(C) Common Dreams
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How a Hospital Chain Used a Poor Neighborhood to Turn Huge Profits [1]
['Katie Thomas', 'Jessica Silver-Greenberg']
Date: 2022-09-24
Every time that Bon Secours took away a service from Community, executives gave doctors the same justification: Patients were just an ambulance ride away from hospitals in the broader system.
But Dr. Kelly and other doctors said many patients had wound up like the man with the heart attack. “We very, very often were stuck for many hours with patients who absolutely needed advanced care,” Dr. Kelly said.
Other patients faced a different problem: Specialists who saw patients at other Bon Secours locations would not travel to the hospital.
This spring, Doris Scarborough, 79, went to Richmond Community to have her toe partly amputated. Poor circulation had turned the toe black and gangrenous. She said her podiatrist had told her that she would lose some of her toe, but was likely to keep her leg if she had a standard procedure known as revascularization.
Richmond Community did not offer this procedure. Ms. Scarborough had to have it done at the specialist’s office, and it took more than two weeks to get an appointment. Weeks after the procedure, Ms. Scarborough lost her entire toe.
Dr. Foluso Fakorede, a cardiologist and an expert on racial disparities in amputation, said many people in poor, nonwhite communities faced similar delays in getting the procedure. “I am not surprised by what’s transpired with this patient at all,” he said.
Because Ms. Scarborough does not drive, her nephew must take time off work every time she visits the vascular surgeon, whose office is 10 miles from her home. Richmond Community would have been a five-minute walk. Bon Secours did not comment on her case.
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[1] Url:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/24/health/bon-secours-mercy-health-profit-poor-neighborhood.html
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