Kaiser Permanente Downey Medical Center offers free life-changing procedures for uninsured patients

Patients from Family Health Care Centers of Greater Los Angeles received pro bono outpatient surgeries to repair hernias, remove cataracts and gallbladders on Saturday, May 21. A team of about 70 doctors, nurses and support staff from Kaiser Permanente Downey Medical Center worked for free to provide patients with life-changing procedures—some have been waiting for months even years for these surgeries.

Asuncion Castillo, a Bell Gardens resident, is a patient who benefited from the free Community Surgery Day at the Kaiser Permanente Medical Offices and Surgery Center in Bellflower. He is blind in his left eye because of a cataract and as a furniture upholsterer he needed complete vision to practice his trade. He lost his job when vision problems affected his work which left him with no income, health insurance or resources for medical care.

With the help of Community Surgery Day and after waiting for nearly a year, Asuncion finally got the cataract surgery to give him back his eyesight on Saturday, May 21. "The monetary value of these surgeries is inconsequential to the difference we make in these patients' lives," said Jane Finley, senior vice president and executive director, Kaiser Permanente Downey Medical Center.

When asked what he plans to do after recovering from the surgery, Asuncion wants to get a job. In the current economy, getting a job is difficult enough. Coupled with blindness, getting a job and keeping it is almost impossible. Now that barrier is removed just like the cataract in his eye.