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Showing Original Post only (View all)Many Patients Don't Survive End-Stage Poverty - NYT op-ed - no paywall [View all]
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/11/opinion/doctor-safety-net-hospital.html?unlocked_article_code=1.kE0.YcGb.hjj9hDFyIM9B&smid=em-share*******
He has an easy smile, blue eyes and a life-threatening bone infection in one arm. Grateful for treatment, he jokes with the medical intern each morning. A friend, a fellow doctor, is supervising the mans care. We both work as internists at a public hospital in the medical safety net, a loose term for institutions that disproportionately serve patients on Medicaid or without insurance. You could describe the safety net in another way, too, as a place that holds up a mirror to our nation.
What is reflected can be difficult to face. Its this: After learning that antibiotics arent eradicating his infection and amputation is the only chance for cure, the man withdraws, says barely a word to the intern. When she asks what hes thinking, his reply is so tentative that she has to prompt him to repeat himself. Now with a clear voice, he tells her that if his arm must be amputated, he doesnt want to live. She doesnt understand what its like to survive on the streets, he continues. With a disability, hell be a target robbed, assaulted. Hed rather die, unless, he says later, someone can find him a permanent apartment. In that case, hell proceed with the amputation.
The psychiatrists evaluate him. Hes not suicidal. His reasoning is logical. The social workers search for rooms, but in San Francisco far more people need long-term rehousing than the available units can accommodate. That the medical care the patient is receiving exceeds the cost of a years rent makes no practical difference. Eventually, the palliative care doctors see him. He transitions to hospice and dies.
A death certificate would say he died of sepsis from a bone infection, but my friend and I have a term for the illness that killed him: end-stage poverty. We needed to coin a phrase because so many of our patients die of the same thing .
*****What is the saying . The measure of a society is how they treat their most vulnerable ..
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Many Patients Don't Survive End-Stage Poverty - NYT op-ed - no paywall [View all]
Diamond_Dog
Apr 2024
OP
No, but it doesn't hurt to recognize failures. How can we improve without that? I'm pretty sure we haven't fully done
KPN
Apr 2024
#37
The "I've got mine, fuck you" attitude isn't limited to the extremely wealthy, unfortunately.
ShazzieB
Apr 2024
#14
Why point to Bezos/Gates and not Musk, Ellison, Kochs, Yass, Mars, Crowe, Uihleins..Paulson,
lostnfound
Apr 2024
#24