Do I Have the Right to Live?

Sep 23 2009

Today in Fulton County court the courtroom was packed with dialysis patients and advocates who were scheduled to have their dialysis turned off last week but for whom a temporary restraining order had kept the Grady clinic in Atlanta GA open until today, I guess. Lawyers for Grady Hospital argued that the patients don’t have a right to healthcare (that one made me kind of wonder) and that Grady (whose mission is to care for the sick and indigent poor) didn’t have any obligation to them. They provided an affidavit saying that 88 patients had been provided with followup. Now I am not a math major, but originally there were 95 patients and there were at least 25 in the court and 95 minus 25 equals…

Oh, and their “followup” was to send at least two to Mexico which doesn’t have long term dialysis, and therefore they will die there.

The lawyer for the patients argued that closing the clinic was sentencing them to death, therefore depriving them of the right to live. I mean, doesn’t the US Constitution give us the right to live? If we have someone on death row for killing someone we spend millions to give them due process, but if they are a Grady dialysis patient we just turn off the plug. People go nuts over pulling the plug on brain dead Terry Schiavo but we have no compunction turning off dialysis.

One of the patients has a green card and is short of one year to qualify for Medicaid. But, I guess, she must die. One was sent to Florida because they said he could get dialysis there but couldn’t get it, had a stroke and came back to Atlanta.

Fulton Courthouse, Sept 23, 2009

There is something seriously messed up with a country that allows people to die like this. The Judge is supposed to give a ruling today or tomorrow.

Join the FB cause “Protest Grady Hospital’s Death Sentence for Dialysis Patients” here.

Tags: dialysis, Fulton County Court, Grady Hospital, healthcare, Healthcare Politics

Filed in Healthcare Politics | Doug Bremner

14 Comments

By Therapy Patient, September 23, 2009 @ 2:58 pm

Here are my calculations. Dialysis costs about $30,000 a year. 95 people at $30,000 a year we are talking $2,850,000. What we need is 28,500 people to step up to the plate and donate $100 per year to cover the needed treatments. It’s that “simple”. OK. I volunteer to pay $100 a year so we need 28,499 people. What do you think?
By Brenda Hicks, September 23, 2009 @ 3:50 pm

It’s a great idea, Therapy Patient. Thing is, most folks are just plain tapped out right now. For example, I’m unemployed and have my own health care concerns — facing $1250/mo in medical care costs without insurance. With no income, I have no idea how I’ll do it. I would *love* to help out, but how? And I know I’m not alone. However, the idea is a good one. Don’t get me wrong.

My other feeling is: We are so screwed.
By Stephany, September 23, 2009 @ 6:15 pm

I am disgusted with the treatment of these people, and I thought I’d see it all in the psychiatric medicaid insured world.

When a human being is cast aside due to lack of funds,it becomes a crisis in ethics and medical responsibility is questioned, and hospitals and professionals should put patient lives above everything else.

Whether a citizen of the US or not, living here should automatically provide health care to people with a life threatening treatment needed situation at minimum.

If we, as a country do not care for those who have less than most, who are poor, and suffering from illness, WE FAIL.
By Stephany, September 23, 2009 @ 7:22 pm

I wonder if any of the officials who have a business investment interest in this situation (the hospital CEO, et al)have ever not been able to afford care for a family member.

As a parent of a disabled child, bankrupt as a result of providing care with out insurance for years, now cannot afford a decent place to provide care for my child. There is much more to this story than meets the eye, and if only the average citizen understood that these people are representative of millions of Americans without insurance who suffer every single day, the lack of humane and dignified care they deserve.

We are not talking about a lot of people here, folks. Under 100 patients need care and this place closes up shop.

