From NewsScan:

WORTH THINKING ABOUT: HOSPITAL "DUMPING"
In a memoir of his friend Rosalyn Yalow, the Nobel Laureate in Medicine, Eugene Straus tells the following sad (and cautionary) tale:

"When I arrived at the hospital, Rosalyn was gone. The house officer in the emergency room didn't remember her name, but he remembered a rather dirty old lady who had suffered a stroke. They had refused to admit her, or in technical lingo, she had been 'dumped.' Lots of old people stricken by strokes are dumped, since they may not be insured and thus would run up hospital costs to maintain them as they lie in a coma, waiting to expire. So they are transported instead to the municipal hospital, the place of last resort.

"The tragedy is not that a great icon of medicine had been dumped. It may be ironic that Yalow had often been invited to that hospital's parent university to lecture, to receive an honorary degree, and that the presidents and deans had lined up just to touch her hand, to be remembered, and the professors had hung on her every word. The tragedy is that a desperately ill human being had been turned away as have so many others like her.

"I had to find her. I would have gone to the nearest municipal hospital, but the house officer had remembered that when she eft his emergency room the ambulance driver said they would take her to Montefiore Hospital, a private institution near her home. When I arrived, her cardiologist, Ira Rubin, was at her bedside. 'She's comatose, and bleeding from the stomach,' he told me. 'They dumped her! Gene! Can you believe it!' "'Sure,' I said. 'She's not wearing that Nobel medallion around her neck. They saw a stroked-out senior citizen, no I.D., kind of ragged... a GOMER (Get Out of My Emergency Room).'"

See http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0738202630/newsscancom/ for "Rosalyn Yalow, Her Life and Work in Medicine," by Eugene Straus, M.D. -- or look for it in your favorite library. (We donate all revenue from our book recommendations to adult literacy action programs.)

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John

2003 Firemist Red/grey leather SL 500
2015 Palladium Silver/black mbtex GLK 350
1987 Smoke Silver/burgundy mbtex 300E Sportline (SOLD)

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What a sad commentary.

Just like a story I heard on NPR radio a year or so ago.

It was about the African-American man who was responsible for the creation of the blood bank system.

He was from the South, and was involved in a traffic accident (My memory is a little gray) and was allowed to die from blood loss because he wasn't admitted to the closest hospital because of his color.

How ironic and tragic that the man who was reponsible for creating the blood supply system dies of blood loss, needlessly.

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Paul S.

2001 E430, Bourdeaux Red, Oyster interior.
79,200 miles.

1973 280SE 4.5, 170,000 miles. 568 Signal Red, Black MB Tex. "The Red Baron".

Almost as ironic as the story about Mr. Michelin getting killed in a car wreck, from a blowout!

Writing off or dumping older patients is fairly normal. Unless you have an advocate (family, friend) you don't have much hope. It is so commonplace that you'd think no one cares. . . . . . .

And not just critical care, go to any skilled nursing facility and you'll see about the same thing.

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...Tracy

'00 ML320 "Casper"
'92 400E "Stella"

Many years ago I was a house officer in a large urban county hospital. Tight budgets, patronage hiring, and other factors led to very finite resources. Triage is not dumping. Not to say the world is perfect, but an honest effort to match the resources to the urgency is mandatory (unless everyone is willing to pay 5 large a month in premiums).

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1992 Black 500e
1991 Black 300te 4m
1992 Black Renntech 620sl
1979 Porsche 911sc targa