Sick Mexican immigrants find help at Casa de

Sept. 17--Esperanza Ponce had finished loading her young children into a friend's minivan on a spring morning in 2014 when she suffered a horrifying accident that changed her life forever.

As she walked around the back of the vehicle to climb into the passenger seat, a car speeding through the parking lot crashed into the minivan and severed Ponce's leg above her knee.

Ponce, who is from Mexico and speaks little English, lacked health insurance and a job. Her husband made a modest salary as a house painter.

But Ponce, 45, found help in her recovery from the tiny nonprofit Casa de Mexico, as have dozens of other poor Mexican immigrants in Central Florida every year who find themselves with serious medical conditions or emergencies but lacking the means to pay for proper medical care.

Out of a tiny office provided rent free on the ninth floor of Orlando City Hall, Casa de Mexico raises money and enlists medical volunteers to help these patients.

"Anyone that walks through this door, I guide them as to where they can go for health services -- for whatever they need," said Blanquita Trabold, executive director. "I want to help the most needy. I want to help the ones that have no insurance, the ones that have had an accident, an illness, but they have nowhere to go. These are very, very poor people."

At 8 p.m. today, Casa de Mexico will host its annual Gala of Mexican Independence Concert at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts to raise money for the organization.

The group helped pay for a prosthetic leg and rehabilitation after Trabold saw Ponce's 9-year-old daughter pushing her in a rickety wheelchair at an Orlando event last year.

"God bless her. I cannot say that enough," Ponce said while sitting on a couch in her apartment. "She helped me out very, very much. ... I didn't have any money or know anyone."

Casa de Mexico's work in helping immigrants began in 2002 when Trabold, 77, took over the organization, which primarily had organized civic and community activities to promote the Mexican culture. Today, it helps about 100 people a year pay for their treatment, buy medicine or fly people with terminal cases back to Mexico to be with their family before they die.

Trabold enlisted the help of several area doctors who were friends of her late husband to provide charitable care.

In one case, a woman needed three pills at a cost of $3,600 each to help treat her cancer. Trabold persuaded a doctor to significantly lower the drug price to about $200.

Her organization limits aid to Mexican nationals with serious conditions because it can't afford to help people from other nationalities in an area with a fast-growing Hispanic population. Those who receive help aren't asked about their immigration status.

Casa de Mexico collected $104,219 in contributions in 2014 but shelled out $110,905 in expenses, according to the most recent federal tax documents available. To make up that gap, Trabold -- who collects no salary -- often pitches in her own money.

Trabold's husband, who died about 12 years ago, was an engineer for Martin Marietta in Orlando. A Winter Park resident, she has long been involved in community activities in Central Florida.

Of the state's 18.8 million residents, about 15 percent -- or 2.9 million -- are uninsured, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. So when people, including immigrants, can't pay for medical care, hospitals often pick up the cost.

According to the state Agency for Health Care Administration, Florida hospitals reported nearly $2.2 billion in uncompensated care in fiscal year 2014-15. Florida hospitals reported delivering nearly $1.6 billion in charity care to indigent patients in 2014, according to the Florida Hospital Association.

Charitable organizations such as Casa de Mexico provide an important service, said Tirso Moreno, general coordinator for the Farmworker Association of Florida. He said many immigrants work in agriculture or construction jobs that don't provide medical insurance.

"So the only alternative when they become really sick is the emergency room," he said, heightening the importance of organizations such as Casa de Mexico.

Last year, a 28-year-old Mexican man who worked for an Orlando air- conditioning repair company suffered a stroke, leaving him paralyzed and unable to speak. Trabold directed his family to Florida Hospital, where doctors said they needed to operate on his brain.

"They gave me a discount," Trabold said. "Today, he is working and he is totally recovered."

The man, who didn't want to comment on his condition, now needs an angiogram at a cost of $10,000. Casa de Mexico got the cost reduced to $5,000 and chipped in $1,000, with the family paying the rest, Trabold said.

"For these people, Casa de Mexico is their last hope," Trabold said. "They have nowhere else to go. And this gives me a sense of living...And I love what I do."

mcomas@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5718

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