Shelly
Goodson, plagued by health problems, has spent the past year in and out
of the offices of Galveston gastroenterologists and endocrinologists.
The uninsured 41-year-old
Texas City woman has aluminum poisoning, a damaged digestive system and
an adrenal problem that causes her heart rate to dip to 42 beats per
minute and race to 160 beats per minute.
On Sept. 11, two days
before Hurricane Ike slammed into Galveston, flooding John Sealy
Hospital and grinding University of Texas Medical Branch operations to a
halt, Goodson had an appointment with a medical branch specialty doctor.
That appointment, along with the rest of her appointments with medical
branch specialty doctors, has been canceled indefinitely.
“I don’t exist to these
people anymore,” Goodson said. “I can’t even get anyone to recognize I’m
alive.”
No ‘Unsponsored’ Patients
Like other Galveston
County residents, Goodson has spent the past three months searching for
specialty doctors willing to care for uninsured patients. Some 79,000
residents — about 28 percent of the county’s population — don’t have
health insurance, according to Galveston County Health District
estimates. Since the hurricane knocked out the hospital’s emergency room
and scattered specialty doctors across the county, doctors at the
medical branch no longer have to accept patients without insurance.
“UTMB is not seeing any
unsponsored patients in any of the clinics, with exception of one
follow-up visit,” said Marsha Canright, medical branch spokeswoman.
Uninsured patients who
relied upon the medical branch to treat their diabetes, cancer, heart
disease and liver failure can no longer find treatment.
‘Hopelessness’
Those patients are
showing up at the county’s free clinics with diseases and conditions the
clinic’s primary care doctors can’t treat, such as tumors, severe
arthritis, uncontrolled bleeding, liver diseases, kidney failure, heart
problems, diabetic complications and cancer, said Dr. Mark Guidry, CEO
of the Galveston County Health District.
A woman showed up with
painful muscle spasms in her neck. Clinic doctors sent her to a pain
clinic in Harris County, where she was refused, and now she’s awaiting
an appointment at Ben Taub General Hospital in Houston, Guidry said.
A man showed up for
treatment of his recently amputated leg. Clinic doctors referred him to
a specialty care doctor in Galveston County, who demanded payment
upfront, Guidry said. The man could not afford to pay.
Three case managers that
work at the county’s 4Cs clinic are trying to find doctors who will
treat patients with little or no health insurance, Guidry said. Some
mainland doctors will accept patients without insurance, but only one or
two of them. Others require upfront cash payments that many uninsured
patients can’t afford, Guidry said.
“There’s a sense of
hopelessness there,” he said.
In the meantime, their
conditions worsen as they delay treatment and physical therapy and run
out of medicines, said Kurt Koopmann, health district spokesman.
‘A Bad Situation’
Kevin Williams spent
three months after the hurricane without physical therapy or medication
to treat his 3-year-old back injury because he couldn’t get his doctor
from the medical branch’s pain clinic to see him.
His pain worsened. The
back spasms were so severe it felt as if someone were twisting his back
to the point his spine would snap, he said. A constant burning and
stabbing pain radiated from his lower back to the arch of his foot. The
45-year-old La Marque man called the pain clinic, which moved to League
City, every day until he claims he annoyed clinic staff members enough
they agreed to refill his medication.
He is one of 220 people
in the county’s indigent health care program, which pays for health care
for residents earning less than $2,184 a year.
“I have one of those
power chairs I use when I go visiting in the neighborhoods to keep the
pressure off my back,” Williams said. “The longer I go without
treatment, I feel like that power chair is going to be permanent and I
don’t want it to be. ... I’m in a bad situation and it’s not like it’s
going to get any better.”
Emergency Rooms
Though the medical branch
had scaled back its charity care in recent years, it still provided $120
million in uncompensated care per year. Uninsured people flocked to the
medical branch from all over the region — including Brazoria, Chambers
and Jefferson counties — for treatment. Now those patients are flocking
to other area emergency rooms, some that lack the elite trauma center
the medical branch once had.
Before the hurricane,
uninsured patients in Brazoria County were sent to the medical branch to
see neurologists, oncologists, gastroenterologists and cardiologists as
part of a contract between the county’s health district and the medical
branch.
Now those patients are
sent to one of four emergency rooms in the area, said Dr. Leo O’Gorman,
Brazoria County’s health director. He didn’t know how long those
patients were waiting in the emergency room for care.
“It’s not a good thing,
but we’re working on it as best we can,” he said.
Impending Crisis
The county is facing an
impending crisis if uninsured patients can’t get specialty treatment,
Guidry said. Those with chronic conditions, such as diabetes, cancer and
liver disease, will get sicker and even die without specialty care, he
said.
Members of the governing
board of the Galveston County 4Cs clinic have been brainstorming ways to
shore up specialty care. The board passed a resolution last week
supporting a hospital tax district.
Three months after
Hurricane Ike, Goodson is still waiting to find a doctor to see her,
refill her medication and find out whether she needs a pacemaker.
“Maybe we need to get all
the people from the specialty clinics in one parking lot and let UTMB
know we’re human beings, not numbers,” she said. “They’ve left everybody
to die. That’s the feeling we have.”
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