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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWas Thomas Duncan Initially Turned Away From The Hospital Because He's Black And Uninsured?
Where Ebola Meets Concerns Over Race, Class and the UninsuredAs the condition of patient Thomas Eric Duncan in Dallas deteriorates, serious questions are being raised about why he was turned away from a hospital after his initial complaints of illness.
BY: CHARLES D. ELLISON
Posted: Oct. 6 2014 3:00 AM
It’s a question that’s left everyone scratching their heads: How does a fully equipped hospital send an Ebola-infected man home—right after he arrived from West Africa and complained about being sick?
Some observers and public health experts are beginning to wonder if there’s an elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about: race and the politics of health insurance. Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas, the private medical campus where Thomas Eric Duncan is currently under care and isolation, still can’t explain exactly how medical staff let the 42-year-old Liberian national go home with useless antibiotics. Hospital officials have only said that Duncan’s travel history wasn’t “communicated,” and now mainstream media reports are stuck on everything from malfunctions in Presbyterian hospital’s electronic record system to Duncan being dishonest about the level of his Ebola exposure when he left Liberia.
But few want to touch the pointy eggshells of race and class in the frantic discussion over Ebola as it enters the United States. Did Duncan get initially turned away because he is black and, possibly, uninsured?
Would it have been different if Duncan had been white and insured?
http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2014/10/where_ebola_meets_concerns_over_race_class_and_the_uninsured.html
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calimary
(81,240 posts)I was pleasantly surprised to see that Pennsylvania's Bob Casey connected the dots on camera this morning. He was on MSNBC and he made the point that the sequester is partly to blame, demanding cuts in funding to the CDC and the NIH. Well, when you cut funding for research, can you really be surprised when the researchers can't get the job done (or get it done more quickly)?
Agschmid
(28,749 posts)But they sure did fuck up.
Cali_Democrat
(30,439 posts)The article asks a reasonable question, especially considering the history of our for-profit health care system.
Agschmid
(28,749 posts)They would have quarantined him.
Who knows if I am right it's just my opinion that systematic racism did not cause the hospital to misdiagnose, but rather operational stupidity.
Cali_Democrat
(30,439 posts)Could it be that hospitals are quick to shoo away the uninsured because hospital care is extremely expensive and they would have to eat those costs?
Agschmid
(28,749 posts)insurance status.
To me this is all about stupidity and communication failures. Both horrible mistakes and system failures.
Mariana
(14,856 posts)was completely false. The hospital has long since taken back that bullshit excuse.
Agschmid
(28,749 posts)is that not correct?
orpupilofnature57
(15,472 posts)Professionalism in the medical industry is undeniable, the communication failures were probably due to Arrogance .
YarnAddict
(1,850 posts)If so, you cannot miss the multiple signs prominently displayed, and printed in multiple languages, stating that no one will be turned away due to a lack of insurance or ability to pay.
For whatever reason--understaffed, overworked, "miscommunications," whatever--you can be assured that he was not turned away for lack of insurance.
LiberalArkie
(15,715 posts)They will just look at an uninsured person (Especially from out of country, never can even sue) and give them some pills and send them on their way.
I have had them do that to me with insurance. When they were discharging me, they found out they mistyped my insurance card number and brought me back in and then decided to do a cat scan and other tests. But before they caught the error, they were saying that I needed to get over my pain killer addiction. Afterwards they saw my 3 cracked disks in my lower back. Weird how that happens.
jrussell466
(4 posts)We'll likely never hear the truth, your comment brought not only race, no insurance, but also the hysterical suspicion that everyone coming to ER is "seeking drugs." I read so many crazy things happening to people due to this "tunnel vision," only seeing one thing. It's causing misdiagnoses, nondiagnoses, and now, ebola cut loose in the country. Even happened to me, chose a quick (wrong choice!) visit to my husbands' Dr instead of my GP, further distance , to get the rest of a deer tick out of my side and whatever treatment might be needed. I got a Dr yelling "I do not prescribe narcotics!" What? Uh, it didn't hurt, they carry Lyme Disease, idiot! I did go to my GP, he pulled the rest out, antibiotic he said standard for tick bites.How hard was that? Not a good thing happening in "medical care" if all they can see is "drugs." Mr.Duncan said his stomach hurt. From researching(the tick bite incident was really traumatic to me) saying the word hurt is a "red flag" signaling "forget everything, we have a druggie here!" Sorry, but I think all 3, black, no insurance, drug suspicion(may be the biggest reason) for being sent home out of ER. They totally didn't hear "West Africa" or "Liberia" told to ER twice!
