Hunger Strike for Healthcare Justice

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Date/Time: Monday, 6/18, 4:30 p.m. 
Location: Taylor and Paulina, UIC Medical Center, 4:30 p.m.

For 15 days friends and family of Efego and Lorenzo Arroyo have been on a hunger strike to prevent Chicago hospitals from denying the brothers life-saving liver transplants.  Last week their protests won an important demand: a meeting with the CEO of the University of Illinois at Chicago Medical Center.  The meeting has been scheduled for tomorrow at 5pm.  Please rally in solidarity with a coalition of friends, family, grassroots organizations and the Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe to show the CEO we will not go away until healthcare justice is won. 
 
 
 
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Brothers Lorenzo and Efego Arroyo are dying of a genetic liver disorder entitled primary amyloidosis. The condition leads to organ failure and certain death unless a life-saving liver transplant can be performed. Access to such treament is difficult because the Arroyos are undocumented immigrants. Their other brother, Francisco, has the same terminal illness. He was given a liver transplant simply because he is not undocumented. 


Friends, family and Father Landaverde of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church have been on a hunger strike since June 10th to demand medical treatment for their loved ones. Rush University Medical Center has placed Efego on a waitlist to receive treatment. Lorenzo, who has been seen at University of Illinois at Chicago Medical Center, was informed that he will not be placed on a waitlist. Due to obstacles obtaining health insurance or public aid, Lorenzo's life is at the mercy of the broken, racist health care system. There is no doubt that money exists in the system to treat Lorenzo. Medical institutions are subsidized by tax breaks and funded by federal and state taxes generated by all US residents, documented or not. The annual salaries of hospital CEOs testify to the fact that money is not the issue. UICMC's former CEO made $377, 500 a year. Why must our undocumented loved ones, face untimely death when there is sufficient resources to prevent it? It is a travesty of justice that undocumented immigrants are shown to provide 2.5 percent of organs donated in the US yet they receive less than 1 percent of donated organs to treat their own illnesses according to a study by the Amerian Medical Association. Lorenzo's circumstance illustrates the problem - health care in the US is about profit, not protecting life. 

In response to the demands of those on hunger strike and pressure from protesters, Joe Garcia, the CEO of UICMC has agreed to hold a meeting to discuss Lorenzo's medical care this Monday, 6/18 at 5pm. Our work at UICMC is not over until Lorenzo has a viable liver. The fight for health care and the right to life the Arroyos are waging is all of our fight. We will not stop at a meeting. We do not want only to be heard. We want our loved ones to live. The Arroyo's have a terminal illness, they are dying. They need liver transplants to survive. UIC, can you reject needed medical treatment to your fellow human beings? Can you, who hold the power to provide services, turn away and deny the reality that basic medical costs are so extreme they force people to forfeit their lives? You, UIC, like all of us, know that life is short and precious. Please, do as Rush University Medical Center has done. Grant Lorenzo access to a new liver. 

We invite everyone to stand in solidarity with us, a coalition of friends, family, grass roots organizations and the church of Our Lady of Guadalupe this Monday at 4:30 on the corner of Taylor and Paulina outside of the UICMC CEO 's office. Our presence will assure him that we will not go away until healthcare justice is won. Supported by the Chicago Single Payer Action Network and Occupy El Barrio.