LANSING, Mich.(WLNS) – An organisation dedicated to providing free wigs to children facing hair loss from cancer and other diseases is hoping lawmakers will step in and require insurance companies to help foot the bill.
Maggie’s Wigs for Kids of Michigan has been pushing for the legislation since 2015. But time after time, lawmakers have killed the legislation. Despite the uphill battle, the organisation and its supporters aren’t giving up.
“I was a shell of the little girl that I used to be,” Jaleen Davis told 6 News. She was given wigs by the organisation and is now its spokesperson.
Davis is one of more than 5,000 people who have received a free wig from the organisation. She was eight years old when she was diagnosed with alopecia. It’s a condition where a person’s immune system attacks the hair follicles, causing hair to fall out. The condition caused her to lose all her hair.
Hair loss is a harsh reality for many children.
“My mum told me I had a stomach flu and as the days went by she would run her hand through my hair and there would be clumps of hair just falling out of my head,” said Sophie Arini, who also received wigs. She was three years old when she was diagnosed with alopecia.
Both Arini and Davis struggled to find wigs. The ones they found either didn’t fit or were custom-made and cost more than $1,000. The wigs weren’t covered by insurance.
“When we get into human hair pieces, we can go into the thousands,” Davis says of wig costs. “We’re talking anywhere from $1,200 for a short haircut like the one I’m wearing today to easily four to five grand.”
The cost of wigs adds up quickly as children outgrow them. That’s where Maggie’s Wigs for Kids comes in.
Since 2003, the group has been providing wigs to children free of charge. Now they want lawmakers to help ease the burden by requiring insurance companies to cover the cost of the wigs. This would allow the group to provide wigs to more children.
“I would love to have a satellite office,” says Maggie Varney, the group’s founder. “I would love to have places we could open up where kids could come and not have to travel so far.”
Arini believes that having more places to access wigs would be a good move.
“I think it’s a really good idea, because if there’s no place that gives out wigs for free, these kids might not have a wig to wear,” she says.
If the Michigan legislature passes the bill, Michigan would join 13 other states with some sort of requirement that insurance companies help foot the bill for children’s wigs.
