SPECIAL COVERAGE: My Aunt Hospitalized with NO Insurance!!
My aunt has been out of work like millions of Americans. This equates to her having no health insurance coverage. Like many other Americans, she was forced to forgo her medications in order to try to keep up with her financial situation. On last Sunday she went in severe respiratory distress after fluid buildup on her lungs and was rushed to the emergency room where she had a breathing tube placed and was put on the breathing machine.
What many people don't realize is that from the moment she was placed in the ICU, the nurses and doctors stereotyped her as being an overweight, non compliant, poor black woman with no insurance. What this means is that she wasn't receiving the optimal care by the doctor who was on her case thus affecting the attitudes of the other health care workers working with her.
Her young daughter who happens to be a Registered Nurse was able to assert her influence and get her moved from the small hospital where she was to a bigger facility where she works. Guess what?! The same attitudes about the poor uninsured are there at the larger facility. The truth is that doctors are no longer able to honor the Hippocratic Oath to treat patients to the best of their ability due to health care facilities, hospital administrators, and discharge planners breathing down their backs to discharge patients who have no insurance before they are well enough to be discharge. This situation that is happening to my aunt happens all the time as I have witnessed it myself as a nurse with patients being rushed out the door before they are well enough to leave. It isn't right.
The good thing about my aunt's situation is that she has a daughter who is knowledgeable and can advocate for her. How many other uninsured or underinsured people have this and can stand up against these big Health Care Giants? Please support Health Care Reform.
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/healthca...
What many people don't realize is that from the moment she was placed in the ICU, the nurses and doctors stereotyped her as being an overweight, non compliant, poor black woman with no insurance. What this means is that she wasn't receiving the optimal care by the doctor who was on her case thus affecting the attitudes of the other health care workers working with her.
Her young daughter who happens to be a Registered Nurse was able to assert her influence and get her moved from the small hospital where she was to a bigger facility where she works. Guess what?! The same attitudes about the poor uninsured are there at the larger facility. The truth is that doctors are no longer able to honor the Hippocratic Oath to treat patients to the best of their ability due to health care facilities, hospital administrators, and discharge planners breathing down their backs to discharge patients who have no insurance before they are well enough to be discharge. This situation that is happening to my aunt happens all the time as I have witnessed it myself as a nurse with patients being rushed out the door before they are well enough to leave. It isn't right.
The good thing about my aunt's situation is that she has a daughter who is knowledgeable and can advocate for her. How many other uninsured or underinsured people have this and can stand up against these big Health Care Giants? Please support Health Care Reform.
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/healthca...
Thanks Brother Mozell for your well wishes. I hear today that my aunt is breathing on her own and is off the breathing machine, but is using another apparatus to assist her called a CPAP machine. She is being moved out of ICU to a ward.
Sister Irma I saw your comments and the doctor is very correct in what he's said. Health care workers get cultural diversity training and know these things, but many of us don't want to take in consideration our patient's cultural backgrounds and experiences because some believe that people who are here should acclimate to the American way.