As farm migrant’s heart fails, Canadians rally to save him

For Jose Gilberto May Cauich, coming to Canada has always been about survival.

For the past 19 years, the Maya Mexican has left his predominantly Indigenous town to toil as a seasonal farm worker in Ontario. The work has been hard, but life-changing for his family.

With the money he makes, he’s supported his diabetic wife and teenage son, who was born with a bone disease, making sure they get the medical care they need back home.

“I worked to survive,” says the 53-year-old from Santa Cruz.

Now, it turns out, Canada could help save his own life.

Since April, May Cauich has become so sick with a parasitic infection to his heart that he has had to stop working. This summer, doctors in Canada told him his heart was so damaged he would only have a year to live unless he got a new one.

It was news that brought the usually cheerful man to tears.

“He went silent and then started crying,” says Moises Vasquez, a community health worker at St. Catharines’ Quest Community Health Centre, who has been accompanying May Cauich to his medical appointments. “He had no idea how bad his heart was.

“He’s very concerned about what’s going to happen to his family. His priority is his elderly mom, his wife and their two children.”

But the community into which Cauich has poured his labours these many years has responded.

Over the summer, people in the Niagara area have come together to support May Cauich. They have been co-ordinating his medical care, chauffeuring him to appointments, providing interpretation and helping him access supports.

Since he’s unable to work and had no income, the Niagara Community Legal Clinic assisted him in applying for the CPP disability benefits after his 12week income support ran out under an insurance plan for migrant farm workers.

Crucially, May Cauich’s health care in Canada is covered under OHIP as a migrant worker.

However, as a non-permanent resident and non-citizen, May Cauich is ineligible to receive a heart transplant in Canada, even if he wouldn’t mind waiting a year, noted Vasquez.

That puts May Cauich, who has chronic Chagas disease, in a catch-22.

While he could get his heart transplant in Mexico in three months, he would need to pay for the hefty medical expenses as well as the costs to relocate his family from their small town to Mexico City, where he would receive the surgery and post-transplant care.

But the only benefits he can get from Canada once he is back in Mexico would be limited to medical coverage of up to $10,000 and for only 150 days.

“That’s not going to be enough for a heart transplant, even by Mexican standards,” says Mandip Grewal, a staff lawyer at the Niagara legal clinic. “It’s a ticking time bomb. We don’t know what could happen if he doesn’t get his heart transplant quickly enough.”

To cover all the associated costs that would amount to an estimated $150,000, the Niagara Folk Arts Multicultural Centre has launched a GoFundMe crowd-funding campaign to help May Cauich and his family.

“He sacrificed his family time year over year to work as a migrant worker and now he faces the ultimate challenge,” says Emily Kovacs, executive director of the cultural centre, which runs a migrant worker support project.

“We owe it to him, as he took care of our needs for the last 19 years, and now it’s up to us to return the favour.”

Speaking Spanish through an interpreter, May Cauich says he grew up in a big family where his parents sold handmade hammocks for a living. Other than his youngest sibling, none of the children could afford to go to school.

As a young boy, he started working as a helper in small farms that grew tomatoes, onions, cucumbers and chili peppers to support his family. He was introduced to Canada’s seasonal agricultural worker program through a friend in 2004.

“My wife became sick with diabetes. The money that I was making (in Mexico) wasn’t even enough to buy us food,” says May Cauich, who was grateful for the job opportunity in Canada.

But he faced another hardship when his son was born with rickets, a bone condition that has delayed his growth and motor skills, causing muscle weakness and constant pain. Not only does the boy have to undergo expensive regular treatment, May Cauich also needs to hire private tutors because he can’t go to school.

“I haven’t been able to save any money,” says May Cauich. “Every penny goes to my family.”

May Cauich first got sick three years ago when he ran out of breath while working at the farmers’ market and had to be taken to hospital.

He initially thought it was related to his high blood pressure and didn’t pay much attention. However, the symptoms — chest pain, abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhea and swollen limbs from fluid retention in the body — have progressed and, since April, have been debilitating.

May Cauich’s employer, Romagnoli Farms, has been very supportive, getting him help and offering him a place to stay while he receives medical care. His co-workers have also chipped in to cover for him at work in his absence.

Vasquez says arrangements have been made with the National Institute of Cardiology in Mexico City for the transplant and care; the wait time for a new heart should be no more than three months. All the pretransplant tests for May Cauich will be completed in Canada by mid-October, before his work permit expires around Christmas.

According to the Mayo Clinic, survival rates after heart transplantation vary based on many factors. Overall, though, 90 per cent of the recipients live after one year and about 80 per cent after five years.

“I’m very afraid of the surgery,” said May Cauich. “But I’m very faithful that everything is going to go well. But as my doctor said, nobody knows. And God will have the last word.”