Woman Glues Eye Shut: Katherine Gaydos Was Refused Health Care By Florida Doctor

After a Florida woman glues her eye shut on accident, Katherine Gaydos said she tried to seek medical attention but was refused since she did not have health insurance. She also could not afford to pay out of pocket since she is unemployed, so doctors refused to treat her.

In a related report by the Inquisitr, the Florida Medicaid gap almost killed one man after a huge growth appeared on his neck. While he did have a job, he made too much money to receive Medicaid but not enough to afford Obamacare insurance, so he was forced to leave the state.

Reports say the Florida woman glued her eye shut over a week ago. Katherine Gaydos says a friend was using a leaf blower when a piece of debris smacked her in the left eye. Gaydos asked the friend to get some Visine from her purse, but instead the friend accidentally pulled out superglue used for applying false fingernails.

The incident left her left eye completely sealed and blinded. According to WPBF, she tried pulling apart the tightly sealed eyelids, but they would not budge.

“It’s stuck to my eyelids and my eyeball and it really hurts,” Gaydos said at the time.

After the woman glued her eye shut she called 911 and attempted to go to a local doctor. While the doctor’s office treated her with with antibiotic salve and ointment, the doctor said they would not continue to treat her unless she could pay for the treatment up front.

“He was talking about doing surgery to try and save my eye, but now I don’t know what to do — I don’t have a job, no insurance or any money,” said Gaydos, who is unemployed and a single parent of two children.

Florida Woman Accidentally Superglues Eye Shut http://t.co/qwqGd7GvJM pic.twitter.com/VA3IqM4bFT

— Florida Woman (@_Flor1daWoman) October 9, 2015

Gaydos said she was thinking about going to the emergency room at a hospital for treatment since such departments cannot legally refuse treatment even if the patient is poor. Considering that losing the sight in one eye could be considered a real emergency, it is likely the situation would have been handled there.

But after the story was aired by the local media the doctor’s office called her back. They wanted the woman to come in for a further evaluation and they claimed they could pry her glued eye open.

“It was the same office, but a different doctor,” Gaydos said. “He put Lidocaine above and below my eye and just pulled on it until it finally opened.”

Based upon the reports, Gaydos should have gone back to the same doctor’s office on Friday in order to get the super glue scrapped off of her left eye’s cornea. Although the woman glued her eye shut for nine days, doctors believe that her sight should be restored, and she should not have any permanent damage to her left eye.

Katherine Gaydos almost managed to get away scot-free in regard to her doctor’s bill. Despite not having Florida health insurance, or being capable of paying for the eye treatment, the doctor’s office made no mention of her needing to pay for the treatment. Local reporters tried calling the medical center to ask for a comment about this case, but the doctors declined to comment since Gaydos has not signed off on a medical release form pertaining to the information.

Although the case is odd, it’s still not as controversial as another incident in Canada. Last month, a mother said she took her son to a private clinic to have a cat scratch on his eyelid treated. But the situation got crazy after a receptionist with no medical training allegedly glued her son’s eye shut.

“I thought I was going to faint. I got emotional, I got scared. I was angry. I didn’t know what to do. My son was screaming he was trying to open his eye … it was very, very, scary,” Julia Vavatsikos said, according to CBC.

Fortunately, the boy in question recovered from the incident, but there’s some controversy since the clinic claims a doctor was involved in the treatment, and that the receptionist was simply holding the boy down.

[Image via WPBF]