IggleDoer
(1,186 posts)... without insurance, they may have done the minimum to get him out of the ER.
etherealtruth
(22,165 posts)They stabilize them and then "turn them away"
procon
(15,805 posts)I worked in many EDs in So Cal, and while a patient cannot be turned away, in far too many facilities, neither are the uninsured provided with adequate care. If the patient is stable, and that's a subjective medical decision, then they are often "treated and streeted" with the admonishment to follow up with a private physician if their symptoms persist. The patient had a prescription to deal with whatever routine illness the ED physician diagnosed before discharging him, so it seems that the legal minimum requirements were met. Unfortunately there is no way to prove any outright racism was involved or if poverty was the determining factor behind the string of errors that allowed this man to leave the hospital.
awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)they are stabilized, given some pills, and then are turned away.
PumpkinAle
(1,210 posts)Yes, hospitals have to see anyone and everyone who turns up in the ER - and they have to give that person the basic treatment - all while the patient is being followed through the various areas by staff wanting to know how they will pay for the visit. If that person is found to not have insurance, they are usually let go pretty quickly.
It is called "patient-dumping" and although illegal it does happen and sadly too often.
http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2014/03/patient_dumping_multnomah_coun.html
A little reading on the topic:
In Oregon, patients have filed class action lawsuits against Providence Health System and Legacy Health System claiming that Providence hospitals "charge inordinately inflated rates to its uninsured patients," and that Legacy hospitals force uninsured patients to sign a written agreement that they will pay all medical charges resulting from their treatment. Under the act, hospitals must treat uninsured patients regardless of their ability to pay.
Elsewhere, patients have fought and won lawsuits against hospitals that participated in patient dumping. The Sacremento Bee conducted an in-depth investigation of patient dumping after finding that a Las Vegas hospital routinely discharging uninsured patients from the hospital before they had been adequately treated, then placed them on Greyhound buses to California and other locations.
freshwest
(53,661 posts)No Medicaid expansion. Clinics shut down. People dying with preventable diseases. Agencies to deal with public health and social services destroyed.
Regulations thumbed at. Irresponsible privatization run rampant. Texas has a lot of health problems, this is just one of them.
Lack of insurance?
The GOP Death Panel tosses the poor and the uninsured out of hospitals to go home and die fast so they can get more tax cuts to millionaires. The GOP are so far down the road of war against us that they are traitors.
Predictably, GOP media is claming that hispanic immigrants are the next Ebola vector. They're going to point the finger at everything but their own actions that destroy public health.
There is racism involved, but it's an undercurrent that has been ongoing, with minorities taking the very worst of cuts. The racism is systemic there and it's not getting better. I'm hoping all POC next month GOTV and shake the foundations of Texas.
Voice for Peace
(13,141 posts)leads to paying him less attention, spending less time, listening
less closely, and this is not at all a leap. This is systemic
racism/classism, not overtly discriminatory but built in.
Poor, black, probably uninsured, maybe poor English, person
is unimportant in the big greedy scheme, and that's the way
it is. Somebody who doesn't matter very much, by habit
of society.
il_lilac
(895 posts)"This is systemic
racism/classism, not overtly discriminatory but built in."
Of course if they had known he had ebola or bothered to listen to his story they would have acted. He was black.
He was uninsured. He was dispensable.
greiner3
(5,214 posts)If they did this then it would have cost them a huge amount of money, much more than treating him in the first place.
Orrex
(63,208 posts)Are you suggesting that the hospital would have risked its international reputation in order to save a few bucks by unleashing an ebola patient on the community?
