PARKLAND MEMORIAL HOSPITAL's OB dept......UNBELIEVABLE!!!!!!!
From: GIN11153@aol.com
Sun Oct 22 23:43:46 2006
A friend sent me this article-I had no idea they were so busy there!
Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, Texas is a fairly famous
>> institution and for a variety of reasons:
>>
>> 1. John F. Kennedy died there in 1963.
>> 2. Lee Harvey Oswald died there shortly after.
>> 3. Jack Ruby, who killed Lee Harvey Oswald, died there a few years later
>> by coincidence On the flip side, Parkland is also home to the second
>> busiest maternity ward in the country with almost 16,000 new babies
>> arriving each year. (That's almost 44 per day---every day.)
>>
>> A recent patient survey indicated that 70 percent of the women who gave
>> birth at Parkland in the first three months of 2006 were illegal
>> immigrants.' Crikey, that's 11,200 "anchor babies" born every year just
>> in Dallas. According to the article, the hospital spent $70.7 million
>> delivering 15,938 babies in 2004 but managed to end up with almost $8
>> million dollars in surplus funding. Medicaid kicked in $34.5 million,
>> Dallas County taxpayers kicked in $31.3 million and the feds tossed in
>> another $9.5 million.
>>
>> The average patient in Parkland's maternity wards is 25 years old,
>> married and giving birth to her second child. She is also an illegal
>> immigrant. By law, pregnant women cannot be denied medical care based on
>> their immigration status or ability to pay. OK, fine. That doesn't mean
>> they should receive better care than everyday, middle-class American
>> citizens. But at Parkland Hospital, they do.
>>
>> Parkland Memorial Hospital has nine prenatal clinics. NINE.
>> The Dallas Morning News article followed a Hispanic woman who was a
>> patient at one of the clinics and pregnant with her third child---her
>> previous two were also born at Parkland. Her first two deliveries were
>> free and the Mexican native was grateful because it would have cost $200
>> to have them in Mexico. This time, the hospital wants her to pay $10 per
>> visit and $100 for the delivery but she was unsure if she could come up
>> with the money. Not that it matters, the hospital won't turn her away.
>> (I wonder why they even bother asking at this point.)
>>
>> How long has this been going on? What are the long-term effects?
>> Well, another subject of the article was born at Parkland in 1986 shortly
>> after her mother entered the U.S. illegally---now she is having her own
>> child there as well. (That's right, she's technically a U.S. citizen.)
>> These women receive free prenatal care including medication, nutrition,
>> birthing classes and child care classes. They also get freebies such as
>> car seats, bottles, diapers and formula.
>>
>> Most of these things are available to American citizens as well but only
>> for low-income applicants and even then, the red tape involved is almost
>> insurmountable.
>>
>> Because these women are illegal immigrants they do not have to provide
>> any sort of legitimate identification---no proof of income. An American
>> citizen would have to provide a social security number which would reveal
>> their annual income---an illegal immigrant need only claim to be poor and
>> the hospital must take them at their word.
>>
>> My husband is a pilot for the United States Navy (yes, he fought in Iraq)
>> and while the health care is good, we Navy wives don't get any of these
>> perks! Car seats? Diapers? Not so much. So my question is this: Does
>> our public medical care system treat illegal immigrants better than
>> American citizens? Yes it does!
>>
>> As I mentioned, the care I have received is perfectly adequate but it's
>> bare bones, meat and potato medical care---not top of line.
>>
>> Their (the illegals) medical care is free---simply because they are
>> illegal immigrants?
>>
>> Once again, there is no way to verify their income. Parkland Hospital
>> offers indigent care to Dallas County residents who earn less than
>> $40,000 per year. (They also have to prove that they did not refuse
>> health coverage at their current job. Yeah, the 'free' care is not so
>> easy for Americans.)
>>
>> There are about 140 patients who received roughly $4 million dollars for
>> un-reimbursed medical care. As it turns out, they did not qualify for
>> free treatment because they resided outside of Dallas County. So the
>> hospital is going to sue them! Illegals get it all free! But U.S.
>> citizens who live outside of Dallas County get sued! How stupid is this?
>>
>> As if that isn't annoying enough, the illegal immigrant patients are
>> actually complaining about hospital staff not speaking Spanish!! In this
>> AP story, the author speaks with a woman who is upset that she had to
>> translate comments from the hospital staff into Spanish for her husband.
>> The doctor was trying to explain the situation to the family and the
>> mother was forced to translate for her husband who only spoke Spanish.
>> This was apparently a great injustice to her.
>>
>> In an attempt to create a Spanish-speaking staff, Parkland Hospital is
>> now providing incentives in the form of extra pay for applicants who
>> speak Spanish. Additionally, medical students at the University of Texas
>> Southwestern for which Parkland Hospital is the training facility will
>> now have a Spanish language requirement added to their already
>> jammed-packed curriculum. No other school in the country boasts such a
>> ridiculous multi-semester (multicultural) requirement.
>>
Gail Neuman RNC CPHW SNP
student nurse practitioner and student midwife
Perinatal education
Perinatal Nurse Associates
Santa Ana, CA
