ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, October 20, 1996 TAG: 9610210077
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SANDRA BROWN KELLY STAFF WRITER
The check that could save Louise Francisco's life is in the mail.
Roanoke lawyer Bob Patterson, acting for an anonymous Roanoke Valley donor, said he has sent $15,000 to the National Transplant Assistance Fund earmarked as the down payment Francisco needs to get on the waiting list for a new heart.
"I was tickled to be able to call her," Patterson said. "This gets the ball rolling."
The Roanoke woman found out this month that the only treatment for her failing heart is a new one, and that the insurance she has doesn't cover a transplant. The operation, which will be done at the University of Virginia Medical Center if a suitable donor is found, likely would cost upwards of $150,000. Francisco and her husband, Harold, have an annual net income of less than $10,000.
Patterson said that after his client read about Francisco's plight in a story in The Roanoke Times on Monday, he called to say he wanted to give her the money, but did not want her to know his name.
Patterson said his conversation with Francisco was the first in which he had been able to bring someone "that kind of news."
"She was overwhelmed," he said.
"I asked him how I would ever be able to thank them if they were anonymous," Francisco said. "It was the most wonderful news."
She said Saturday that she also received about $500 and a dozen cards last week.
Francisco, 60, suffers from hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, in which muscles of the heart thicken and impede the flow of blood.
Until December, when doctors said she had to quit working, Francisco operated New Style Hair Salon at Hanging Rock in Roanoke County. She had been a hair stylist for 31 years. Her husband runs the Flowers by Louise floral shop.
Francisco discussed the problems small-business owners have with health care access during a 1994 national telephone conference with Hillary Rodham Clinton.
As small-business owners, the Franciscos said, they have been forced to hop from one policy to another to contain costs. Harold Francisco has diabetes that is controlled with daily pills.
Currently, the couple pay $456 a month for a health insurance policy that Louise Francisco said has been "excellent" at paying her medical bills even though it doesn't provide for a transplant.
Once UVa completes some paperwork, Francisco will join about 50 people waiting for donor hearts through UVa's transplant center. Nationally, some 4,000 people are on heart transplant waiting lists with the United Network for Organ Sharing.
A special donation account has been set up for Francisco with the National Transplant Assistance Fund by the Roanoke County Sheriff's Office, where Francisco's daughter and son-in-law, Vicky and Steve Huff, are deputies.
The fund, which is nonprofit and tax-exempt, administers donation pools. It has handled more than 400 pools in amounts ranging from $5,000 to $385,000, said director Patricia Kolff. Currently, it is handling about $2million specified for patients like Francisco.
Kolff's office accepts donations and then parcels out the money to the patient as needed. If a patient doesn't use her fund, it goes to someone else in need of a transplant.
The umbrella assistance program was set up in 1984, when heart transplants were considered experimental. "Nobody would pay for them," so most patients had to run fund drives, Kolff said.
Through the years, the fund expanded its role to include patients waiting for lung transplants. A year ago, it began to handle money collected for all types of transplant patients, Kolff said.
To contribute, send a check payable to Friends of Louise Francisco Transplant Fund to: National Transplant Assistance Fund, P.O. Box 258, Bryn Mawr, Pa. 19010. The fund can be contacted at (800)642-8399.
LENGTH: Medium: 76 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Louise Francisco\Transplant not covered. color.by CNB