"He's not heavy, he's our brother!" Nick Columbo and Why We Need California Health Care Reform

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By DeAnn McEwen
R.N., P.H.N.

It's a beautiful morning in Orange County, the surf's up, and it's Spring break for the students at Valencia High School, except one: seventeen year old Nick Colombo. Nick is home in bed, suffering from the devastating and painful complications of his four year battle with Ewing's Sarcoma. He's waiting for a break of a different kind. The break that could help restore his health and save his life.

Nick's trusted doctors at Children's Hospital Los Angeles consulted with experts at the Mid America Sarcoma Institute in Kansas, who determined that Nick would benefit from treatment with the CyberKnife, an advanced and highly specialized form of radiation therapy. Nick's insurance company, Pacificare refused to pay for the treatment: claim denied. They said he didn't need it.

Ricky Colombo, Nick's nineteen year old brother, is a student at Vanguard University. The school makes a lofty claim and anyone who's met Ricky will bear witness to it: "Vanguard prepares students to be world changers." Ricky realized that there was something very wrong in his corner of the world when the insurance company blocked his brother's chance to live and he took action.

The California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee got the call. Ricky had heard a story about how the nurses were able to mobilize support with the family of another teen, Nataline Sarkysian, who was denied a life saving liver transplant by insurance giant Cigna. They reversed their decision hours before she died. Ricky's love for his brother is sacrificial and his determination to fight this kind of injustice is inspiring.

Registered Nurses are duty bound by law to be patient advocates and sometimes that means taking our advocacy outside the walls of the hospitals to the front door of an insurance company. That's where we met Ricky, at the front door of Pacificare, (now owned by United Health), in Cypress.

Nearly one hundred of Nick's classmates gave up a day at the beach to join us and carry picket signs in a show of solidarity and collective advocacy power. "Health care for Nick, Health care for all," was the phrase we chanted. The altruism and resolve of those young students is inspiring. If it could happen to Nick, it could happen to anybody; and this is a family with "insurance."