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".
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Warning: Don't Blindly Trust Your Doctor
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.
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.
Monday, March 10, 2008
Correction to 'Illegal HMO Activity" Post
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.
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Illegal HMO Activity
My story wouldn't be complete without blogging about the activities of the HMO physicians I started off seeing, Dr. B. Varnardo and Dr. F. Remmington Sprague. Dr. Varnardo is the physician I first saw after I was released from the care of Dr. Marjorie Mooney, and the physician who said that just because Dr. Mooney believed I had Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma, didn't mean that he had to believe it too. Ohhh nice guy, huh. Varnardo is also the medical director of an HMO, called Muskegon Cares specifically set up for low-income and/or unemployed people like myself. Anyways, I felt his conduct was very uncaring and unprofessional so I didn't see Varnardo very long. Next, I saw a physician named F. Remmington Sprague and even though he has a fancy name and basically a good reputation from some which has been highly publicized because he also has served as chairman of the board for the Muskegon Cares HMO, I have some interesting information about him as well. Although I saw him for about 4 or 5 months, I immediately quit seeing him after I found out his relationship to the insurance company that was covering my care. Not only did he tell me that I wouldn't be getting any help for my lymphoma if he had anything to say about it, Dr. Sprague continued to interfere with my care even after I left his care and began seeing a physician named Robert Strauss, an internal medicine specialist. Through other physicians, I found out the Dr. Sprague had several physicians send them information from my medical file after I had stopped seeing him, and continued to try and control my care even though he wasn't my doctor anymore. One perfect example of this was when I went to have a laparoscopy performed by a Dr. Lourice David for a diagnosis of endometriosis. Before the procedure I pointed out to her that my blood type in Hackley records from 1996 was incorrect because it stated I was B+, when in fact I had been B- my entire life and could even verify this fact. Somehow Hackley falsely reported after my laparoscopy that I had seen a woman prior to my surgery who had typed my blood and reported it was B+. Oh, what a surprise (sarcasm of course) since I had premonitions of this as well. I also asked her (Dr. David) if she could take some tissue off my so-called fibroid tumor to make sure that it was not cancerous since I have only ever had this one fibroid and was beginning to experience abdominal pain from it. Dr. David told me she could not. The records I could get my hands on after the laparoscopy also showed that Dr. David falsely stated that Dr. Sprague was my primary care physician whom she was sending my information to, even though the fact was that he was not and had not been my primary care physician for at least 6 months prior to the laparoscopic procedure. All I have to say is that it is a blessing that you can order your own blood testing kit to find out the truth about what your blood type actually is. And I would love for anyone to call me a liar and try to sue me since I at least have this proof, which was not given to me by Hackley but can be performed again upon a judges order. Furthermore, the physicians could kill me by giving me the wrong blood, so this is just not about whose right or wrong. These guys have gone to great lengths to conceal the truth, and believe me...it probably won't stop here.
In 2007 it was reported that a man who had Muskegon Cares had been given 10 colonoscopy bags per month after his surgery, and was embarrassed about the smell from this when going to work. My only comment about this is that it just goes to show that the HMO's crap didn't stop with us, and it probably won't ever stop unless more attention is given to people who are not only under-treated but mistreated as well.
In 2007 it was reported that a man who had Muskegon Cares had been given 10 colonoscopy bags per month after his surgery, and was embarrassed about the smell from this when going to work. My only comment about this is that it just goes to show that the HMO's crap didn't stop with us, and it probably won't ever stop unless more attention is given to people who are not only under-treated but mistreated as well.
Telling Us "You don't have cancer" without a biopsy?
In addition to the fact the my original MRI pictures, which were taken at Mercy Hospital and Muskegon, came up missing after having an appointment with a neurologist at Hackley named Kimball Pratt (M.D) and these originals (which I suspected would disappear, probably because of several psychic premonitions I've had in my life which have all come true), which I had my mom review with me before my appointment with Dr. Pratt but were later replaced with someone else's photos after Pratt's office decided to keep them for a week, supposedly "to review" (and because of privacy issues I will not relate the name of the patient at Hackley whose MRIs I had in my yellow envelope instead but who was obviously a male) would never be seen again, the original MRI pictures both my mom and I reviewed are definitely not the pictures that they have put in my file since this debacle. In addition to this, every physician I have seen has called the last physician whom I was seeing to get verification that I "couldn't possibly have lymphoma", even though they have all refused to perform a lymph node biopsy. Isn't this suspicious, my family has thought, especially since they all have known people who have gone through a biopsy which has been looked at by 3 or 4 different physicians before they could verify that they did or didn't have cancer. Furthermore, what kind of physicians would prefer to rely on what another physician has told them as opposed to performing an objective scientific test. I'd say physicians that do not want to be proved wrong for their subjective discriminatory viewpoints against a minority who is protected under the ADA because they have also been living with type I diabetes since age 19.
I have had people say to me, "you saw what happen to Jesus" in response to hearing my story and knowing that because I went to private Catholic schools, I knew very well what happened to Him. Thus, I am totally in Gods hands now, as I have been in the past, and probably will be until the end.
I have had people say to me, "you saw what happen to Jesus" in response to hearing my story and knowing that because I went to private Catholic schools, I knew very well what happened to Him. Thus, I am totally in Gods hands now, as I have been in the past, and probably will be until the end.
Monday, March 3, 2008
The Physician that Diagnosed/Treated Me
I was diagnosed and treated for NHL by a Muskegon, MI physician named Dr. Marjorie Mooney-Jacoby in 1995. Dr. Mooney is not however an oncologist but an internal medicine specialist. After being treated by her, referred to other physicians by her and then continuing to see her for the next four years while I attended college, there were several occasions I requested copies of my cancer files but to no avail. In 1999, and after making several written pleas to her office about my cancer records, I finally was told by her long time nurse that she didn't have my files. I was infuriated. Why would a physician purposely not keep my records, especially since I had one of the best health insurances that money could buy at the time through my step-father's job as a school teacher? Perhaps there was wrong doing on her part, I began to think. In the meantime, I had graduated from college in 1998 and lost my insurance coverage until the end of that year. And because Dr. Mooney didn't "want to deal with me anymore" as her patient when I admitted to her that I began to smoke cigarettes again due to the stress from college, trying to find a job, etc., I had to find another physician to see in 1999. Was it coincidence that my great insurance coverage had just ended? Well, only more questions would arise as she opted to give myself and the other physicians I saw after her only one answer, which was "we do not have any of these files". In the meantime, I began to feel as though I were having a recurrence but none of the physicians I saw, including Dr. Mooney seemed to care.
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Saturday, March 1, 2008
References
Alexander, Jeff. "Nurses accuse Hackley Hospital of unfair labor practice." The Muskegon Chronicle 22 Feb.2008: B1.
http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/disease/non-hodgkins-lymphoma/diagnosis.html
Alexander, Jeff. "Nurses accuse Hackley Hospital of unfair labor practice." The Muskegon Chronicle 22 Feb.2008: B1.
http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/disease/non-hodgkins-lymphoma/diagnosis.html
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
