SHORT VERSION

Lisa traveled from Bolivia to Sweden to pursue her dream job, she went as a merit scholarship student and she returned home jobless, ill with cancer, and wrongly called "illegal".

The cancer is developing quickly, so far it is invasive and doctors need to verify there isn't metastasis. Her radio and chemotherapy treatments should have started already months ago, we are running out of time :(

Everything that could go wrong, went wrong. She had a job in Sweden but she was not provided work-permit neither health insurance, she paid taxes as all citizens but she could not use the health system, she paid her own private health insurance but they did not want to cover her cancer treatment.

She was a healthy person her entire life, she did not drink alcohol, smoke, or do drugs. Probably the events mentioned before contributed to very high levels of stress that led to cancer.

She still dreams of working again and contributing to society and is aware cancer treatments are devastating and leave consequences for life. She also asks for support in prayers for God to heal her and take control of any treatment she needs to go through. She wants to advocate for less aggressive and destructive cancer treatments so that cancer survivors can have a normal life as much as possible. She has faith in God all is possible.

LONG VERSION

She always tried to help people in need. When someone in Bolivia has cancer is a big tragedy because the government and most of the health insurance do not cover the cancer treatments, so, people end up asking for help on the TV. She helped out but at the same time, she thought she would do everything in her power to prevent living that nightmare/situation. She tried to ensure the workplace offered her health insurance, if the job did not provide it, she would buy private insurance. She canceled her private insurance in Bolivia when she traveled for a scholarship in Sweden and bought international comprehensive health insurance for the year she was studying. Before her studies finished she bought another health insurance for her application for a visa to look for job after studies. She managed to get a job in a big company, but the company did not provide her a health insurance, neither the work-permit and other important documents required to settle in the country. Because of this negligence of the company, she could not open a bank account, find a place where to live, be able to receive the "personal number", a social security number required to live in Sweden. 

During the year she worked for that company, she had to do workarounds for anything she needed, she couldn't get a first-hand house contract without the "personal number", so she ended up renting a second-hand place where she slept on a sofa in a living room. She could not travel back home to see her very ill mother during the holidays, nor travel anywhere outside Sweden, she paid more than 30% of her salary in taxes but she could not use the health system, a couple of times she noticed her stomach literally stopped working, strong headaches along with weakness and non stop vomiting and diarrhea for days and she was not received in the Swedish hospitals because a person without "personal number", undocumented foreign, could only receive emergency medical attention, they told her if not bleeding or unconscious she could not receive medical attention.

She noticed her health and strength decreased as months went by and in less than a year, while working, noticed a bump on her axila and that's where the cancer diagnosis and health insurance started. Her private health insurance covered the cancer diagnosis tests (doctor appointments, ultrasound, blood tests, mammogram, biopsy) from May to June 2023.

As the doctors warned the result could be cancer, she called to a meeting with the company Manager, HR and a representative from the union to mention that she could have cancer and her private health insurance would end June 2023 and if they could provide her a health insurance at least, because they did not provide her documents to stay in the country. All of the mentioned people in the meeting agreed that it is not their responsibility or obligation. The migration website says that while paperwork from foreign employees is in the process the company should provide health insurance, but they all REFUSED to do it. What is more, they told her that she'd better buy another year of her private health insurance and gave her a letter announcing they would not renew a contract, therefore she should look after herself. 

She was abandoned by the company she worked for and bought another year of her private health insurance before the other one expired. Then, to her surprise, things got worse, as she needed more medical exams to determine how much the cancer had expanded, and then a treatment, the renewed health insurance DENIED to cover any test that was related to the cancer, because the insurance does not cover "pre-existent illnesses", even if it was the "extension" of the former contract of services she had.

She was also abandoned by the hospital in the south of Sweden that provided her diagnosis, as soon as her work contract ended on August 2023, the hospital called her "illegal" and that "she should leave the country and have her medical treatment in her country". She asked several lawyers about the migration situation, however, she had it clear that she was not illegal, she had a job-seeking-visa going on that allowed her to stay while working in the company, and the lawyers confirmed she was not illegal. 

Because of the hostility from the company, the hospital in the south of Sweden, and no answers from migration, she decided to move to Stockholm as soon as her job contract ended, to be ready to leave the country depending on what migration told her about her case, also, the connection flights to go back home departed only from Stockholm. She could not "just fly back home" because: 1. she was ill, 2. the flight connection to take her home is only from Spain and this is an EU country, as Bolivian citizen she could not go to any EU country without a printed-valid-residency card (she would be processed as trying to enter illegally to the EU country, she'd need to process a Schengen or transit visa which is requested to do from your country of origin, do you see the limbo situation?), having a migration application in process only allowed her to stay in Sweden while this was resolved 3. She did not understand how she paid 30% plus of her salary in taxes and she could not receive medical attention while her health was deteriorating and now that she had a life-threatening illness, the hospital did not want to help her. 4. Reinforcing point 3, her relatives had cancer and 2 of 3 died... the 2 that died were treated in Bolivia and the survivor was treated in the US, that's why she was pleading to at least have the surgery to remove the tumor in Sweden, where the statistic of breast cancer survivors is much higher.

Thank God, hospital Karolinska decided to help her with the tumor surgery, but she had to leave the country after because migration said the job-seeking-visa she applied need to be processed from outside Sweden and it did not matter she had cancer or her home country was next door or 5 flights from Sweden.

She had the surgery at Karolinska Hospital in October and had to leave on November back home. In December she received the results from the tumor surgery and new biopsy, where she was told the cancer was invasive now, and new surgery was required to verify how much it had expanded and recommended treatments.

This means that, from the moment she had her first tests to find out about cancer, June 2023 to now February 2024, she has not received radiotherapy, chemotherapy, immunotherapy, or any treatment yet. This is because of the bureaucracy of the Swedish migration agency, lack of finances, and a place where she could continue her treatment properly outside Sweden.

moral question: IS IT HUMAN TO REMOVE A PERSON WITH CANCER FROM A COUNTRY WHERE SHE WORKED AND CONTRIBUTED WITH TAXES? SHE HAD NO RIGHTS BECAUSE HER DOCUMENTS WERE NOT PROVIDED BUT SHE HAD AN OBLIGATION TO PAY TAXES? 

Ask me, I think this is WRONG.

Currently, January, she managed to get a place at FALP, Hospital specializing in cancer treatment in Santiago de Chile, where most of the patients treated were able to overcome cancer.

She wants to survive and look to the future, not even all her savings would be enough to pay for her treatments, she spent her money in places that did not support her, for instance, her private health insurance and the union. The emergency-family-funds were already used on her elderly parents who are also very ill, last year her father had a surgery to prevent prostate-cancer and her mother had two surgeries on January 2024: emergency replacement of her pacemaker (she almost died, because her heart has several chronic diseases) and then surgery of an aneurism that back on December it looked like a small bump but started to grow and look threatening. 

She has been looking actively for a job unsuccessfully, it feels like the recession worldwide affected the game industry and there are more lay-offs than open positions. It is very draining for her also in the circumstances of dealing with the illness, the treatments, and the financial situation, but she still feels intellectually capable of performing the job (part-time). She is a Game Designer, Product Designer, and UI/UX Designer, if by any chance you have some gigs, please get in touch by message.

Finally, thank you so much for your patience in reaching the end of the story. May you be richly blessed for your contributions, your prayers, and your words of support declaring she IS well and healed. May God keep you protected from any kind of disgrace or illness. Amen