Cuts Leave Indigent Dialysis Patients In Limbo

[Purveyor]

(02-03) 12:09 PST ATLANTA, (AP) --

Before she started receiving dialysis treatments at Atlanta's Grady Memorial Hospital, Bineet Kaur was so sick from kidney failure she could hardly walk. The memories of that pain came flooding back in September, when she received a letter saying the clinic was closing.

The treatment typically costs $40,000 to $50,000 a year per patient, and Grady is just one of the struggling public hospitals cutting the service to reduce costs. Many indigent dialysis patients, including Kaur, are illegal immigrants, so facilities that give them routine treatments receive no federal money for their care.

Since the clinic closed in October, Kaur and other patients have been getting private dialysis treatments funded by Grady, which is struggling to find new providers for them and has even offered to buy them plane tickets to their home countries. Kaur, a bubbly 26-year-old who studied nursing and once did an internship at Grady, said she doesn't know where she will get the treatment she needs to survive.

"I really hope God helps," the Indian native said on a recent morning. "Otherwise it's like having a death sentence."

Public hospitals are often the only option for illegal immigrants and others without health insurance because they will treat anyone. But many of those hospitals have severe funding problems, and several have given up dialysis treatment to control costs. Grady officials say its clinic was losing $2 million to $4 million a year.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2010/02/03/national/a120958S71.DTL#ixzz0eVSxOOiI

[Zoeisright]

1. God isn't going to help. And that is a death sentence.

Damn the fucking repukes to hell. I only wish there was one.

[Mika]

2. Jackson Memorial in Miami (the public hospital) has dropped indigent dialysis patients to cut costs.

Since Obama is our Dear Leader, can we call these types of actions "Obama's death panels"?

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