My Health Care Hell

Scientific Proof vs. Conjecture

2008-03-23T08:02:00.002-05:00

I remember my first visit with a Muskegon Cares HMO named Dr. Sprague who was also acting as chairman of the board of this HMO, and is also a board member at Mercy Hospital in Muskegon. While explaining my history and previous diagnosis and treatment for cancer I remember him interrupting me and mumbling that they didn't usually treat people like me for their cancer. People like me sounded like a very sexist and racial comment for a physician to make, I thought to myself. I then asked him if he knew the physician that treated me, Marjorie Mooney-Jacoby, and he said he had known "Marge" for sometime. From this statement I got a very bad premonition about what was ahead for me, and unfortunately I was right. I told him that I thought she was a pretty good physician the first couple of years I saw her. Dr. Sprague then listened about 10 minutes more to me and said, without any proof of coarse, that Dr. Mooney probably had made a mistake in her diagnosis. If this were so, why did I feel so much better after treatment, and why did she collect the BCBSM insurance money and never send them or I a letter saying that a mistake had been made? Dr. Sprague then promised me that I would never get any diagnosis/treatment for the lymphoma (such as a simple biopsy), or my medical files from Dr. Mooney, if he had anything to say about it. I then told him I was very hurt about his nonchalant attitude about such a serious diagnosis. I commented that I wished I could take a lie detector test, and that he and Dr. Mooney could take one too. He abruptly and sternly said that "not ever happen" on his part anyways.

As I sat in the Muskegon Family Care office I remember thinking that this was not his first time doing this, and that he obviously done similar things like this to other people in this area before. And both before and after my visit to the Muskegon Family Care Center I had been told by so many young black people that they couldn't get any help from the area physicians either for whatever problems they had either. Dr. Sprague almost seemed too confident that people would listen to and/or believe him over me, especially considering his reputation in the medical community. I remember looking Sprague in the eye and saying to him as I left the office that day, "You don't even know who I am" and he quickly responded, "I don't care who you are".

Since that time I have volunteered to take lie detector tests and although that offer still stands, not one physician wants me to take one because they seem to already have their mind made up by the time I get around to requesting a biopsy on my lymph node---a node that has been swollen for 7 years now. They all say that they don't think a biopsy of my lymph node is necessary, and that they think Dr. Mooney-Jacoby made a mistake in her diagnosis. In 2003, I received a referral to the U of M by my then physician Dr. Robert Strauss, but Dr. Scott Gitlin, the physician I saw, told me the only way to truly rule out lymphoma was to do a biopsy which Dr. Strauss refused to approve, and supposedly was required of him under Medicaid rules. Though I have also seen some psychologists and they appear to be less leery of me and more leery of the area physicians, which doesn't say much for the medical doctors and the "do no harm" oath they have all taken. As a matter of fact, one psychologist said to me that my case reminded him of a movie he saw called "Conspiracy Theory". He asked me if I had seen it and I said that I had not and asked him what it was about. All I really remember the psychologist saying is how this guy starts out with a conspiracy theory, which no one else wants to believe, but that turns out to be true.

One of the physicians I saw in Muskegon who refused to perform a biopsy on my lymph node or my skin, just died of cancer in 2007 (I am unsure of what kind he had though our local paper said he died of cancer). My mother said to me, "didn't you see this guy over at Hackley Hospital for awhile?" and read me the obituary. I said that I had and that he had also refused to do a biopsy or any other blood work for that matter. She said to me, under her breath and with her turned towards the floor, "well, I guess he got his didn't he".

Warning: Don't Blindly Trust Your Doctor

2008-03-13T09:15:00.009-05:00

I was adopted by the most kind, loving, and racially un-biased family a little multiracial girl like myself could ever want. In 1971, I was a 6 week old baby--a white, black and native American baby, who was being adopted by an all white family, which was really quite revolutionary at that time, especially being that I was from Detroit and they were from a conservative west Michigan city called Muskegon. And I think it was being raised with the kindness of true love and acceptance that this family had for me is what ultimately made me who I am today. I now know and understand why I am a child of God--to have been given the strength and dignity I need today to fight for my life, as well as truth and understanding for the lives of other minorities so that we may all try to fulfill our God given purpose while on this Earth.

