Clinics

Cornetta McNeil

I will never forget the month of October. That is the month that I was arrested for fighting for my rights as an injured worker. Governor George Pataki sicked his dogs on us because we were telling the truth, the truth about the nightmare at the New York State Workers Compensation Board. I've waited 12 years for my compensation. I went to Albany because I was fighting for my rights and fighting for my life. I told those police officers that I would never give up; they would have to pick me out of that wheelchair and lock me up. And that is exactly what they did.

When I was 43 I left St. Vincent and came to this country to help my mother. I really didn't think I would stay here for very long, but that was more than 30 years ago. When I first got here I cleaned houses and took care of other people's children. Everyone always said what a good job I did, how those children were nicely dressed and taken care of.

I was working as a home attendant for a couple years when I got injured. Sometimes the agency I worked for had very little work. I was on call all the time waiting by the phone, ready to jump and run out of the door. I was chained to that phone. When I got a call the work was never easy. Taking care of sick people is hard work; you have to constantly be on your toes ready to help the patient into the bed, in the bathroom. I was required to do a lot of lifting and moving sick patients. It takes a toll on your body. When I would get home I would be exhausted. Home attendants get very little respect for the work that we do.

In 1991 I was helping a patient and she leaned all her weight on me. My back gave out and the pain shocked me. In that instant I had to use all the strength in my body to lean her on the bed, I couldn't just let her fall onto the ground, but the pain was too much for me to bear. I was sent to the doctor. But after the third or fourth visit the doctor said there was nothing more he could do. When the joints open up, the arthritis sets in and that is what happened in my case.

I had to call the agency and tell them I couldn't work anymore. I had to go on disability and apply for Workers Compensation.

I had to go back to work, I couldn't afford not to. I was helping an elderly lady at the time and I was doing everything for her. My injury continued to get worse. The injury really set in all through my fingers, my wrists and my arms. I was all swollen and in such pain I went into the shower and couldn't even wash my skin. Thank God I didn't have anywhere because I wouldn't have been able to wash it. Everything in the kitchen was falling out of my hands and I couldn't grip anything. I was sent to a rheumatologist and she told me that my bone cartilage had been eaten away. She diagnosed my condition as osteo-arthritis and rheumatoid arthritis, the worst kind. Since then my Workers' Compensation case has been closed and reopened and closed again for 11 years. I have been labeled a criminal without a trial. I don't understand this, I wasn't going and stealing, I was working. The judge has relied on the opinions of the insurance doctors and the so-called "independent" state doctors who have examined me for five minutes rather than my doctors who have treated me for years.

The insurance company has put cameras on me, following me around to make sure I'm not working and telling me I'm not injured. These people can't see what's going on inside our body and they say we aren't injured? People think we are faking.

I have lost my apartment and all my savings. I'm living alone in a basement apartment. I have no family in this country, my mother and sister have passed away, everyone else is still in St. Vincent. I have tried to survive with help from friends but their help is limited. I have lived alone in this nightmare for over a decade. You know what that can do to you? I had to start taking medication for depression along with the countless other medications for the pain. I was thinking about taking my own life. I came to this country for a better life, but I found a country that moves so fast that you forget why you came here. People work so hard here for so little.

I met NMASS when my landlady brought me a flyer. At NMASS I met other injured workers who were going through the same Workers' Compensation system and trying to change it and fight the madness that goes on there. Workers' Comp makes us feel so useless and isolated. Some injured workers take their own lives to stop the pain and end the nightmare, but I cannot do that. I know I did not choose to be injured and it is not my fault. I can never get my health back, but I refuse to accept my life as over.

My landlady says I've changed since I started coming to NMASS and fighting I'm not as confused as I was before Even when I'm in pain I take two buses to get to the meetings. I know I'm fighting for my rights and I can't let Workers Compensation get away with what they are doing. I'm always fighting for my rights and I can't let Workers Compensation get away with what they are doing. I'm always talking to people, telling them about Workers' Compensation, passing out the flyers and saying, "Don't let this happen to you, look at my injury." We have protested outside Workers' Comp and Governor Pataki's office. We will not let them get away with cheating us out of our compensation while they sit with millions of our dollars.