Getting out of bed and going about daily tasks is a major undertaking for 62-year-old Lisa S. of Kansas City, Mo. She suffers from chronic back pain, high blood pressure, diabetes and her COPD requires her to be on full-time oxygen. She also must sleep connected to a BiPAP machine. It prevents her blood from filling with carbon. Without it—she could end up in the hospital or die.
“But I’m here! And God is blessing me to be here,” Lisa declared.
She gets by on a meager disability check each month and is hoping to find a part-time job to offset living and healthcare costs.
Because of her limited means, she was put on a budget billing system with her utility provider, Evergy. Initially, it kept her electric bill at $140 a month, then it increased to $170. But a couple of months, she fell short and didn’t pay the bill on time.
“So they took me off the budget billing program. So that jacks you back up to whatever the normal prices are,” Lisa said. “And they started charging me all the back stuff, too. So right now they’re saying my light bill was up to more than $1,000. I could not afford to pay that.”
She reached out to United Way Impact 100 partner The Salvation Army of Western Missouri & Kansas, which offered to help her chip away at what she owed.
But because she needs power to keep her medical devices on, she was worried Evergy might disconnect her electricity and called them—desperate for help. They connected her to United Way’s Critical Medical Needs program. In partnership with Evergy and Spire, the program provides direct utility relief to individuals facing a critical health issue, which could become worse without utility access.
For Lisa, the consequences of not having her oxygen and BiPAP—especially in warmer weather—are dire.
“It’s like being a fish out of water—you just can’t breathe,” Lisa said.
Luckily, the Critical Medical Needs program was able to provide much needed support to keep Lisa’s lights on and her power connected, clearing the $1,000 she owed. To date, the program has provided more than $627,000 in assistance to 630 unique clients.
“It means the world to me, that somebody cares what I’m going through,” she said through tears. “I really couldn’t afford to pay it myself or it would’ve been paid. It meant so very much—God sent someone to help me in this time of need. It let me have a calmness that I didn’t have to be stressed out about it.”
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