Storytelling for Health and Justice: Gaynell Fuller
Audio production by Alexandra Salmon
Gaynell contracted COVID-19 in April of 2020 and then dealt with chronic symptoms of extreme fatigue, body aches, and an altered sense of smell for more than a year. Gaynell, a nurse at a long-term rehabilitation facility, feels certain she was exposed to COVID-19 at work. As the facility was hit hard by the virus, many of the other nurses—some sick with it and some afraid of catching it—stopped showing up at work. Gaynell’s responsibilities increased dramatically. She cared for many sick patients and eventually fell ill herself, despite her best efforts to protect herself. When her symptoms made it impossible for her to go back to work, she applied for workers’ compensation, but administrators responded that her illness had been “community acquired” and denied her claim. At the time, Gaynell was raising her twelve-year-old grandson alone. She had bills and rent to pay; she had to put food on the table. Still, in this flawed and deeply unjust system, she was offered no accommodations at work and no financial support.
“I was never one to just sit back and collect,” said Gaynell. “I have worked since I was thirteen years-old. ”When she finally applied for unemployment, she felt stereotyped as someone trying to take advantage of the system. She was deemed ineligible, and ultimately her case was sent to the fraud department due to confusion over her name. She had applied for unemployment once before, more than twenty years prior, under her married name, and now she was applying under her birth name. She found herself going in circles, dealing with many “nasty” people on the phone and hitting dead ends. The process took persistence, not to mention time and money. She was required to send for her birth certificate as proof. “It’s not possible for everyone to trace their roots,” she said, “and forget about being undocumented.” Ultimately, it took help from a state legislator to finally get her claim approved. Gaynell recognizes that her education and connections in the community helped her to navigate the system, and she is very clear on the fact that many people in her community don’t have such resources. Gaynell isn’t afraid to be assertive, but still, the process was exhausting, and she nearly gave up many times. Her story underlines how the impacts of entrenched racism—poverty, lack of access to education, and bias in the criminal justice system, just to name a few—amplifies the dire impact of COVID-19 on people of color.
***Adapted from The Healing Power of Storytelling: Using Personal Narrative to Navigate Illness, Trauma, and Loss. By Annie Brewster and Rachel Zimmerman. 2021.