Kansas Health Institute | Information For Policy Makers. Health for Kansans.

LYONS — Doris Baker, 60, said she needs help if she is to continue rearing her granddaughter.

Saedra Walters is 17 and her parents because of a number of personal problems are not in the child’s life anymore, Baker said.

The girl’s father, Baker’s son, is in prison in Arkansas for murder.

“I have complete custody of her,” Baker said. “She’s amazing. She’s an honor student, she’s in band, she has people offering her scholarships to go to college.”

Baker, a former nurse, said she has been divorced for about 30 years. She’s been raising her granddaughter alone for the last eight years.

Baker is a former nurse who has diabetes, arthritis and a bad heart. She has trouble breathing and is losing her eyesight.

“I was a nurse for 28 years, but I had to give it up because I got to the point where I couldn’t read the labels anymore, and I didn’t want to give somebody the wrong prescription,” she said. “After that, I did convenience store work for as long as I could.”

She and Saedra now live on Baker’s $745-a-month disability check and $115 in food stamps.

“I don’t want Saedra sitting around here taking care of me,” she said. “I want her to have a life of her own. I can’t take away from her life to subsidize mine.”

In November, Baker applied for in-home services designed to keep her from needing to move to a nursing home.

She’s now on the program’s waiting list.

“The last time someone moved off the list was in January 2009,” said Nanette Unruh, Baker’s case manager at the Prairie Independent Living Resource Center in Hutchinson. “No one’s come off the list since then.”

Budget shortfalls caused state officials to enact a waiting list for people with physical disabilities in March 2009. The list is now “frozen.”

“I just need some general help,” Baker said. “The way it is now, I can’t sweep or mop or push a vacuum cleaner. I can’t walk across the room without running out of oxygen. A lot of times, the pain I’m in won’t let me stand up.”

Baker said she lives in fear of being hospitalized, knowing it would likely result in her being sent to a nursing home, leaving her granddaughter on her own.

“I can’t stand the thought of that,” she said. “I’d rather be dead. I don’t mean that in a suicidal way but I worked in a nursing home for 28 years. I know what goes on there. You’re just throwing people away.”