I recently read a story about a pregnant woman in a “third
world country” who went into labor early. Because of several miscarriages,
stillbirths and a Cesarean section, she was considered very high risk… so much
so that the area midwife refused to take on the responsibility of birthing this
child.
Her husband was frantic as he borrowed a car from a stranger
and drove her to the nearest hospital — only to be turned away because they
said they were not prepared for high-risk births. She was driven to the next
hospital hours away and when they arrived late at night they were told the doctor
who delivered babies was home sleeping and could not be disturbed. Even more desperate
the husband soon was speeding along tenuous roads to a hospital even further
away.
Meanwhile this woman’s labor had advanced and, knowing that
there was no way they could make it in time, she screamed that the baby was
coming. The father to be stopped the car and helped his wife as she delivered a
beautiful and thankfully healthy little boy. He even knew how to tie and cut
the cord before wrapping the newborn in his shirt and handing the bundle to the
new mom.
This true tale happened in 2021, but not in America. For sure
this could never happen here…
Then I thought of all the inequities throughout our own
country during this past year and this COVID crisis. We have all heard of the
overcrowded situations as critically ill patients were quarantined in
hospitals, we’ve heard about the overworked healthcare workers, and of course
we’ve heard about the lack of supplies and respirators. What so many of us didn’t
want to hear or acknowledge was how hospitals located in and near to low-income
areas had far less nurse-to-patient ratio, less respirators and less personal
attention to each patient. Lower income neighborhoods also typically offered
fewer testing sites than higher income neighborhoods which added to more
advanced cases and more infectious contacts by the time a patient came to the
hospital.
Meanwhile, while no one was immune to this often-deadly
virus, there did seem to be more equipment and more staff where wealthier
patients lived. In more financially stable communities the general health was
also better with less untreated high-risk conditions to complicate the
infection. When the former president caught
COVID, he was treated with a new drug, not yet formally approved by the FDA,
and manufactured in scarce quantities. Donald Trump was given the VIP treatment
because of his status as president; some of the wealthiest individuals also
routinely receive VIP treatment during hospitalizations. While there are many
selfless doctors and nurses, there are also many high-priced doctors and staff who
gravitate to hospitals where pay and working conditions are better.
There are some who claim this disparity in treatment and
available medicines and equipment has to do with social and financial status.
There are those who believe this inequity is based on whether the patient is
white or not. Still there is a third belief that insurance is partly to blame
as companies decide what treatment or medicine is worth their investment — of
course those who can afford it tend to have better insurance coverage, so again
maybe it does come down to wealth.
America is not known as a “third world country”, but even in
those less developed areas, there should be no inequity in life-saving
treatment for any human being. And especially in our American cities, every
person deserves VIP-level care and treatment.