Agschmid
(28,749 posts)The more important failure is ignoring the fact that he had Ebola symptoms and had indicated he had traveled in Africa.
These are both huge failures, but I doubt racism had anything to do with it.
Yes racism exists, but I am sticking with my "No".
Warpy
(111,255 posts)no matter what contagious and loathsome disease you have. I was uninsured for nearly 30 years and that's how it worked for me.
Remember Perry is defending Texas from the evil of giving people access to healthcare. Without the Medicaid expansion, hospitals are having to eat a lot of uncollectable bills.
You bet your ass he was sent home with what the docs knew were useless antibiotics because he was uninsured. That's the way the system doesn't work for anybody but the fat cats at the top in Texas.
Agschmid
(28,749 posts)But this isn't a failure due to racism or lack of insurance. This is a failure due to operational error, and stupidity.
No one connected the dots, how they missed that I don't know.
Lurker Deluxe
(1,036 posts)How many "contagious and loathsome diseases" did you have where you got sent home from a hospital with no care ... in that thirty year span.
I know here in Texas we have like ... I dunno, two level one trauma centers within the city limits and one down on Galveston Island. I've been to Ben Taub one time when a friend tried to kill himself and shot himself in the head and that is where he went. Insurance was not something that was even mentioned until after he was helped.
You can bitch about alot (like everyone does, everyday) but to start saying that Texas has shitty medial facilities and does not take care of emergencies well is pretty fucked up. Texas has a bunghole load of medical teaching facilities and hospitals to back them up, I have never known someone to go to either Ben Taub or Memorial Hermann with any type of injury and be turned away.
Sometimes a fuck up is just that ... how do you even know what the race of the attending was? Or the nurse, admitting administrator?
FFS!
Dustlawyer
(10,495 posts)since his weight was down to 88lbs and he is severely addicted to pills and alcohol. My brother is mentally handicapped, on SS Disability with Medicaid and Medicare. We went to the hospital his doctor specified. I could tell they didn't want him right from the start. After 7 hours of evaluation and ambulance shows up and finds us still in the lobby waiting for his lab results. No one came out to give them to us. The paramedics said they were told that his Potassium was dangerously high and he needed to go to the Hospital located directly across the street. I walked across the street and waited for them at the ER entrance. We waited in the ER hallway for 2 hours, then in a room for one hour before a doctor came in confused, asking us why we were there. He said the Potassium was very slightly elevated and not anywhere near a danger. He asked if we wanted him to have my brother sent back across the street. Knowing they didn't want to treat him we went home at 2 a.m. If my brother had insurance he would have never been punted in the first place!
Having Medicaid or Medicare is almost as bad as no insurance. Medical treatment should not have a profit motive. If rich people had to have the same treatment as the poor, we would all be well cared for!
Lurker Deluxe
(1,036 posts)So, what happened?
Dialysis?
Did he need a kidney?
Did he die in the parking lot?
Why would a paramedic just getting off an ambulance have any idea what was going on? You did not get there by ambulance, you're saying they just recognized you from 7 hours beforehand just by noticing you in the lobby? Paramedics consulted with whom to determine his "Potassium was dangerously high and he needed to go to the Hospital located directly across the street". If it was that dangerous would they have not taken him themselves ... that is kind of what they do.
I'm not sure how you get "they did not want to treat him" you were in an ER with non life threatening symptoms, you are not the priority. Sounds to me like a typical visit to a hospital, just general cluster fuckness with a little I don't give a shit thrown in.
I hope your brother is well, but insurance or not he needs a good GP doctor that could have run all of those tests in an office setting without getting anywhere near a hospital.
Dustlawyer
(10,495 posts)which is what we attempted. We went to the one his doctor told him to go to"immediately!" I have no beef with the Paramedics themselves or the hospital my brother was taken to by ambulance across the street, with the exception of the usual unreasonable delays for treatment of his supposedly life threatening condition. The second hospital did not look at the labs to discover his potassium was not a risk for those hours.
