Posted on 11/27/2007 3:06:47 PM PST by Baladas
Emergency rooms are not for routine medical care, hence the term “emergency”. The domino effect will cause more hospitals to close for the same reason.
Only 7 percent of Grady's patients have private insurance, and 75 percent are on Medicaid. Because they lack of insurance and have no family doctor, many go to Grady's emergency room even when they don't have an emergency. The ER ends up treating sore throats and other ordinary aches and pains.
I would be interested to know how much the hospital writes off in uncollectable ER bills, and how much that figure would change if the ER started turning non-emergent cases away.
Maybe Abu Dahbi can bail them out? Seriously...read into the ER bit, and ask yourself...who is soaking up all these services?
Do you suppose this could be part of the problem?
Emory University OB/GYNs Addressing Growing Number of Hispanic Births at Grady Memorial Hospital
More poor and disadvantaged Hispanic women in Fulton and Dekalb counties are giving birth at Grady Hospital, a growing trend that many Emory University OB/GYN doctors at Grady Hospital believe will continue for years to come.
Of the live births at Grady since 1995, 64 percent are black, 33 percent Hispanic, and 3 percent white. In 1992, the number of Hispanic births at Grady was estimated at only 10 percent.
The number of Hispanic births is up largely because of increased labor opportunities in the metropolitan Atlanta area. As many Hispanics find work here, many of them settle here and start families, doctors say. Yet, the problem is many of the women, like their male counterparts, are illegal or undocumented aliens without medical insurance.
The growth has also brought its share of challenges. Many the Hispanic women who come to Grady are not in the best health. Take one Hispanic woman, who prior to giving birth at Grady Hospital last summer, was diagnosed with Rh disease, a serious blood disorder that causes severe anemia, and sometimes death, in infants. To save the unborn child’s life, doctors performed seven intra-uterine fetal blood transfusions, which is a technical and tedious procedure. Each transfusion began by inserting a needle through the mother’s abdomen into the womb, and then through the umbilical cord for direct transfusion of blood to the fetus. As a result, the baby was born healthy, and is in good health.
But Dr. Hugh Randall, an Emory University School of Medicine professor who heads the department of gynecology and obstetrics at Grady Hospital, says so many other Hispanic women who come to the hospital also lack proper prenatal care.
“It’s going to be a challenge, in terms of how we’re going to care for this growing population,” Randall says. “Finding a way to pay for their health care and health insurance is one of the biggest challenges. Hispanics play a vital role in our economy, and they’re going to need health care and support services.”
What often leads to improper prenatal care is the women’s inability to pay. So rather than come in for regular prenatal visits, many of the Hispanic women who come to Grady limit the number of prenatal visits or come for only a few.
Claire Westdahl, a certified nurse-midwife at Grady, says the nurse-midwives, nurse practitioners and physicians’ assistants who care for the majority of pregnant Hispanic women in the Grady neighborhood clinics of Fulton and DeKalb counties are sensitive to the cultural and social issues of monolingual, immigrant women.
“We need to invest our time and energy in culturally appropriate prenatal care because these babies are our future Americans,” she says.
Many of the health care providers at Grady, for example, are able to provide pregnancy care in Spanish. When needed, translators are available to assure that health care needs are met. An effort is also made to assure that support staff in the clinics, such as medical clerks, financial counselors and medical assistants is not only bilingual, but bi-cultural, as well.
Quarterly, Grady sponsors a “Celebration of Motherhood” program inviting all pregnant women from the neighborhood clinics to tour Grady’s Family Birth Center and nursery. Classes in Spanish are provided on breastfeeding and childbirth. Women and their families are especially interested in information about the Medicaid and birth certificate application process. This one-day celebration offers an opportunity to meet the Spanish translators who are available when women and their families come to Grady for the birth.
To address even more needs, group prenatal care has been offered in Spanish at one Grady neighborhood clinic. Women due the same month have their prenatal appointments at the same time of their care.
Through the group, women are able to develop social relationships and receive their prenatal education and prenatal care at one time and in their native language. A Spanish-speaking nurse-midwife, social worker and clinic assistant lead the group, providing care in Spanish and addressing the specific needs of each group of women.
Beginning January 2001, the Grady Health System, in partnership with Emory University and Morehouse schools of medicine, will introduce a “package price” for prenatal care. The program will allow Hispanic women and others to come in for care earlier in pregnancy and receive the full content of prenatal care. For $1,000, women will be eligible for 13 prenatal visits, routine prenatal lab work, and one ultrasound. Women are able to pay for the services within eight months.
http://whsc.emory.edu/_releases/2000december/randall_grady_births.htm
I think I've found the problem.
The state legislature told the Fulton-Dekalb Hospital Authority that they could have money or control but not both. The Hospital Authority has chosen control.
But by gollies those kids they are popping out are citizens!
More specifically, THIS is the problem.
Hell, Atlanta isn’t much better than Baghdad, may be worse.
There may be even more mindless barbarians, in Atlanta!
I have some deep historical roots, in Atlanta, it was a great city, but now it is dead.
I agree!
Exactly. If they’d refuse *routine medical care* and make these people find a doctor, or clinic for minor stuff, this wouldn’t be happening.
In the old welfare town we used to live in, it wasn’t uncommon at all to hear of people calling 911 for a sore throat or cold. And there were some who just wanted the attention.
When I had my daughter in the ER for kidney stones, (we had no clue what was causing the sudden pain), there were folks in for a tooth ache which had been going on for a while and pink eye or some such malady, at two o’clock in the morning.... And this WASN’T a welfare area this time.
They also fear white people...
A business failing due to “a lack of paying customers”? Unheard of! PBS has been in operation for decades suffering from the same problem!
OK people. Time to belly up to the bar. Everyone kicks in 80 bucks and the system is solvent with $45 million to stick in the bank and draw interest.
This will be our future if socialized medicine comes into its own.
Take a look at this article about Grady Memorial and illegal aliens. It’s a real tear jerk piece, be warned. They’ve spent a fortune on ‘hispanic outreach’ and treat aliens with leprosy, aids and other VERY expensive treatments.
But not a word in the posted article that this might be an economic problem for Grady.
http://whsc.emory.edu/_pubs/ph/autumn01/obra.html
[snip]The rash had been with him for a year and was still spreading when he arrived in Atlanta last winter. Lesions, nodules, and open wounds marred his face, chest, and back. Shooting pains in his hands became too much to bear. So Perez took a taxi to Grady Memorial Hospital, where he had the luck to meet infectious disease specialist Carlos del Rio, MD, chief of medicine at Grady and a faculty member at the Rollins School of Public Health (RSPH) and Emory School of Medicine. He prescribed Perez a two-year course of medication and urged the infectious disease fellows and residents on the ward to take a look at Perez. A patient with leprosy doesn’t come along very often.
La mano de obra: The hand of the worker
>I think I've found the problem.
Kramer : It's just a write off for them.
Jerry : How is it a write off?
Kramer : They just write it off.
Jerry : Write it off what?
Kramer : Jerry all these big companies they write off everything.
Jerry : You don't even know what a write off is.
Kramer : Do you?
Jerry : No. I don't.
Kramer : But they do and they are the ones writing it off.
I do: the rotten fruits of liberalism.
Nah, that couldn’t be it.
And even if it was costing everyone else by forcing hospitals to close, the cheap labor those illegal aliens provide must more than balance everything out, right ?
And, of course, there is no such thing as an illegal human being, so they must be embraced rather than sent back to whatever hellhole country they escaped from, right ?
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