Study: Race disparity in medical care persists

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Blacks were far less likely than whites to get specialized procedures after a heart attack and were more likely to die within a year, according to a study showing persistent racial disparities in U.S. medical care.

The study, published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, tracked 1.2 million Medicare patients at least 68 years old treated for a heart attack between January 2000 and June 2005 at 4,627 U.S. hospitals.

It found large differences in the way heart attacks are treated in black patients compared with white patients.

Black people were about 30 percent less likely to get procedures to open blood vessels such as angioplasty or open-heart surgery after a heart attack regardless of whether the hospital they checked into provided full invasive cardiac services, the study found.
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"The most surprising finding was that even when they (black patients) were transferred from a hospital not providing specialized services to a hospital providing these services, they still were significantly less likely to receive these procedures," Popescu said. - CNN
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The sad part is that this isn't news to some of us, and it isn't true to others.

Woman dies in ER lobby as 911 refuses to help

Tapes show operators ignored pleas to send ambulance to L.A. hospital

LOS ANGELES - A woman who lay bleeding on the emergency room floor of a troubled inner-city hospital died after 911 dispatchers refused to contact paramedics or an ambulance to take her to another facility, newly released tapes of the emergency calls reveal.

Edith Isabel Rodriguez, 43, died of a perforated bowel on May 9 at Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital. Her death was ruled accidental by the Los Angeles County coroner’s office.

Relatives said Rodriguez was bleeding from the mouth and writhing in pain for 45 minutes while she was at a hospital waiting area. Experts have said she could have survived had she been treated early enough.

County and state authorities are now investigating Rodriguez’s death. Relatives reported she died as police were wheeling her out of the hospital after the officers they had asked to help Rodriguez arrested her instead on a parole violation. Sheriff’s Department spokesman Duane Allen said Wednesday that the investigation is ongoing.

In the recordings of two 911 calls that day, first obtained by the Los Angeles Times under a California Public Records Act request, callers pleaded for help for Rodriguez but were referred to hospital staff instead.

“I’m in the emergency room. My wife is dying and the nurses don’t want to help her out,” Rodriguez’s boyfriend, Jose Prado, is heard saying in Spanish through an interpreter on the tapes.

“What’s wrong with her?” a female dispatcher asked.

“She’s vomiting blood,” Prado said.

“OK, and why aren’t they helping her?” the dispatcher asked. - MSNBC
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Life is all right in America

(If you're all white in America) - America, West Side Story, Music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim

"The study was not designed to find the reasons for the disparities."

Maybe it's high time one is conducted that gets to the heart of the matter. I wonder if this is an economic issue, a race issue, one that begets the other, or something else entirely. Whatever the case people need the best health care that money can't buy.

quote:

Maybe it's high time one is conducted that gets to the heart of the matter. I wonder if this is an economic issue, a race issue, one that begets the other, or something else entirely.

You're kidding, right? Are you really wondering?

Problems at "Killer King" (I did not make that up - it what people call the hospital).

The CNN article is about a black-white disparity. Ms. Rodriguez was hispanic. Do poor whites suffer from the same disadvantages? Would a wealthy black family with good health insurance be able to receive top notch care? Are the results more about economics than anything else? Yes, honi, I do wonder. I don't believe we can fix the disparities until we identify the reasons for them.

Of all people, surprise surprise, Bill O'Reilly had a segment last night on the Rodriguez travesty and interviewed a very sharp gentleman who is trying to improve the situation. He described the situation at "Killer King" as chaos. That certainly appears to be the case.