Opanin Adu-poku, originally from Ghana West Africa has been suffering from hernia, but is scared to seek medical treatment in Philadelphia where he lives. His fear is as a result of information he received upon his arrival in the United States from fellow African settlers that, undocumented immigrants could not seek healthcare, no matter the situation. As a result, he adopted this self medication style over the years, knowing very well it could cost him his life one day.

On this particular day in question, Opanin Adu-poku could not apply his usual self medication technique to his ailment, and had to, under the circumstance make a desperate phone call to a friend in New Jersey who is in medical school to let him know what he was actually going through. “I was at the point of death and could not do anything to have my life back. I saw myself literary dying,” he said with a soft voice. The severity of his situation made his friend in New Jersey arrange an ambulance to pick him up to the hospital.

Five days later, Mr. Adu-poku is operated on, and discharged. For the next two months, he receives 32 letters from the hospital asking him to honor payment of his $18,000 bill. Happy about the treatment, but paranoid about being arrested for non-payment of this hospital bill which he said there was no means he could pay, he resorted to prayer to God as a Seventh Day Adventist Church member.

Soon, Charity Care, an organization which interviewed him on his hospital bed called to seek and clarify some of the information he gave them at the hospital. “I was asked to provide a copy of my marriage certificate because I had told Charity Care I am married. Providing my marriage certificate was something difficult for me to do. I felt uneasy doing it because I felt it could be used to track me down,” he explained. Mr. Adu-poku said he finally did provide the information Charity care needed and kept praying.

And when he received another letter in the mail box, he thought it was one of those from the hospital and just shoved it somewhere without opening it. “I was thrilled when I one day opened that letter and it was Charity Care telling me I had Zero responsibility to the hospital bills,” he said with a smile.

Mr Adu-poku’s story is not in isolation. While working on this story I came across another immigrant in New Jersey (pleaded anonymity) who said he has always made sure he never gets sick in the first place by doing everything to suppress any symptoms of sickness.

This is because he has always lived under the fear that there was the likelihood of immigration officers picking him up on his hospital bed as an undocumented immigrant if he ever got admitted at the hospital, though he has neither immigration problems nor criminal records.