I am a family doctor in Bar Harbor, Maine, raising funds for one of my patients -- Jacqueline Minto, who needs money to pay for health insurance premiums and health expenses and continue cancer care that was started here, down in Florida.

Jackie is a 55 year old woman, a seasonal worker from Jamaica, working as a housekeeper in a local hotel system, who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and in need of help.

Jackie first came to see me June 29th to address jaundice. Subsequent tests uncovered a tumor at the head of her pancreas that was obstructing drainage of her bile. After several diagnostic tests and procedures, pancreatic cancer was confirmed, she was hospitalized, and had to have several stents placed into her bile and pancreatic ducts. Her gallbladder got inflamed and she had a drain placed from the gallbladder to the outside of her body, that she has to care for and empty regularly.

She was eager to return back to work, so she could maintain her health insurance provided for the workers by the hotel system. She is a housekeeper. She was accommodated for light duty work, had a port placed into her chest for intravenous access and started on chemotherapy. She currently completed four cycles of chemotherapy out of the 12 planned.

She has been working in Bar Harbor in the summers since 2019, while working for a related hotel system in the winters in Florida. However, due to her health condition she is unable to continue working. This means she will lose her health insurance at the end of October, unless she enrolls in a fairly expensive COBRA plan within the next several weeks.

Because she has been here on a work visa, she is not eligible for Medicaid/Mainecare or other social programs.

Going back to Jamaica is not an option, the level of healthcare there is such that going there would mean accepting death, while here, in the US she has a fighting chance.

Jackie has four children, two of them in Jamaica (Mario and Jason), a daughter (Jemeisha) who is in Guyana studying to be a doctor, she has two more years of her medical school to go. Up until recently Jackie has been helping her financially.

She also has a son in Florida (Warren) who is in a nursing school and has one more year to go with his studies, and who works two days per week while studying full time. Jackie’s best chance is to go to Florida and continue with her healthcare there, staying with her son, but she needs money for health insurance, which between the premiums and copays I estimate will be about 15K per year, and money for food, clothes, transportation, though Jackie told me she will be looking to work as soon as she is able.

The treatment will likely last a couple of years. After chemotherapy cycles are completed she will be re-evaluated for resectability (whether or not the tumor shrunk enough to be surgically removed), if tumor does not become resectable she will have radiation therapy, and if resectable–surgery and surveillance.

I obtained Jackie’s permission to make this personal health information public, for her this is literally a matter of life and death.

Oleg Reznik, MD

Bar Harbor Family Medicine, LLC

333 Main St

Bar Harbor, ME 04609