Janice Fletcher wants to be sure she and her husband can afford the next medical emergency for their 9-year-old daughter, Taylor.

But circumstances are looking grim. Janice said her family was denied Medicaid coverage on Nov. 30, and now has to rely on their primary insurance provider to pay for all the expenses from Taylor’s illnesses.

“(The local Medicaid office in Ferriday) called and said due to the household income staying the same but the household members going down, Taylor would lose her Medicaid card,” Fletcher said Monday.

Janice has two daughters above the age of 19, and now Taylor is the only Medicaid dependant.

Under Louisiana Child’s Heath Insurance Program (LaChip) once a child is 19 years old, they are no longer covered under Medicaid

For a family with one dependant to qualify for LaChip, they have to make a minimum income of about $20,000 a year.

Fletcher said Taylor was born with craniosynostosis, in which the bones in her head fused together too fast, which didn’t give her brain room to grow.

She also has hyrocephalus, where an excess amount of fluid builds up in her brain that can sometimes cause brain damage.

Fletcher said Taylor sometimes has seizures, too.

To try and fix these illnesses, Fletcher said doctors placed a shunt, a tube in the back of her head that drains the excess fluid from her brain. Taylor also took medicine to control her seizures, but Fletcher said doctors recommended her to be weaned off the medicine.

“The reason they took her off the medicine was because the medicine causes liver damage and she hadn’t had a seizure for three-and-a-half years,” Fletcher said.

When Taylor was born, Janice worked for a cotton gin in Ferriday, but had to quit to take care of her.

Now Janice cannot go back to work full-time because she said she realizes an employer would not allow her to leave work whenever Taylor gets sick.

“I’m not trying to abuse the system,” Janice said. “But I can’t hold down a regular job because I never know when she’s going to be sick or when she gets sick how long she’s going to be out.”

On Dec. 7, Taylor had five seizures so her parents took her out of school early and she spent six weeks at Oshners Hospital in New Orleans.

“The bill I received from Oshners for four weeks of care was over $120,000,” Janice said. “That was for part of her care for six weeks while we were there.”

Janice said Taylor might have to go in for another surgery.

In December, Taylor’s neurosurgeon suspected that fluid might be building on the left side of her brain and that he might have to do a shunt revision or put in a new one, Janice said.

Janice said she started looking into the procedures to get her child some more financial help.

“(Disability), Medicaid whatever I can get,” Janice said. “You have a child that is disabled, you have a mom that can’t work because she’s a primary caregiver, two daughters sending themselves to school and (you’re) bringing home one salary.”