Recovery Housing for Heart Transplant Patients!

We are grateful for all support for financially challenged heart transplant patients here in Northern California.  Patients and their families going through heart disease and failure, ultimately leading to transplant give up jobs or take unpaid leave in order to care for themselves or their child or family member.  For families already living on the edge of the poverty line, this unpaid time away from work often leaves the patient and their family in unimaginable debt.  Homes and cars and so much more can be lost in the struggle to regain financial footing after going through a sometimes years long battle to get to and through transplant.  Our new program, Axel's Helping Hand steps in where no one else does to help heart transplant families regain their financial footing  after they get home from the hospital, after substantial time without a paycheck.  Axel's Helping Hand, named after one of our pediatric patients who didn't survive his adventure to and through transplant, not only steps in to help with a past due rent or car payment, utility bill or other essential cost, but also offers to pair the patient or patient's parents with a financial professional to assist in creating strategies to get out of the debt that transplant has brought them to.

One of our families had to come to Northern California from Southern California for their son's heart transplant.  Their son is 15 and has many bumps in the road to recovery necessitating frequent trips back to the hospital for follow up care.  The drive is eight hours and because this family has seven children at home, when mom is at the hospital with one, dad can't work because he must stay home to care for the rest of their family.  The lack of income caused the family to be unable to pay rent on their home and put them at risk of eviction.  Axel's Helping Hand stepped in and paid a month's rent to help them regain their financial footing in the middle of medical crisises.  

This program, in addition to our housing program, provides a well rounded approach to restoring financial stability to families for whom stabilty has been hard to find.  

To support Heartfelt Help Foundation in our efforts to reduce financial toxicity for heart transplant patients and their families in Northern California, visit our website here!

Links:

• Patient Testimonials
• Financial Toxicity Article