The first hospital would rather not have a bed occupied by a Medicaid/Medicare patient when they could fill that same bed with some rich guy's kid busted for smoking weed and lucky enough to have what passes for "great insurance" these days. They did not have the nerve to just tell us no so we would not have wasted all of that time in hard chairs, with a bad back listening to Fox Freakin News!
momrois
(98 posts)Presbyterian in Dallas is not.
Liberal_Stalwart71
(20,450 posts)
RedCappedBandit
(5,514 posts)I would not be surprised to hear that an uninsured black dude didn't get the same level of care some rich white guy may have gotten even if the inequity was due to subconscious bias.
840high
(17,196 posts)he get scans?
daleanime
(17,796 posts)notadmblnd
(23,720 posts)
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,710 posts)I went to the Kaiser Permanente ER In Woodland Hills without insurance and was treated like a king. I even received thirty days of free insurance.
negoldie
(198 posts)On his first visit his info was probably taken by a young volunteer or a student doing their clinicals. Said young volunteer/unpaid student doesn't give two shits about the dieing patient. They're looking for Friday night partying, getting laid, anything but this patient's travel history. The volunteer/unpaid student is the business model for many hospitals today. How can you compete with free labor?
I would sue the shit out of this hospital, the level of incompetence is uncalled for........
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)Medical students are carefully supervised. Interns are too. What hospital allows a volunteer or unpaid student to interview a patient without careful supervision?
Warpy
(111,255 posts)whether for MDs, RNs, NAs or any other health care person. Nobody parties on the weekend, they're too buried in WORK. If anyone had made such an egregious error in my own school, s/he would have been dismissed on the spot.
In addition, there are so many professions with twice the paycheck for half the work load that your premise that only selfish people who don't care go into medicine is both insulting and ludicrous.
Bean counters prevented Duncan from being admitted. Uninsured patients are a huge burden in the Fascist Republic of Texas.
Dreamer Tatum
(10,926 posts)it would have come up by now.
Unless someone has actual data or an utterly convincing counterfactual, this is nothing more than race-baiting.
logosoco
(3,208 posts)I have gone to the ER as both an insured person and an uninsured person, and there was a difference in attitude and treatment options given to me.
Dreamer Tatum
(10,926 posts)"I JUST GOT HERE FROM A COUNTRY WHERE THERE'S FUCKIN' EBOLA ALL OVER
AND I PERSONALLY HANDLED AN INFECTED PERSON!"
Which would have been in his interest, but which he didn't say. The racism meme is not going to
play with me, nor will the insured one, since some honesty and volume on his part would have
parted the hallways immediately.
logosoco
(3,208 posts)it before he was on the plane (even though he was possibly endangering other people). But why didn't he say this to everyone he came across at the hospital?
LittleGirl
(8,287 posts)Mr Duncan and/or the person that brought him to ER told personnel TWICE he had just come from Liberia, West Africa. It was written on chart, verbally communicated & entered into computer system, what the hospital claimed had the "glitch" & then admitted "no glitch. Hoped it would magically disappear, not be Ebola? Did they even know there is an ebola epidemic in West Africa? I wonder.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)Dreamer Tatum
(10,926 posts)Not seeing where on earth you can get your claim from.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)Dreamer Tatum
(10,926 posts)Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)no matter how much money he could pay, no matter whether he was insured. We claim to have the best medical system in the world.
No matter what the answer to these questions about Duncan are, we do not have a medical system good enough to protect public health, that is your health, my health, our children's health, if these questions can be raised at all.
Dreamer Tatum
(10,926 posts)because FRANCE.
Only here can someone indict an entire healthcare system because a patient withheld a truth that
was in his and everyone else's interest that he disclose.
uppityperson
(115,677 posts)You mean that he helped a woman suffering from pregnancy related health issue?
Dreamer Tatum
(10,926 posts)"Really? What are your symptoms?"
"What? What am I, an adult responsible for my own health who knows where I've been and what I have? YOU figure it out,
Smart Guy! YOU'RE the fuckin' doctor! Sheesh!"
