Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash
“We just lived too long.”
Rita* and her husband were in their 80s when she called Catholic Charities of Southern Minnesota for help. They could no longer afford to pay the high cost of Eliquis, a blood thinner, and the inhalers her doctor said she needed to survive.
“We worked hard all our lives,” Rita told Jan Wieser, Catholic Charities of Southern Minnesota MediAppS Coordinator. “We put all seven of our children through college. We just lived too long. We outlived our retirement.”
Wieser says Rita and her husband’s story is more common than you might think.
“Hearing her story made me angry,” Wieser says. “People deserve to live a long, healthy life. Rita and her husband were successful, but that wasn’t enough to get them through.”
In 2023, the MediAppS or Medication Application Services Program marks its 20th year helping people pay for their prescription drugs. In just the last 12 months, the MediAppS program helped nearly 100 uninsured or underinsured individuals obtain needed prescription medications they could not afford on their own.
A Rand Corporation study of drug prices in the U.S. compared to the rest of the world shines a light on what Americans face every time they have a prescription filled. People in the U.S. often pay at least twice as much as those in other developed countries.
“We cannot fix the issues that make prescription drug prices so high in this country, but we can try to help the people affected by those high prices get the medications they need to be healthy,” Shanna Harris, Catholic Charities of Southern Minnesota says.
Wieser helped Rita sign up for and navigate pharmaceutical company programs to get her expensive medications for free.
“We really appreciate the MediAppS program,” Rita says. “Eliquis and inhalers are so very expensive. I would not be able to exist if it wasn’t for my meds.”
MediAppS is just one Catholic Charities program putting local donations to work in southern Minnesota. According to the agency’s latest audit, nearly 80% of the agency’s budget went to fund local programs in 2022.
“At Catholic Charities, we believe in serving the poor and protecting the vulnerable, no matter their faith,” Harris says. “That means working hard to make our budget match our mission.”
That mission includes providing emergency shelters for the homeless in Winona and Rochester. Catholic Charities also works with Olmsted County to provide supportive housing to help people out of homelessness. Through the agency’s Pregnancy, Parenting, and Adoption Program, trained social workers support parents with counseling, parenting education, free baby items, and adoption services. And the agency’s Active Aging program facilitates meaningful volunteer opportunities and empowers older adults through health and wellness programs as well as financial education.
As the need for services continues to grow and becomes more complex, Catholic Charities will adapt and respond to help those most in need in our community, keeping local donations close to home in the southernmost 20 counties of Minnesota.
* Name changed to maintain confidentiality