In Muskegon County, racial discrimination and discrimination in the delivery of health care services has been found repeatedly in focus group sessions conducted by the Western Michigan Minority Health Project over the years. In their report, 2004 Minority Health Matters: A special Focus on African Americans, while access to quality health care has been deemed important to eliminate these racial disparities and increase quality for African Americans in Muskegon County, it has continued to decline without being questioned by whites and nonwhites in the community as a whole. Well as my mother used to tell me, sometimes if you want a miracle to happen, you have to be the miracle, so I am writing blogs to help emphasize the health care problems that our medical community intentionally continues to fail to address. Furthermore, denying people like myself access to their medical files when they have already been diagnosed and treated for cancer, only ensures that persons slow suffering and death from cancer because it was not treated early or accurately, even though it could have been.

It wasn't until I was about 33 that my mother told me the following story, and since it shows how little the discriminatory attitudes of local doctors has changed in 30 years I will tell it again here. When I was about a year and a half old my mother took me to a local pediatrician she was referred to in Muskegon. When the doctor came in the room she told him how old I was and that I was adopted. The doctor immediately looked at my mother and arrogantly said, "well...couldn't you have adopted a white baby". My mother said she remembers leaving his office that day in disgust and looking at me in the car seat as she started the car and saying to me, "well, we won't be going back there", in response to this doctor's obvious racial bias.

Recently an study reported by channel WOOD TV 8 during the week of March 10, 2008 reported that almost 75% of the African Americans they polled reported not being able to obtain or receive a quality health care (they also listed other minorities who were polled like Vietnamese but the study of course didn't indicate they were from Vietnam) and noted that these were african americans who were born in Africa. Well, that sounds completely ridiculous considering since you can go to the Internet and find several reports from 2002 to present that indicate that African Americans are receiving Unequal Treatment, which has been outlined extensively in in research conducted by several reputable institution's of medicine (the National Academy of Science's Institute of Medicine, National Cancer Institute, and Briefs prepared by the Commonwealth Fund/John F. Kennedy School of Government Bipartisan Congressional Health Policy Conference which summarize these disparities. Even more, all of these resources seem to point out that even when disparities in health care can be explained by differences in income, insurance status and medical need, there is increasing evidence that racial and ethnic disparities in care persist even after accounting for these factors (http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/publications_show.htm?doc_id=247164).

Now I think we can all remember a time when we were referred to a physician because someone thought that he or she was an "excellent physician" who was supposedly "well-respected" by his patients and peers alike. However, when this happens, I firmly believe that every single person, of every single race needs to stop and ask themselves some very basic questions like, 'why are they really saying this to you', 'what are their intentions in doing so', and 'who will benefit most' from not only giving this referral, but using their influence to make you think what they want you to think about this particular physician. Is the beneficiary truly you, or is it actually the physician. Well, I guess only time can tell for most, so I would like to use my experience with the physicians in the Muskegon area during the past 35 years to tell you what has happened as a result of the area physician's disrespect and disregard for human life that is 'different' from theirs. And remember, how would you like to be treated differently because of how you look or the kinkiness of you hair. Because it can and will happen to you or a loved one too if we don't stand up and protest these kinds of injustice together.

Correction to 'Illegal HMO Activity" Post

2008-03-10T03:35:00.002-05:00

I need to correct myself about the term "colonoscopy bags". Yikes, that would be painful huh. Anyways, I guess I don't exactly know the correct term but I do know that colonoscopy was definitely incorrect. I meant to describe the types of bags one has to attach to the outside of their body after having partial or full removal of their colon, similar to the bags one has to have after having removal of their bladder in order to catch their urine. Though these bags are always on the outside of the body and, for the individual I was referring to, are put there in order to catch bowel movements.