Thursday, May 9, 2013

1."NO INSURANCE STATUS" KILLING YOUNG PEOPLE WITH CANCER IN EL PASO.

Young people holding small jobs can barely afford life on their own and one of the sacrifice they make is health insurance.  In El Paso, a border town of the great State of Texas at least 30% of working young families do not have health insurance.  You can get by with a headache, Tylenol is available without prescription.  But when you have cancer, young people are waiting for death in silence.  Many have found their qualification for MEDICAID which these days means a government certificate of "no insurance".  Not only its payments are meaningless but it is very hard to come by!  Therefore most physicians do not take patients with it.  At Medicare and Medicaid, the government uses its time to imagine new ways (Red tape) to cut or escape payment all together.  The new latest method is to claim "we have a new computer system". "your claim was entered incorrectly or in the old system" we could not pay you because we could not find your claim in the new system".  Who is responsible for entering data in the system in the first place or why is it the physician responsibility when a government personnel did not do its work.  Rather than dealing with this mess physicians and some hospitals are turning away patients.  And the best way to turn patient away is NO FOLLOW-UP APPOINTMENT ONCE CANCER DIAGNOSIS IS MADE.  You can't show up at the ER for cancer,  cancer does not cause a pressing symptom while it is spreading.  So we have a walking dead situation where a normal looking individual is living of the knowledge of having cancer but with no treatment!
In this border town, Mexico is the answer for many!  There they get treated as far as their money can take them...they comeback to die in their home fully disconnected for the American Health system most of the time having missed to the latest treatment available in the US.

WHILE ALL THIS IS HAPPENING, POLITICIANS AND LOCAL JOURNALISTS TURN THEIR BACK!

2.SHE CAME TO DIE IN MY ARMS!

May 8th, 2013, I was waiting for a new patient when I ended up with such case.  A desperate mother seeing her daughter dying, brought her to my clinic hours before her death which she escaped after IV fluid was given in a reluctant ER where I was forced to take the patient urgently!

A 25 year old American woman, mother of 3 kids, was reportedly sick without health insurance, she sought treatment in Mexico, she was reported to have an aggressive form of Leukemia (ALL).  She received chemotherapy reportedly for a full year.   With her money exhausted she could no longer afford to go back and follow-up could not be accomplished.  The last bone marrow obtained just 6 weeks ago showed no leukemia but the marrow beaten by chemotherapy is failing to make cell blood cell as it should.  Over the last few weeks she has been home weakening by the time she was brought to the office in wheelchair, she had not walk for over a week, going in and out of consciousness, she dry and Anemic...the ER gave her fluid but no blood and discharged her with NO FOLLOW-UP APPOINTMENT.   Contacted by the family, I referred the patient for transfusion to the only hospital still helping the poor, for how long your guess is as good as mine? The woman should now be evaluated for transplant but now she is free of cancer but mostly dying for lack of follow-up!

IF YOU CAN HELP IN ANYWAY, CONTACT OUR OFFICE !
THIS NOT THE ONLY CASE


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