Black Doctor Dies of COVID-19; Left In Pain For Hrs After White Doc Downplayed Pain
Daily Kos, Dec. 23, 2020.
In “Black Doctor Dies of Covid-19 After Complaining of Racist Treatment”, John Eligon reports in the New York Times today that Dr. Susan Moore, 52, died Sunday from COVID-19. Moore, who already had sarcoidosis in the lungs, had tested positive for COVID-19 on November 29 and was admitted to Indiana University Health North Hospital in Carmel on December 4. The hospital sent her home three days later, but within twelve hours she was sent to a different hospital.
Unfortunately she had bacterial as well as COVID-19 pneumonia, was intubated December 10, and died ten days later. Her son and parents (both with dementia) survive her; she was the primary caregiver for all three, according to MedPage Today’s Kristina Fiore, writing in “Black Doctor Who Died of COVID Said Racism Impacted Care”.
What was already a tragic story was made worse, though, by a doctor at IU North who did not take Moore’s complaints seriously. Moore had to beg the doctor to treat her with the antiviral remdesivir — but after two infusions was told she didn’t qualify for more because she wasn’t short of breath. (She told the doctor she was short of breath, but the doctor denied it.)
She told the doctor she was in pain, but the doctor said he couldn’t justify giving her more painkillers and suggested she be discharged from the hospital. After she contacted a patient advocate and (despite a disappointing discussion) got a STAT CT angiogram ordered, the scan detected more problems — but she then still had to wait for hours before a nurse gave her a dose of painkillers.
As Eligon writes:
Voluminous research suggests that Black patients often receive treatment inferior to their white counterparts, particularly when it comes to relieving pain.
and Moore’s case appears to be another instance of this. In a video she posted, Moore said:
Why do I have to prove that there's something wrong with me in order for my pain to be treated? I put forth and I maintain if I was white, I wouldn’t have to go through that.
Even if the painkillers would not have cured Moore’s disease, they would have made her last days easier. And should a doctor have to beg for remdesivir? - End.
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