Cindy Carter is a cancer community advocate. She works diligently to meet the needs of the patient, their families and their caregivers.
Cindy Carter was a caregiver for her parents and for her in-laws. Shortly after that phase of her life ended, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She can easily relate to the needs of those traveling through cancer since she has seen both sides of the issue first hand.
As the President and co-founder of the Cancer Support Foundation, Carter is expanding her efforts. For nearly a year, she researched the services available to cancer patients. Having experienced the delivery of services first as a caregiver, then as a patient, and since 2006 as a non-profit service provider, Carter realized more needed to be done to change the way cancer patients are treated or served through specific government agencies.
Through her research, Mrs. Carter found that cancer patients who lose their job due to missing time due to illness do not qualify for unemployment benefits. This is in part due to the fact that unemployment regulations state that the individual must be ready, willing and able to accept a job. Needless to say, the individual having lost their job due to missed time while in cancer treatment is not able to accept a new job.
Yet, they cannot afford not to have some type of income to maintain their domicile, their everyday expenses like food and electric.
As Carter pointed out to state legislators, cancer is no longer the death sentence it once was. Cancer patients in treatment and recovery need a helping hand. The legislators try to listen but often have preconceived ideas of where the millions of dollars in donations go, especially to the big cancer organizations like the American Cancer Society and Susan G. Komen organizations… money that goes to research – not to patients!
Cindy Carter is to be commended for bringing this issue forward and advocating so strongly for those who are ill and/or disabled and who seriously need such an advocate as Cindy Carter of the Cancer Support Foundation.
For more information about the Cancer Support Foundation and what they do for the residents of Maryland who are impacted by cancer, visit the website www.cancersupportfoundation.org.
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If you know someone in Maryland, in treatment for cancer, be sure to check out the Cancer Support Foundation website.