"Can you at least give me a hint?"
"I was in a place that rhymes with wisteria."
"Ummmm...the cafeteria?"
"Cold."
"Carpeteria?"
"Cold. Nice berber, though."
"Nigeria?"
"Oh, because I'm black, right? RACIST. But warmer."
uppityperson
(115,677 posts)He told them he was feeling awful and was from Liberia. Maybe you missed that.
Dreamer Tatum
(10,926 posts)Less established is the fact that this man knew that he had Ebola and decided to keep that little nugget to himself.
Because all healthcare professionals have time to play 20 Questions with their patients.
uppityperson
(115,677 posts)I didn't know you knew the man personally, had talked directly with him. I am impressed you haven't shared this with DU up until now.
Dreamer Tatum
(10,926 posts)Really. It befuddles me how people are going out of their way to assign exactly
zero blame to an adult who knew full well what was in his body.
uppityperson
(115,677 posts)They thought she was miscarrying and sick from that.
Again, you are assuming facts based not on what happened. And yes, enough people in W Africa are ignorant and/or chose to disbelieve the methods of transmission of this virus, which is why the outbreak spread and continues to spread. It may seem incredible to those who have access to information and believe it, but that is the biggest reasons this continues to spread.
Unless, of course, you talked directly to MrDuncan and he told you he knew full well, in which case, why have you not spoken out sooner? I hope your 21 day quarantine is passing well.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)And yes, if they fail to ask a question that would, in the standard practice, be asked, they may be committing malpractice. Just maybe if a jury thinks so.
If a patient said he had been in West Africa, anywhere in that are, within the past 21 days, seems to me, the doctor should have asked about any potential contact with anyone who might have been sick or had ebola.
alcibiades_mystery
(36,437 posts)to avoid being diagnosed once he got here.
Don't expect such stupidity to be coherent.
uppityperson
(115,677 posts)accurately diagnosed.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)Every member of every staff of every hospital in America should be on the alert. Every doctor should ask every patient about their travels within the past six months.
Dreamer Tatum
(10,926 posts)instead of playing three-card-monte with hospital staff.
"Find the Ebola...I'm not gonna show ya...maybe it's gout...but you figure it out...
I might get you sick...you better guess quick..."
noiretextatique
(27,275 posts)You wanna bet every hospital in the country is on alert now, as they should have been before? You don't know what his mental or emotional condition was like, but the fact that he just got back from Liberia should have resonated with someone on staff.
JustAnotherGen
(31,820 posts)Lung infection plus American tourist - they wanted me healthy and spending money. The Doctor said it directly.
jrussell466
(4 posts)Absolutely! I had little trust in our medical care system, since Mr.Duncan, it's now Zero.
Scuba
(53,475 posts)... or we care about maximizing profits for insurance, drug and other medical industry corporations while keeping taxes low on the wealthy. These are the choices we make.
I think the national Democratic Party is remiss for not making our collective health a major plank in the Party's platform. It should start with Medicare for All, including dental, optical, hearing aids and mental health services. Add to that paid sick time, better oversight of the healthcare industry, better preparedness for disasters (including epidemics), and better training for our healthcare professionals.
And yes, we can afford it.
Dreamer Tatum
(10,926 posts)to fucking speak up with honesty when they show up at a busy hospital where
people are trying to work and trying to get healthcare.
SheilaT
(23,156 posts)He was triaged, treated, and discharged. All hospitals are required to do with uninsured patients is to stabilize them and then discharge them. Which is why uninsured get such minimal care.
That is totally separate from the fact that his symptoms and travel history should have rung a few bells, but didn't.
MattP
(3,304 posts)My brother is mentally ill and would get a hospitalized a lot the first couple of times it was for months but he figured out if he told the admitting nurse he didn't have insurance they would release after a few hours
snooper2
(30,151 posts)christx30
(6,241 posts)Went to the we several times for it when I had an attack. They did an ultrasound, gave me some pain meds and kicked me out with a $4000 bill, when what I needed was surgery.
I then got a good job with insurance, and had an attack. Magically that attack was bad enough to warrant surgery. It got done, and it's been all good since.
