Woman with chronic kidney disease nearly dies every week before she can get medical care

An undocumented immigrant woman who lives in Colorado has to nearly die every week because it's the only way she'll be able to get medical care.

CNN Wire, via local news station KDVR, reports that the woman -- a 51-year-old mother of five children named Lucia -- suffers from Type 2 diabetes that regularly causes her kidneys to fail.

Because she's an undocumented immigrant, she can't get the kind of health coverage that most people with her condition get to manage her condition. Instead, she has to wait until her kidneys start failing, at which point her husband drives her to the emergency room at the Denver Health Medical Center.

Under the 1986 Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, hospitals must treat anyone who comes to them with a life-threatening medical emergency. This means that Lucia can only go to her local hospital when her life is in danger.

However, if she waits too long to receive treatment for her illness, she could easily die.

"When both kidneys stop working, people, on average, will live anywhere from 10 to 14 days," said Dr. Lilia Cervantes, who helps treat Lucia at the hospital. "And so, to continue living, you need some process to filter blood, which is a dialysis machine."

Lucia, meanwhile, laments the burden that her chronic condition is placing on her family members who have to watch her condition slowly deteriorate throughout the week before they can get her help.

"It’s been really hard for my family,” she explained to CNN Wire. “The worst is for my son... He worries about me.”