I’m just going to come out and say it. black people continue to die under the care of institutions of power and influence because these power structures (or the people within them) do not face substantial punishment for killing us.
That’s why we keep seeing cops shoot an unarmed man in the back on Tuesday and walk the streets of Anytown, USA 30 days later.
It’s why we continue to see black women die shortly after engaging with the health care system in any meaningful way.
And that’s also why Dr. Susan Moore is no longer with us.
Dr. Moore, a black woman and mother of a teenage college student who just graduated from my high school in Carmel, Indiana, when he went to the hospital specifically for complications from COVID-19. He remained in the hospital under the care of a doctor he identifies as Dr. Eric Banek (his research note), who refused to offer him treatment for both the COVID, for which he had apparently tested positive, and the pain he reported.
Throughout her hospital stay, she documented her treatment, her recommendations for her care, and her doctor’s feedback in a FB post. She documented how she was sent home despite the fact that this decision was not safe. Within hours of returning homeshe was admitted to the ER second hospitalwhere he could not be saved.
He looked into the camera, barely able to get through more than four words without pausing, and told us. “He told me.
Dr. Moore rightly says: “I contend that if I were white … I wouldn’t have to go through this.”
This is a woman who has taken the energy and time to document her care in hopes that Somebody will be punished for what he knew was coming.
In a statement written by the hospital system’s CEO, Dennis Murphy, Dr. Moore was called a “difficult patient” who “intimidated” staff. He continued to declare. “I don’t believe we failed in the technical aspects of his care,” because somehow the death doesn’t indicate a lack of care on the part of the hospital.
What happens to a doctor who very clearly ignores his request for pain relief? me from Indiana. they prescribed pills indiscriminately years for profit, but now Suddenly doctors have a conscience and want to prescribe something. Why am I supposed to believe that this was simply a concern about addiction rather than a desire to subjugate a black woman, her professional peer? Or worse, watch him writhe in pain as if he couldn’t be prescribed a non-habit forming drug.
Why does this monster still have a job? Why would any institution put its name behind protecting him?
Because we haven’t gotten far enough to a point where racism causes a fine. Are people losing their jobs? Are people losing their wealth? Do they lose their hard earned licenses?
Is the hospital system being penalized in any way for this loss of life? especially this way? Are their donors holding back? They lose patients, sponsorships, partnerships.
Do other doctors speak up? No? Is it because they are written for it? Are hospitals penalized for doing so? that?
We haven’t reached a point in this society where enough people care about the harm done to black people because there is still no compassion for black people. If you don’t see us as people in whose shoes you might one day find yourself, you don’t feel like there’s a wrong that needs to be righted. If you don’t feel that we are people in pain, you don’t feel that there is man standing before you who deserves it Help:
When I wrote about getting black people to trust the health care system again, to trust doctors and science again after a legacy of horrific treatment, I made it clear:
Changing this climate of conspiracy and mistrust […] requires regulation that will punish those who violate our rights to consent to care, and substantial punitive damages must be paid to those who have been harmed… and the media must identify and report it when it happens. We need to see that people care enough about us to proactively protect us from harm, and that those who want to harm us will actually have to face the consequences. and: pay compensation.
There are endless situations in America where people are being harmed, and that harm continues because the benefits still outweigh the punishments. In health care America, the more often a black woman enters the medical industry, the more likely she is to die sooner than she should. Her doctors will almost certainly take her pain away. He will be made to believe it is less serious than it is and will be sent home and told to ignore it instead of being given self-assessment tools. And because of that, he won’t be able to fight for the most precious thing he could ever have: his life.
And the health care system just continues to act as if this pattern is not real and horrible, as if there is simply nothing to be done.
If you read the comments on Dr. Moore’s posts, you will be flooded with comments about how white people pass– listen. I don’t want to hear the diminishment of Black women’s experiences in the comments section where we discuss the loss of a Black woman. It is no solidarity. I want to hear “I’m so angry this is still happening, we really need a change in our health care system.” I want you to do something about it.
If medicine is going to be all about money, then it’s time for people to start losing their money when they do injustices to black people. If the horrible, violent treatment of this woman doesn’t warrant this… this doctorso what does it do?