- About
- Blogosphere Buzz
- Archived Posts 2007-2008
- Register for Email Alerts
- The Book: Before You Take That Pill: Why the Drug Industry May Be Bad For Your Health
- Follow me on twitter @dougbremner
- Subscribe to my podcasts
- Rave Reviews for “The Goose That Laid the Golden Egg: Accutane, the truth that had to be told”
- Follow me on goodreads
After writing about the egregious goings on at Grady Hospital, which provides healthcare for the poor and indigent in Atlanta, GA, where they proposed denying dialysis patients to non-US citizens as a way to cut costs (which is a death sentence) (see “Grady Hospital Tells Non-US Dialysis Patients to Leave or Die“), I generated a lot of comments, and got dragged along to a meeting of the Grady Citizens Alliance, a grass roots organization, by my fellow MD writer friend Neil Shulman MD, who promised me it would be an “interesting meeting.”
Well it was a pretty interesting meeting, and people expressed pretty strong opinions about the fact that a hospital was going to be pulling the plug on the only thing that is keeping some people alive, namely dialysis. A physician brought a woman from Honduras who didn’t speak English, and translated her story. She was a fairly young and healthy looking person who was suffering from uncontrolled high blood pressure which had been associated with kidney failure for which she needed dialysis to live. She got a letter (in English, which she can’t read) from a social worker at Grady informing her that after Sept 19 dialysis would no longer be available to her at Grady. The letter attached a list of private dialysis clinics in Atlanta (none of which will of course provide care to someone without insurance) and suggested that she could move to Virginia Beach or North Carolina. Through tears she explained that she didn’t know anyone in Virginia Beach.
Oh, and they offered her a free ticket back to Honduras. How generous.
Another social worker said she was working with a man who was a legal immigrant from Ethiopia but had lived in Georgia only three years, five years short of the time required to qualify for Medicaid. He had a social security number but hadn’t paid into it enough to qualify for Medicare. He was also on dialysis and was on the list of those who were being cut off.
His daughter asked, “So am I supposed to watch my father die now?”
Hmm. Good question.
Neil Shulman pointed out that you can go provide free healthcare in Africa, and you are good and a missionary. But if someone comes from Africa and you provide healthcare for him here in Georgia you are a socialist.
People in the Grady Hospital Alliance have been trying to identify clinics in Atlanta that will provide care for these people, but the fact is that even the so-called “not for profit” hospitals won’t provide care to people without insurance. And Grady’s administration’s statement that they would provide referrals and transitions of care were, quite simply, a lie.
As someone said at the meeting, a city that simply pulls the plug and lets people die because they don’t have insurance is not a civilization. Doctors who let people die because they cannot pay are violating their Hippocratic oaths and should have their licenses yanked; those who come up with justifications about being against socialism or who claim that they are providing free care are sociopaths and enemies of civilization. CEOs of hospitals have the same responsibilities. They are saving lives, not making paper clips. And this thing of turning off dialysis is just the start. Next it will be the clinics, and the powers that be will eliminate their duty to care for their own people.
If my city is going to let people die just like that, they do not deserve to call themselves a part of civilization.
Anyhoo there is going to be a rally and a press conference held at the main entrance to Grady Hospital in Atlanta, GA, on this Thursday at 10 am. We want to get out as many people as possible to make our message known that as people that care about people we will not tolerate bureaucrats pulling the plug on the dialysis machines and letting people die. For ANYONE. Come on down.
If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!
I am saddened to read about this dreadful situation. At times like this though I am left feeling remarkable happy that I work in the public health system in Australia, which provides universal health care to all. As much as we complain about how we do not do enough and could do much better, we treat ‘people’ regardless of the types of issues you have described above and let the bureaucrats worry about the rest.
This is not to say we are a Utopia. Certainly we treat asylum seekers woefully, with significantly poor mental health outcomes. Our current government is in the process of trying to pass a bill that will overturn the practise of charging asylum seekers for the time (often years) spent in detention centres while their status is processed.
But if you turn up sick at a State Hospital you get treated, because we are doctors. Certainly this gets abused, with ‘tourists’ who get taxi’s from the airport to the hospital for treatment. But we are doctors, and out job is treating the sick. Not telling them to get lost if they can’t pay. I don;t think I could do this job if that were a part of it.
