“I’m very compassionate. I’m a loving mother and it’s the only way I know how to care for my son with paralysis.”
San Benito IHSS provider Norma Gutierrez is 52 years old and takes care of her son, who is 29 and has paralysis. Norma loves caring for her son. She prefers to take care of him, rather than let someone outside her immediate family provide care. She feels like she knows best the kind of care he needs.
How it started for Norma.
Norma’s deep passion and loyalty to her profession came when she needed to be strong and provide the essential care her son needed .
“The job of taking care of someone with disabilities is very difficult. I happily do it because he’s my son. It’s a job that requires lots of patience and to be taking care of someone else, their personality, feeding them — it can all get very challenging. When it’s your own family member–it’s different. You’re constantly on the job. People who do this each day for others need to have a deep passion for this work — it’s definitely not for everyone.”
Norma’s healthcare crisis.
Norma struggled with not having healthcare insurance for over 10 years, despite working full time as a caregiver. Often, when she visited a doctor or clinic, the cost for care would be so high for her that she had to decline getting service. Some time after, most clinics stopped taking in patients who had no health insurance. Ultimately, she gave up trying to get the healthcare she needed and doesn’t bother trying to see a doctor anymore.
Norma lived in Hollister, a city in San Benito County, where IHSS providers have no healthcare benefits. About five years ago, she decided to leave her home and move to Santa Clara, where they offer health benefits to IHSS providers.
“I left my home, my dreams, my community behind because I didn’t have insurance. I dream about returning home.”
Norma owns her house in Holister, but she currently rents it out. She feels sad about having to leave her hometown. She moved solely for healthcare coverage. She says it’s time for change in San Benito and she spoke out at a recent Board of Supervisors meeting. She had to muster up a lot of courage to do that. Then she saw no changes at all. She felt embarrassed and humiliated.
“How can a county not provide health insurance for so long? I’m embarrassed to be going back and forth asking for the same thing!”
Even though she’s living and working in another county now, Norma sometimes fights alongside San Benito SEIU 2015 members for health insurance. But the disrespect from the Supervisors makes Norma feel like she doesn’t want to even try anymore. If her son didn’t need constant care, she wouldn’t consider being a care provider for others due to the unfairness and disrespect the profession currently faces. Norma feels that the care profession needs to be improved to keep current IHSS workers and future professionals on the job as the aging population continues to skyrocket.
“I don’t think our society values the work that we do. The wages are not enough to live on and are less than what we deserve. Many people who look for employment try to get a job to get health insurance and we don’t get that either. ”
Norma’s changes to the system.
“If I could change the caregiving system, I would make sure that IHSS workers receive fair wages and healthcare benefits. We need to make sure that we are valued as other workers. We have been fighting hard in Hollister and I feel they are not paying attention. They keep telling us the funds are not there, but in all these years the county has continued to grow and thrive, while we’re left to struggle.”
The financial burden.
Besides lack of healthcare benefits, financially it’s been a rough road.
“Today’s cost of living is outrageous. Each day feels like groceries and household bills have been getting so expensive to maintain that it scares me. At my current salary, I sometimes don’t make enough for things like house payments and food. Even scraping money together to pay for medicine has been challenging. I have to sometimes make decisions whether to go to the doctor or buy groceries. Right now, my house payments are the most expensive, but if I had stayed in San Benito, I wouldn’t have survived.”
What Norma hopes for the future.
Norma is hoping that the San Benito County Board of Supervisors come together and begin to support IHSS workers currently struggling. Norma hopes that county leaders can help those like her to get back to their home in their hometown and continue to provide the essential care recipients, like her son, need and deserve.
“I want to keep fighting alongside my SEIU 2015 union sisters and brothers. I want to help others. We need to have more people enter this profession to do this work for years to come! We want to make sure that people are able to live with dignity and respect — that’s all we ask!”