So I can totally understand the feeling that they did the bare minimum and then just kicked him out. Because I have seen it happen to myself personally.
JustAnotherGen
(31,820 posts)I think they did less than their best but it has nothing to do with race. 
Now lack of insurance? That's a horse of a different color.
Liberal_Stalwart71
(20,450 posts)muriel_volestrangler
(101,312 posts)You need to know that before any meaningful discussion can happen. Do you know? I haven't been able to find out, and I suspect patient confidentiality means no-one knows. But you need to be able to say "this is how ill he was, and would have someone else been admitted with them without Ebola being considered?"
uppityperson
(115,677 posts)do not understand why the hospital would lie about not having the info about him being from Liberia not given to the doctor who discharged him.
My opinion is that they did not listen to him well enough, for some unknown to me reason but I do not really know. I want everyplace to take note of what happened and be more careful in the future.
totodeinhere
(13,058 posts)send an Ebola patient back into the community where he can infect others, regardless of his race or whether or not he had insurance.
Dreamer Tatum
(10,926 posts)said no hospital ever.
B2G
(9,766 posts)Farmbrook
(48 posts)Which cannot be compared to Ebola.The broader discuss should be about Americans working with no sick days and illegal immigrants that may fear going to the hospital because of deportation. I am not surprised as to the lack of understanding of the broader picture. I am a first generation immigrant that has lived in this country close to 30 years. Furthermore, I am educated with a graduate degree and originally from Africa. Not only do I face discrimination as a black person but further because of my accent and my origin people tend to quickly dismiss me. I can see how Mr. Duncan could could have been over looked. Of course when you speak with an accent especially of an African tongue, people immediately dismiss you as uneducated and cannot speak the language. The fact that Mr. Duncan is on a visa likely shows that he may not have health insurance. Years ago I can attest going to the ER with no insurance. As soon as people hear your African accent people feign stupidity. I was given two tylenol and sent home only to return with worsening conditions followed later with an astronomical bill. Who knows whether I was dismissed so quickly because of the color of my skin or my accent That is why I say, rather than worrying unnecessarily about Ebola, you should be worried about dying by gun violence and lack of health insurance.
If people are so worried about ebola then let us clamor for Universal health care and legalize the status of illegal immigrants so that we can bring everyone out of the shadows and make it easier for people not to lie and endangering more people. Because it is likely that an illegal immigrant may not go to the hospital if he or she knows that for one thing the hospital might report them to ICE and be deported or a sick person with no sick day might risk going to work just to pay their rent. An infected person might stay in the shadows and continue to infect innocent people which can quickly escalate it to an epidemic.
People, let us start connecting the dots rather than being hysterical over the minutia and address the broader issues.
riqster
(13,986 posts)My son died because an insurer refused coverage. And he is not the only one.
http://bluntandcranky.wordpress.com/2014/06/25/two-years-ago-today-americas-profit-driven-health-care-system-killed-my-only-son-warning-profanity/
The ACA helped him stay alive a bit longer, and bless President Obama for that:
http://bluntandcranky.wordpress.com/2012/06/27/if-not-for-obamacare-my-son-would-have-died-even-sooner/
But the end result must be the severance of profit from health care: because as long as greedy bastards profit by denying care, people will suffer.
juxtaposed
(2,778 posts)Liberal_Stalwart71
(20,450 posts)FairWinds
(1,717 posts)that Americans get the same level of treatment and care
from hospitals whether or not they have insurance?
Seriously?
B2G
(9,766 posts)It's about a false narrative that he was 'turned away' (he wasn't, he was examined and given meds) and that if he had insurance they would have admitted him (they wouldn't because they don't admit people with 100 degree temps and upset tummies).
Does that help?
Sienna86
(2,149 posts)Do we know now that he did not have insurance for sure?
B2G
(9,766 posts)He was seen by a doctor. He was examined. He was given drugs, albeit useless ones but they didn't know that at the time.
