A Black doctor died of Covid-19 weeks after accusing hospital staff of racist treatment (white doctor dismiss her pain and concern on treatment)

[SilentPanda]

Dr. Susan Moore passed away on Sunday due to complications from Covid-19, her son told the New York Times. The internist died about two weeks after she shared a video in which she accused a doctor at Indiana University Health North Hospital (IU North) of ignoring her complaints of pain and requests for medication because she was Black, even though she was both a patient and a doctor herself.

In a video that was posted earlier this month, she filmed herself from a hospital bed and recounted her experience at IU North. Moore said her doctor brushed off her symptoms, telling her, "You're not even short of breath."

"Yes, I am," Moore said in the video, which she shared on Facebook December 4.

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She had to beg to receive remdesivir, she recalled in the video, the antiviral drug used to treat patients who are hospitalized for Covid-19 and are not in need of mechanical ventilation.

And despite her pain, the doctor told Moore he might send her home, she said, and he didn't feel comfortable giving her more narcotics.

"He made me feel like I was a drug addict," she said in the video. "And he knew I was a physician."

Moore had also posted updates on her Facebook page along with the video.

Moore, who was an internist, said her pain was "adequately treated" only after she raised concerns about her treatment. She was later discharged from IU North, but returned to a different hospital less than 12 hours later, she wrote on her Facebook page.

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Moore's story speaks to a broader issue of what experts call implicit racial bias in health care toward Black patients. Studies have shown that Black patients are in some situations prescribed less pain medication than their White counterparts. And a recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine attributed unequal treatment in part to "enduring racist cultural beliefs and practices."

The article cited a 2016 study that found half of White medical students and residents "held unfounded beliefs about intrinsic biologic differences between Black people and White people," falsely believing the pain of Black patients was less severe than White patients.

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Moore first tested positive for Covid-19 on November 29, according to her Facebook post. By December 4, she was hospitalized at IU North in Carmel, Indiana. It was only after a CT scan showed new lymphadenopathy -- a disease in which the lymph nodes become enlarged -- that the hospital agreed to treat her pain, she said.

"You have to show proof that you have something wrong with you in order for you to get the medicine," she said in the video.

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A Black doctor died of Covid-19 weeks after accusing hospital staff of racist treatment | CNN

A Black physician died of Covid-19 weeks after she described a White doctor dismissing her pain and concerns about her treatment as she lay in an Indiana hospital.

www.cnn.com

 

[krazen]

RIP.

And, ugh.

In a statement issued on Thursday, Dennis M. Murphy, President and CEO of Indiana University Health, defended the technical aspects of the treatment Moore received, while conceding "that we may not have shown the level of compassion and respect we strive for in understanding what matters most to patients."

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Imagine being in the middle of a pandemic and a doctor is telling you she thinks she has the disease and you treating her like she's making it up.

 

[Absent]

In a statement issued on Thursday, Dennis M. Murphy, President and CEO of Indiana University Health, defended the technical aspects of the treatment Moore received, while conceding "that we may not have shown the level of compassion and respect we strive for in understanding what matters most to patients."

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This pisses me off even more.

 

[XenodudeX]

 

[Huncho_Houdini]

bias against black patients is definitely a thing and more often than not completely implicit. I'm always making sure I'm not falling for these types of traps in my own thinking. It's something all providers should strive for. Whether or not that would have altered the course of her illness and ultimate death is uncertain but pain should be adequately treated. RIP.

 

[Nepenthe]

I've been privy to a disparity in service and understanding between black and white patients receiving pain medications, where even black cancer patients got hounded and side-eyed by my own coworkers while some white hotshot pilot comes in somehow receiving sympathy that he can't get opioids freely in the islands anymore. Shit pisses me off.

 

[Cyanity]

Utterly disgusting. There is so much rot to root out in this country. It feels like we'll never get there.

 

[FluxWaveZ]

I've had to learn just over the past couple years what it means to fight for yourself when it comes to health professionals assessing your situation and not taking certain matters seriously. Always been the type to passively go with whatever they say, but the truth is that you can't trust that, and really need to insist on the things that bother you, and even then it doesn't matter.

 

[kickz]

Ooof sue that shit show to hell

 

[Nacho Papi]

Reprehensible...absolutely awful.

 

[WhiteRabbitEXE]

Look, I know this "bias" (seems like a massive fucking understatement, but sure, whatever) very much exists and I know racism is widespread and a helluva drug. But still. I just don't fucking understand it. How can people just so easily dismiss the medical needs of someone because of their race. To assume they're magically pain resistant and/or inherently lying. I can't process the combined callousness and ignorance. Especially to dismiss a fellow fucking doctor?

 

[Loudninja]

The person that thought she was faking better not have a job anymore.

 

[SindbadtheSailor]

Pretty sure there was a recent study that stated the systemic bias in medicine where people of colour but especially black people were less likely to taken seriously, less likely to be given the medicine they needed and less likely to be given enough medicine to manage their pain symptoms.

And then on top of that, you have the whole over-the-top counter reaction to the opioid crisis where many doctors are now afraid to prescribe them even when patients are in legitimate pain.

 

[Afrikan]

In San Francisco, we still have a Chinese Hospital...only one in the whole Nation I believe.

Chinese Hospital
Based in San Francisco, Chinese Hospital is a non-profit community hospital offering a wide range of medical, surgical, and specialty care to a multicultural community. Chinese Hospital aims to deliver quality health care in a cost effective way, respond to our community's ethnic and cultural uniqueness, and offer access to health care to all socioeconomic levels.

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I've read about Black non-profit community hospitals in the past in other states. Are there some still going on right now? Any updates to expand on them? 😕

 

[SilentPanda]

Hospital CEO's response to Black doctor's COVID-19 death prompts backlash

The president and CEO of an Indiana hospital has prompted backlash for releasing what medical professionals and health care advocates described as a "blame the victim" statement about a Black physician who died of COVID-19 after alleging she was mistreated by a doctor and nurses at his medical facility because of the color of her skin.

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In a press release, Indiana University Hospital president and CEO Dennis M. Murphy described Dr. Susan Moore as a "complex patient" and said that during her stay at the IU Health North facility in Carmel, Indiana, the nursing staff treating her for coronavirus "may have been intimidated by a knowledgeable patient who was using social media to voice her concerns and critique the care they were delivering."

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Muhammed told ABC News in a telephone interview Wednesday that his mother knew her own medical history better than anyone else and should have been seen as an asset to the medical team and not as a sign of intimidation.

"I don't understand how knowing your medical history is intimidating to a nurse or hospital staff," Muhammed said.

He said that other than a chaplain from the IU Health system reaching out to him, no officials from the medical center have contacted him to apologize or express remorse.

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"It's honestly a disgrace to the medical profession that they would blame the victim and the nursing team," VanHorne told ABC News on Wednesday. "To say that the nurses were intimidated by the patient, it's absolutely ridiculous when she was just trying to advocate for herself."

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Hospital CEO's response to Black doctor's COVID-19 death prompts backlash

Backlash erupts over hospital CEO's response to Black doctor's death from COVID

abcnews.go.com

 

[SilentSoldier]

More proof that non healthcare professionals should never be in charge of hospitals. Everything about this is awful

 

[Glasfrut]

In a press release, Indiana University Hospital president and CEO Dennis M. Murphy described Dr. Susan Moore as a "complex patient" and said that during her stay at the IU Health North facility in Carmel, Indiana, the nursing staff treating her for coronavirus "may have been intimidated by a knowledgeable patient who was using social media to voice her concerns and critique the care they were delivering."

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Fuck this guy. Trying every possible excuse outside of taking responsibility.