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Today I attended a protest going on at Grady Hospital over dropping dialysis for non-US citizens and then we attended the open board meeting at Grady Hospital. You can get some background by reading ““Grady Hospital Tells Dialysis Patients to Leave or Die” in which I explain how Grady sent letters a couple of weeks ago telling people that their dialysis is over and they should go back 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 he needed to live in Georgia for five years and he had only three.
Today concerned doctors, social workers, community activists and the dialysis patients and their families convened on Grady Hospital to protest and voice their concerns to the board.
Grady alliance protests board meeting
Giving dialysis as an emergency event only is a death sentence as your potassium goes up and everyone knows that these people will soon die from a cardiac event or something like that. The board claimed that they would give followup but none of the patients can get treated at private clinics because they don’t have private insurance or medicaid. Several people expressed the outrageousness of the situation of dumping people in the streets and the medical unethics of just telling people get lost, go die.
Neil Shulman MD addresses the board, outlining inhumanity of their decision
Grady administrators claimed that they were providing follow up but the clinic closes this week and there is no plan for these patients!
Elbert Tuttle, MD, who is 88 years old, brought dialysis to Atlanta, and whose father of the same name brought desegregation to the South, appeared to express his view that Emory and Morehouse Schools of Medicine should get involved with local medical centers to help out.
A dialysis patient from El Salvador who works cleaning houses in DeKalb County and who has children, said “I Need the Dialysis. I Think I Will Die.”
Indeed.
Afterwards we waited for an hour and a half for the Chief Operating Officer, Denise Williams, to come talk to us about how these people are going to be taken care of. She never showed up. I guess she doesn’t really give a crap.
It really makes you wonder when all our local paper can cover is the angry people being bused to Washington to protest healthcare reform. How can any humane person allow this to happen? One sign said “Healthcare is a human right”.
I couldn’t agree more.
For more information contact Dorothy Leone-Glaser of Grady Advocates for Responsible Care, (404) 633-5843, dlg [at] wisdomofwellnessproject.com.
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It’s so sad. I am glad you are taking your time and energy to be there. I am so thankful that I have insurance and the money to pay for what’s not covered. … and that I don’t need dialysis.
I am disappointed, I don’t see enough white coats and scrubs in the audience protesting.
Where are the doctors, nurse practitioners, nurses, physiotherapists, cafeteria workers, desk clerks, medical students??
Why aren’t they there speaking up that they don’t want to work and learn in an environment like Grady that disrespects some of our neighbors just because of the place where they have been born?
Maybe it is a European thing, but I find this scary, very scary.
Dear Dr.Bremner,
My whole family and I are devoted fans of your book; I was at the Board Meeting yesterday at Grady and have never felt such horrible sadness and anger at the powerful people who have ignored the plea for life from Grady’s own patients. How do we get this story covered nationally? WE just got Lindsay Jones, a friend and attorney to meet with patients and doctors and he is preparing to file for injunctive relief. Thank you for your comments, your work and your witness.
Anita Beaty
Task Force for the Hoemless
Anita,
The real tragedy is it is not just Grady, it is all of Georgia. And it is not just dialysis, it is health care for children as well as adults. Texas is another state where patients without insurance are turned away from dialysis units, forcing them to receive dialysis in the emergency rooms.
I would suspect the main reason there is not more coverage is that people don’t want to hear it. It lends support to the idea that we have a broken health care system that is in need of reform.
Well, this story is being covered nationally. There are 10,000 people reading this blog per month, 500 on twitter and 500 on fb. Congratulations Denise Williams, by not showing up to give us our update yesterday, your top google hit for “Denise Williams Grady” is now the blog outlining your failure to show. Maybe these dinosaurs will start to wake up. Feel free to friend me on fb and join our cause ‘Protest Grady Hospital sentence of death for dialysis patients’ and follow @dougbremner and send me your twitter names to jamesdouglasbremner [at] yahoo.com. My fb and twitter friends are outraged and spreading the word throughout the world. Fight back against injustice! To let people die is inhumane! Let’s draw a line in the sand here! If we can win in Georgia we can win anywhere!