December 20, 2007, was the day Nataline Sarkisyan died. It was the day when time stopped for Hilda and Gregor, her mother and father. Nataline was 17 years old. She needed a new liver. She didn't get one.
The news spread far and wide. It was tough to hear and tougher to fathom. A private, for-profit insurance company -- this time CIGNA, but it could easily have been any of them -- decided that Nataline's chances were not good enough to warrant their cash outlay for her new liver. Though her doctors advocated otherwise and an organ for transplant was available, CIGNA decided it was a "no go."
Protests mounted and the press was interested. So CIGNA caved. But, it was too late for Nataline by then -- and they knew it.
So the parents were left with one last huge task for their baby girl -- to fight to make sure no other family ever goes through what they did, or more importantly, what Nataline did.
Here's the protest at CIGNA's headquarters:http://www.youtube.com/...
Last week, close to the one year anniversary of Nataline's death, her parents filed suit against CIGNA. They know a lawsuit cannot bring their daughter back to them. But they do know some other family's daughter is suffering and waiting somewhere today and that CIGNA is weighing their options about another child's life, and because the Sarkisyans will not let it drop, the options CIGNA must now weigh will forever include the possibility of a Nataline-like scenario -- including a mother and father who cannot and will not allow such an injustice to stand.
Today's news on the lawsuit:
http://www.dailynews.com/...
As Christmas draws closer, Hilda tries to make sure her husband and her son, Bedig, see some signs of the holidays and the joy Nataline brought them all during holiday seasons in the past.
But as she wonders what might have been, she mourns the simple moments lost between mother and daughter -- the passing on of family traditions, the shared preparations for holidays and the laughter and light her little girl always showed in her few short years.
And nothing, nothing on this earth, will stop this mother from speaking the truth about Nataline's death. Seeing this family's horror and knwoing that they always carried health insurance and still do, it is even more clear that a single payer -- publicly funded, privately delivered -- healthcare system would stop these sorts of abuses. Never again would an insurance company employee or even a committee of insurance company employees be allowed to decide the fate of a beautiful young woman as they did in Nataline's case. Never again.
Every day the Sarkisyans say they look at Nataline's photos and they still cry. Every day. And they promised her they would fight, so the fight goes on until the day when doctors decide a patient's treatment and insurance companies do not decide to kill any more Natalines.