They symptoms he presented with were not of the magnitude that would call for admission. He had a low grade fever, a headache and digestive upset. All of which are common for other illnesses. Their fuckup was ignoring his travel history, the one clue their were given to his condition.
So he did receive treatment, just not for what he had. And honestly, from everything I've read, he knew he had contact with someone who had died from Ebola. Why didn't he tell the doctor?
Dreamer Tatum
(10,926 posts)Drayden
(146 posts)And if the hospital had demanded he be placed in quarantine and suspected he had ebola, people would have yelled that was racist. Profiling him for being black and sick. There was extraordinary mistakes made in this case, but I don't believe racism was one, not in this case.
malaise
(268,983 posts)Is the pope catholic??
Avalux
(35,015 posts)If the ER was really busy, and the nurse was rushing to get patients triaged, Duncan wasn't as high up on the emergency scale as a cardiac or trauma patient. It may simply have been easier to get him seen quickly and out of there to free up a bed for someone that appeared to be more ill.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)and an epidemic started here because of it? 
jonjensen
(168 posts)He was not the only one turned out by texas hospitals after gov. perry refused medicade money. Texas hospitals that treat uninsured are going bankrupt!
marble falls
(57,081 posts)
Sancho
(9,070 posts)he was never diagnosed. They didn't spend a second with him...probably have a policy to hand anyone without insurance a script and send them out the door.
bettyellen
(47,209 posts)and that they get less respect because the hospital feels like the community uses them as a free clinic. I have heard of this happening in NYC in poorer communities, not sure where he was, but it could have an effect on how they viewed this man and took his complaint less seriously.
I think the many people in the world will see an insured white man as more important to cater to- in that he will naturally have higher expectations- than they would and uninsured POC.
Vinca
(50,269 posts)Here's a plan . . . expand Medicaid.
ReRe
(10,597 posts)The thought did cross my mind as soon as it became known that they had mishandled his initial visit. Sounds like a total "business" decision, re a decision made by a business administrator and not the decision of a committed medical professional. It's the full-blown catastrophe that the privatization of health care is. The removal of profit from health care, both at the delivery level (Drs and Hospitals) as well as the pharmaceutical & diagnostic level, will return healthcare to what it was meant to be. It will return the Hippocratic Oath and a conscience to the field of Medicine. We need universal healthcare.
WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)
woodsprite
(11,914 posts)since his initial symptoms were so run-of-the-mill.
Sopkoviak
(357 posts)How do we know he didn't flash his Liberian Universal Health Care card when he went to the emergency room?
WillowTree
(5,325 posts)It would have made perfect sense two weeks ago. It would be inexcusable today.
7wo7rees
(5,128 posts)He was booted shortly after being seen because he was uninsured.
From the Great Jim Schutze in the Dallas Observer:
"But we also know that Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, where the failure occurred, has a history of pushing emergency room show-ups out the door without adequate treatment in violation of federal regulations and law. Why hasn't the mayor or the governor launched a law enforcement investigation with badges and subpoena power to run this question to ground?
<snip>
"The string of failures in Dallas that began at Presbyterian Hospital a week ago has only grown. In the meantime, we see a great deal of effort and time expended on television appearances by local officials offering blandishments to the community about the need to avoid panic.
Panic is not a good thing, but generally speaking people do not die of panic. Panic is bad for business, elections and public image. But people die of Ebola. In a city where the leadership is often obsessed with image, perhaps we need to remind them that the worst image you can have and the last one is death."
http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2014/10/ebola_failures_dallas.php
My SO knew the day the story broke on the 30th. In 1976, her first husband sliced his finger badly on a Pyrex measuring cup. They went to Presby first thinking stitches were needed. Tendons were sliced, and surgery was necessary. Since they were uninsured, they were sent off to Parkland.
Presbyterian will send you away for not being insured, even when white.
Dont call me Shirley
(10,998 posts)
onecaliberal
(32,854 posts)However, we are talking about Texas. They don't even take care of their own citizens.
At the bare minimum it was incompetence. Perhaps if there were a surgeon general in this country, hospitals would have had a lot more information about Ebola.