Hello, my name is Daniela and I have helped Christiane in her sanctuary for many years. For decades, she has worked tirelessly for her animals, and now she urgently needs support for her own needs. But best to hear it from her directly:
Hello, my name is Christiane Prokop.I am 71 years old and live just outside of Heidelberg.
For almost 40 years, I had the good fortune of turning my hobby into a job. I leased an old horse farm together with my partner Werner just outside of Heidelberg.Here I’ve had many horses and ponies, for whom I gave riding lessons for adults and children. The goal was to ride as a leisure activity, as we have beautiful old-growth forests in the neighborhood. Dogs, cats, donkeys and goats also live on the farm, and all had to be cared for. Over the years we put a lot of money into the upkeep of the farm. For Werner and me it was most important to give the animals a good home, where they would feel well cared-for. So Werner built bigger stalls, laid down paddocks and leased an additional paddock.All my school horses worked for many years, because I was very careful about how I used them for lessons. As a result, many reached the age of 30 years, some even older. There came the time to ask: what does one do with an old school horse? Riding associations usually give such horses away or they are slaughtered. For me, those options were out of the question.Thus over the course of time the riding school became a refuge. If you would like to know more, you can read about this on this homepage.
I also completed training as a naturopathic veterinarian. In this manner as well, I was able to heal many animals with natural remedies. However, financially, we were less and less able to cover our operational costs. Everything became more expensive … and even my partner’s financial means were exhausted. There came a time when I gave up my private healthcare because I could no longer pay the premiums.
I have already heard many times that this was dumb, and I should not have tried to save costs in that area. Yes, but the health of my animals was always my first priority.
I have, in the meanwhile, tried to go on public health insurance at lower premiums. But this option was cut off because I had had private insurance for so long. The private insurance wanted to reinstate me, but the monthly premium was not affordable and the additional demands were too high.In 2017, Werner came down suddenly with cancer and passed away shortly thereafter, so that I was left with running the refuge on my own.
Fortunately, I had the help of loving people who joined me in caring for the animals. There aren’t many left of our horses, dogs, cats, goats and chickens. But it is important to me to be there for every animal.
Now to the reason for this appeal to you:
I became ill myself in the summer of 2022. I could not heal myself through my own means. When, in autumn, I fell in my home and was hospitalized, I found out that I had broken and fractured several bones due to osteoporosis. I was also diagnosed with myeloma. Bone cancer. That brought me very far down.But my animals prevented me from giving up.
Although I had to spend many weeks in hospital, I wanted to get back home, to my animals. To this day I have no health insurance. In the meanwhile, I have been appointed a case worker who is working with the social and health services. He is doing his best; however, we keep getting more letters with new questions. This has played out over so much time that the medical costs cannot all be retroactively covered.
The bills keep coming, along with warnings and threats from debt collectors and the bailiff. And that is the problem: I cannot pay these health costs.I have filled out so many forms and still received no health insurance from social services.If I cannot pay the bills, my case worker tells me there will be only one means: bankruptcy.
This would also mean that I would have to ask the hospital workers, caretakers, docters and emergency workers for their money. Even though they knew I was not insured, they helped me anyway. For this, I am so grateful! My prognosis is that with medical help, I will be able to live for a couple more years.
This would be lovely, as I could perhaps outlive the animals that are still with me and none would have to leave the refuge in their old age.
That is my greatest wish.Please help me to realize it!
The amount of the appeal comprises all the hospital costs and doctors’ bills.For the future, I hope to be able to have worked out coverage with social services.
Sincerely,
Your Christiane Prokop