ER Doctor's letter to the editor

As an old ER nurse, I could write hundreds of letters to the editor about hundreds of stories just like this one!

ER Doctor's letter to the editor:


Why is this article not on the front page of every newspaper in America?
I know that there are thousands of cases like this in America's hospitals!

This letter appeared in the Jackson, Mississippi Clarion-Ledger dated August 23rd.

Dear Sirs:

"During last night's shift in the ER, I had the pleasure of evaluating a patient with a shiny new gold tooth, pierced tongue, multiple elaborate tattoos, a very expensive brand of tennis shoes and a new cellular telephone equipped with her favorite R&B ringtone.

Glancing over the chart, one could not help but notice her payer status: Medicaid.

She smokes more than one costly pack of cigarettes every day and, somehow, still has money to buy beer.

Now our president expects us to pay for this woman's health care? Our nation's health care crisis is not a shortage of quality hospitals, doctors or nurses,but a crisis of culture....a culture in which it is perfectly acceptable to spend money on pleasures and vices while refusing to take care of one's self or, heaven forbid, purchase health insurance. A culture that thinks, "I can do whatever I want to because someone else will always take care of me."

STARNER JONES, MD
Jackson, MS