It’s a sad commentary, truly.
By Doug Bremner, September 23, 2009 @ 8:03 pm

Neil Shulman has been trying to get the private facilities to each take a couple of people as charity, without luck. People look at this as a local issue, but I think it is a sign of the healthcare levees starting to crack. You can’t just treat people like so much garbage to be tossed aside like nothing. You start there and it doesn’t stop.
By Doug Bremner, September 23, 2009 @ 8:05 pm

The good news is that we have been able to get an injunction to keep the clinic open on a wing and a prayer. There is no real organization working on this, just a handful of concerned citizens.
By Flavius, September 23, 2009 @ 8:55 pm

I am truly outraged that the US healthcare “system” allows this to go on….but the American people have repeated stated through their representative that Health Care should be considered a business before anything else.

So if you state that health care is a “right”, then that makes it someone else’s obligation to provide said healthcare. At the same time, that healthcare provider has a right to be paid for their services.

So when does a patient’s “right” become a doctor’s “obligation”? Then who’s obliged to pay the doctor?

Clearly, healthcare is NOT a right, as it is implemented in the current US non-system. It should be, but it simply isn’t.
By Doug Bremner, September 23, 2009 @ 9:02 pm

That’s why I thought the t shirt (from an Emory public health student btw, who were part of the contingent) was so interesting, and the argument on behalf of the hospital that we have no constitutional right to healthcare. Which led me to ask, do we have the right to life? and is pulling dialysis which you need to live a denial of that? Someone pointed out that our ‘right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is actually from the Declaration of Independence, ie our secession from England. Whether we have the right to life is a question, which I assume must be in the affirmative, since we spend so much money to keep prisoners alive. When you start to pull the thread on American healthcare the whole thing unravels quickly. E.g. for profit healthcare is obviously a violation of the Hippocratic oath of drs to do no harm. That is why my father’s generation harped so much about the free healthcare they provided to the indigent. Well obviously their greed has led them to provide nothing at this point so that argument falls away.
By Therapy Patient, September 24, 2009 @ 12:14 am

Doctors provided free care to some poor people back before the government stepped in. Now a lot of doctors write up their invoices to get as much as they can from the government. A friend of mine’s dad was an orthopedic surgeon. Her mom told me about helping poor patients before the govt. stepped in. She’d even go to their homes with food baskets. But people are falling through the cracks now. Do we also have more poor people now or am I just seeing a lot more now? Certainly this is a difficult time.
By Dr. Rick Lippin, September 24, 2009 @ 4:56 pm

IMAGINE…JUST IMAGINE… that all the money and resources we have squandered on H1N1 flu issue (about to fizzle) were spent on putting in basic health centers in poor minority communities.
By Janka, September 25, 2009 @ 9:08 am

You know, I have been reading about this as a foreigner, but I never before thought of it from the doctor’s point of view, which is bizarre, considering that I am in the profession myself.

Now that I did, I’m heart-broken. How do the people required to do this work live with it? How can you send away a patient you have been treating, knowing that they need the treatment to live?
By Anita Beaty, September 27, 2009 @ 11:50 am

Dr. Bremner,
Thank you for your witness and your courage. Lindsay Jones is one of the best men I have ever known, and the courage of his agreeing to take this on is topped only by his courage to continue fighting for the current and future patients who need this dialysis to live. We need to go after the folks who have decided this outcome and are currently threatening doctors, judges, lawyers and clinicians who participate in this activism. We all know who they are, but we have no real idea what kind of pressure they are capable of. No idea at all. Let us call them out together as a kind of insurance policy to protect the front line heroes.

Anita Beaty
By Grady Advocates for Responsible Care, November 16, 2009 @ 2:27 pm

Today, November 16 leaves the Grady Dialysis patients 48 days of life. On January 3, 2010 Grady stops the contract with Fresenius Dialysis Centers to continue their care. As the Advocates for Responsible Care we are trying to find a solution to help these 37 patients live. Please go to our website:dialysiscrisis,webs.com and donate to their medical fund and Take a Stand for Life!We are pleading with the counties and dialysis companies to help us to get treatment for these patients. On December 1,2009, we are inviting these key decision makers, with patients and advocates to find a solution that supports their lives. Join us that day in prayer that we may once again value human life. Many of these patients and their families work hard, pay taxes and want to contribute to their care. Help me to help them do this and to reveal the truth of their situation. Dorothy, leader , Advocates for Responsible Care