barrow was one of about 500 patients who showed up at the free clinic, many in the early morning hours. Alongside her waited a janitor without insurance who’s suffered tooth pain for more than a year, and a young woman with Medicaid who needed a cervical exam and vision test.
Over the last decade, the clinic’s patients have tripled to about 45,000, said Angie Settle, CEO and nurse practitioner.
And now, insurance premiums are rising nationwide, Affordable Care Act subsidies are about to expire, and tens of thousands of West Virginians are set to lose Medicaid following passage of the “Big Beautiful Bill.”
“We’re already at capacity,” Settle said, “I don’t know what we’re going to do, because we’re expected to do more with less and just figure it out.”
A government worker until age 75
Barrow said she waited about an hour to be let inside and waited about another hour in a waiting room for them to call for her, the 64th vision appointment on the list.
In the early hours of the morning, organizers passed out wristbands for the 150 dental and 150 vision slots, so that people wouldn’t wait for hours just to be turned away.
Barrow needed to see an eye doctor for her cataracts and eye floaters, and for glasses.
She pays about $370 for a Medicare supplement plan, but the vision care she needs still isn’t covered.
“I’ve worked all my life, since 16 years old,” she said. “You get to the end and you don’t have that, you don’t have vision, and when you’re on Social Security, it is not affordable.”
After working as a teenager at an ice cream shop, she worked as a secretary at the CIA in Washington, D.C.
She got married and raised her sons as she worked more secretarial jobs in city, state and federal government in West Virginia.
She’s very patriotic. But she doesn’t see fixes coming to the health care system in her lifetime.
“Look at our parties,” she said. “Look at this fighting. It’s like we’re fighting another country.”
Four months pregnant, 74th on the list
Four months into a high-risk pregnancy, Sarahi Prince, 37, sat in a waiting room with the 74th appointment to have her eyes examined.
She woke up at 4 a.m. because she lives an hour away. Her husband and two of her kids were waiting in the car because she couldn’t afford child care.
A shift lead at a fast food chain, she’d gone four years without an eye doctor’s appointment because she couldn’t afford it.
She lived in poverty in Mexico. The bathroom walls in her home were tarps. The floor was dirt. But her father kept her fed.
Her mother hadn’t been the same since she suffered brain tumors during pregnancy.
“And when he passed away, there was nobody to care for my mom, nobody to care for us,” she said.
She struggled to pay for private insurance when working a bank job before becoming uninsured.
And despite bleeding throughout her pregnancy, she had to visit multiple doctors and only recently found one to designate her as high risk and send her home from work.
“They have you bouncing around so many different doctors that nobody keeps just one person on top of your chart,” she said. “So by the time I see one, they’re like, ‘let’s see what are we seeing you here for?’”
Too late for glasses but grateful
Kami Graves, 33, was excited but panicked when she found out about the event as she tried to find a ride from St. Albans.
A single mom, she arrived at 8 a.m., not in time for a vision slot, the main reason she came.
“I’ve never had my eyes examined before,” she said.
But she still got in to see a dentist.
While she has Medicaid, she hasn’t been able to set appointments for basic screenings or cleanings.
Despite calling provider after provider, receptionists tell her their waiting lists are too long.
So she hasn’t been able to have her teeth cleaned for years, and she got the 51st appointment for dental.
“I’m excited and thankful for this opportunity,” she said.
Sitting in the waiting room, other patients helped keep an eye on her daughter Naomi Haines, who has autism.
Graves also packed Naomi, 5, a backpack of snacks, anticipating a long wait.
She had to leave work to figure out how to pay for expensive autism therapies and find a specialized child care program.
“I was struggling to pay bills, let alone trying to get her to therapy appointments,” she said.
Finally, she enrolled in college and started a part-time job helping people with autism learn job skills.
“My interest in taking that job was to learn how I would help her when she’s going into the workforce, or how I could start incorporating those types of tasks into her day to prepare her for her future,” she said.
Then, she developed heart conditions, partly triggered by stress, that cause dizziness and fainting.
“I walked into my classroom and hit the floor,” she said. “I’d be in the hospital for days and sometimes weeks at a time.”
Health insurers charge $300 a month for the only medication that works, so a friend has to go to Mexico to get it for $50 for a two-month supply.
She’s nervous to tell potential employers about her conditions.
But now, she said she’ll feel less worried about her smile.
“I feel like it is going to boost my confidence, just to have a fresh clean smile going to interviews.”