HEALTH-CARE CRISIS CALIFORNIANS ANGERED BY DOCTORS' PROTEST STRIKE
By CHARI ES EOIEY m Sa:: Ftaxoco. Hr the Ob.-ci. er Feroan Seu-f Ser: . c. on June 0.,
When a one-year-old boy broke his arm in a tali at his nonie it << small town north of San Francisco, his anguished mother ru>ned hmi car to the nearest hospital. “They wouldn t do anything, she said i.<tt;. “I had to take my little boy — in great pain — all the way to Francisco, where he tinallv got treated hours later at the t mteo NtatePublic Health Hospital. Refusing to mend a child's broken arm - wn; sort of way is that to win the public's support
Doctors admit that suet things have happened during (the month-long strike bv ’California physicians protest ing against soaring malpractice insurance. Anc behind these isolated in , cidents is a backlog ol hundreds of untreated cases —sick people facing "noncritical but necessary’ surgery who have been wait- , ing for weeks to reach the ’operating room. Some — including one elderly cancer ' patient who began haemorrhaging in the hospital coriridors as doctors debated the I urgency of her case—have become "emergency patients" as they waited. Whatever else may result from this State’s healthcare ■crisis, one thing is clear: the already battered image of the American medical profession has suffered a further blow. Public disenchantment, which began years ago when ■ physicians stopped making house calls, is cresting todayin a wave of public disillusion and anger. Californian politicians are finding that their mail is running five to one against the striking doctors. ("I always wondered if doctors really cared." said one letterwriter. "Now I know—they care when their pocket-book is attacked.”) Don Burns, a member of Governor Edmund Brown's Cabinet and a key figure in the health reform drive, says; “Hostility is growing towards doctors, and personally I think their behaviour is outrageous. A lot of innocent people are being hurt by the walkout.” Patients are not the only people affected. Several thousand hospital workers have been laid off —the total is expected to reach 18,000 this week —while hospitals are losing hundreds of thousands of dollars a day. Some, faced with rows of empty beds,- are talking of bankruptcy. The fiercest criticism of all has come from lawyers, who are blamed for encouraging •frivolous” malpractice litigation by taking cases on a contingency basis — taking one-third, or even one-hall of the total settlement awarded to a successful
hjplaintiff. nothing if the cast giis lost. Lawyers critical I-1 The president of the As dlsociation of Tria! Lawyers ol ;- America, Mr Robert Cart f weight, calls the doctors s walkout "a mockery ol the i- Hippocratic oath" and a " “cruel, callous subterfuge. • Study after study, he says e has shown that “the cause - of the medical malpractice r crisis is malpractice on the ■ part of doctors Yet the - medical profession, ostriche like, refuses to put its house e in order and come up with a responsible solution foi preventive injury control. t What the luckless patient e sees in all this is the two e: wealthiest professions in the e I United States battling ovei i'who will get most of his '. money. So the hospitals n cannot keep these $BOO-a--i week rooms filled? Too bad. It; Let them lower their rates, so that they will be somei where closer to the prices charged by a luxury hotel. The poor underpaid doctors s;cannot afford the monstrous t premiums set by the giant. 1 greedy insurance companies'’ s Well.' they can always sell -their vachts and their .' Cadillacs. As for the lawyers. <:they would go into politics, of course, should loss ot their f.fat contingency fees put them Lout of business, just as the i politicians would return to tithe law if thrown out by 5 their constituents for failing I to solve the health-care - mess. t Court awards were cerLtainly large, but the cases reported in the newspapers ' were also often very alarmking. A young Olympic was blinded by I!hospital treatment which led > to ulceration of the eyes. A f widow in her twenties ■lwatched her husband die in .(convulsions after a wrongly i administered spinal injection. Doctors were accused of forming a cabal to protect I their own by refusing to i testify against colleagues. As ;!one lawyer put it: “The • popular feeling grew that if i !we weren’t taking suits on : a contingency basis, very few would be brought, since :ithe medical profession has traditionally refused to police itself. Many dangerously in--1 competent doctors would be nractising today had they not] been exposed by attorneys' working with the incentive ; of a contingency contract.” Another cause of resent-: I ment against doctors in 1 | recent years is the widespread belief, right or wrong, that they overcharge patients ■ for surgery that is often unnecessary. Some physicians ]! earn as much as 8200,000 a “year, and according to the 1 American Medical Associa-! ition. 40 per cent of all 1 doctors in the United States’ Intake more than $50,000. Doctors upset Doctors are upset, needless to say, by this public indifsference to their woes: theyh thought the strike would win . (the public sympathy but : attention ■ has focused on 1 medical “dereliction of duty” irather than the oppressive]; (premiums. More and morel:
[people have begun to wondei if all those malpractice suit; arc really, as doctors like t< 'claim, “brought not for trui ■malfeasance, but for medica ■ accidents." and at the urging (of greedv lawyers. Were not [physicians seeking greatei ■immunity for their acts oi negligence than anyone else “People hear that 1 net $70,000 a vear,” complains Los Angeles anaesthetist "And they think 1 have n< problems. In fact. 1 pax 2* per cent of my income or insurance alone, and insure!' 'want to uo that by 140 pet ■ cent in the next few weeks.' With surgeons and other high-risk specialists, the pei centage may go as high as 50. and doctors say the insurance companies are alreadv collecting more than a billion dollars a year from them" The crisis is harming health care on a national scale. The American Medical Association reports that more and more doctors are retiring early, going into research, teaching, even the armed forces, where they can work shorter hours for only a small sacrifice in income, and face no insurance worries. Both the Army and the Navy say they have had a spate of applications for medical commissions recently.
Drastic overhaul A shortage of doctors is predicted in some States, if the crisis continues. At the same time, surgeons are said to be refusing high-risk operations and procedures where .success is not certain. “Defensive medicine”—needlessly elaborate laboratory tests and X-rays to provide protection against any future ■ suit — may be costing the country as much as $8 billion ■ a year, some experts believe In one sense, the doctors dilemma is of their own mak ing. For years the profession has defended, free enterprise and resisted national health schemes, or any outside “interference.” Yet now it seeks governmental help to protect doctors’ economic interests. They get more than they expect. Governor Brown’s experts are planning a drastic overhaul of the entire California health system. “No lasting solution to the crisis can come without sacrifice and fundamental reform” they warn. The Governor has already put forward a nine-point plan which would not only create a panel to investigate insurance rates and perhaps set limits on awards, but also build up a board with power to police physicians and oblige them to do more to help the poor and needy who are badly served in slums and rural areas. He calls for “a medical peace corps” to end maldistribution of medical care. Meanwhile, even as the strike slowed in California, it was spreading to other parts of the country. Slowdowns and walkouts began in the mid-West and on the East Coast, and doctors said thee would continue them until answers to the crisis are found. —O.F.N.S. copyright.
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Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33875, 21 June 1975, Page 14
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1,319HEALTH-CARE CRISIS CALIFORNIANS ANGERED BY DOCTORS' PROTEST STRIKE Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33875, 21 June 1975, Page 14
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