Join the facebook cause I just set up ‘Protest Grady Hospital Throwing Dialysis Patients into the Streets’
http://apps.facebook.com/causes/350331?m=96aaaf39
feel free to friend me on fb
You are fighting the good fight! I got a BB last week. Just signed up on Twitter to follow you.
Dr. Brenner,
I generally respect your opinions, and on issues surrounding pharma and corruption in medicine, I support you 110%. However, in this case I do not agree. I don’t consider myself a sociopath, but I guess if the shoe fits . . .
I am not trying to call individual healthcare practitioners names. Just trying to make a point. Fact remains people are being left to die.
att: Dr. Bremner: where is rest of your story+ ancestry search for your mothers family???????????? very interesting and so is the Acne Drug Trial.
we had better start thinking and doing research before we take any pill.
I am a nephrologist in the Emory Renal Division (Emory and Morehouse medical schools staff Grady hospital) and we discussed the situation yesterday in our Faculty meeting. I personally do not go to Grady, but my colleagues currently are the doctors for these patients (for free). Neither Emory nor Morehouse was consulted about the closing. However, the Grady administration has had a few informational meetings with the director of dialysis at Grady (Emory faculty) and one with our division director.
So while we do not know the details of what will happen (a meeting with the Grady administration is scheduled after the the outpatient unit closes), there are a few things we do know.
1) Grady hospital is only closing its outpatient dialysis unit. Hospitalized patients will still have dialysis. Anyone, including illegal aliens, who presents to the Grady ER will get dialysis if they are ill enough to be admitted. The medical staff at Grady will do its best to take care of these patients in the same way as if they presented to any other hospital in the country. Discharge will be difficult because there will be no provider for long term dialysis and we know that we will not be allowed to keep them in the hospital. If other cities are an example, we expect that such patients will return to the ER of Grady and other hospitals for dialysis. This poor level of care is carries a high mortality.
2) Grady has signed an agreement with Fresinius (a large dialysis chain) to take only the current un-fundable patients for a period of time. We do not know anything about the details of the contract. Grady will not send them immediately out on the street, but we do not know how long they will be safe.
3) Patients who are fund-able in the near future (i.e., eligible for Medicare or Medicaid but don’t have it yet) are already starting to go to other dialysis units. The units will accept these patients because they will get paid in the future.
I hope this information is helpful. I wish we knew more.
Hal Franch, M.D.
Associate Professor
Thanks! I am very touched, Dr. Bremner that you put me on your “following” Twitter list. I know that there are another 376 people you are also following, but it still makes me feel like I am your friend. Now if I can only figure out how to Twitter. I know how to read it, but have not figured out how to write.
Well 376 people to follow on twitter is not so many. Some people are up into the tens of thousands, how they got there who knows. On an admin note due to popular demand (bowing to “coco”) I am going to start publishing ‘The Goose That Laid the Golden Egg’ again, but note that the character names have changed so if you get confused you can go back to the beginning! (will change names there too)
and you can follow it as a novel being written on twitter @goosenovel
To write on twitter you just write in the ‘what are you doing now’? box after you log in on twitter.com. After 140 characters it just chops you off. Interesting way to write a novel. Like Haiku or something.
The example of the dialysis unit is only the tip of the iceberg. Attempts are being made to deny children of illegal aliens medical care, including preventive care such as immunizations. That makes a lot of sense. Would you like your child sitting next to an unimmunized child whose family and friends may come from a country with a high rate of measles? Not exactly a healthy situation for a school. The dialysis example is just a more blatant example of what occurs on a daily basis all over our country.
[...] to their home countries (which often don’t have dialysis) or move to Virginia, and “Should I Watch My Father Die Now” in which a daughter described how her father would die because although he had a green card [...]
I don’t understand why people think they are entitled to anything for free?
From the other side of the Atlantic, to be frankly honest, the US system and situation seems outright barbaric.
It is very shocking to read these “I don’t understand why people think they are entitled to anything for free?” when it is a question of *people actually dying* without.
I agree that people are primarily responsible for themselves. This is a sign of an empowered society. But that does not mean that you should not have safety nets in place for when that primary ideal fails — because it will fail, sometimes. You cannot simply leave people to die, not if you want to call yourself a civilized country.