Healthcare reform is too late for Joaquin Rivera
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Healthcare reform is too late for Joaquin Rivera
I don't know what kind of medical insurance that Joaquin Rivera -- who was the bedrock of Philadelphia's Puerto Rican community -- had, but that's not really the issue here. The outrageous circumstances of Rivera's death last weekend in a hospital emergency room should be a reminder to everyone that the real reasons so many people in America have been pushing for an overhaul of healthcare in the country for so long. Because the reason we need a new way of doing things isn't only because far too many people are uninsured, although there is that. It's that one of the wealthiest nations on earth has a system that treats millions of its citizens -- solid, God-fearing people like Joaquin Rivera -- like cattle.
Because no one should ever have to die like this in America:
According to police, Rivera walked into Aria Health's Frankford Campus, on Frankford Avenue near Harrison Street, about 10:45 p.m. Saturday.
He was alone, and apparently had walked from his nearby home on Duffield Street near Foulkrod, his son said.
Rivera complained of feeling pain in his left arm and abdomen, and was told to sit in the waiting area, said police spokesman Lt. Frank Vanore.
At some point during the next hour, Rivera, a longtime bilingual counselor at Olney High School, lost consciousness.
Joaquin Rivera was dying -- right there in a hospital emergency room, a stone's throw from doctors and nurses who could have tried to save him. And then while he was ignored, unconscious and losing life, something else happened to him that was so outrageous that it turned Rivera's passing into a local news story: Three heartless bastards stole the watch off the dying man, right there in the waiting room:
He inadvertently became a target, Vanore said, to three other people in the waiting room - a black woman, a 30-something, 5-foot-8 black man in dark pants who limped, and a second man, who was later arrested at the hospital and identified as Richard Alten, 44.
If the charges stick, then Alten and his low-life scum accomplices deserve to have the book thrown at them. But we should also keep our eye on the big picture, which is that a 63-year-old man who walks into a hospital emergency room complaining of chest pains shouldn't be told to sit down and wait, unmonitored, for more than an hour. And yet this is what medical care is like for millions of Americans, especially someone who lives in an urban area like Rivera did. Although as a school district employee it's highly likely that Rivera personally had decent insurance coverage, he was forced to wait in a room that most likely was filled with people, many of whom were not covered, who pack an ER on a Saturday night as their last and only resort to medical treatment.
You know, I listen to a lot of talk radio and the other places where people are talking healthcare reform a lot of the time these days, and these conversations, quite frankly, tend to be dominated by affluent suburbanites who have decent health coverage -- as long as they're not laid off, anyway -- and access to state-of-the-art hospitals in safe communities, people who can't understand why there is a push for changing things in the country. And there are people like Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina who thinks that just showing up at the hospital is a perfectly fine way of receiving healthcare.No one is speaking loudly enough for the Joaquin Riveras.
There's also a sense in this one-sided debate that Americans who receive inadequate care or who somehow bring this upon themselves deserve their plight. Nothing could be further from the truth. Rivera was clearly a man who gave so much to his community -- a cherished musician and a mentor to youth.
In 1964, Joaquin moved to Philadelphia from the mountain town of Cayey, Puerto Rico. He started out working in a factory that made laminated fabric, took English courses at night and began studying for his GED.
He also took courses at Community College of Philadelphia and Rutgers University. He then went to work at Olney High as a bilingual counselor. He worked for the school district for more than 30 years.
"He has made a difference here in Philadelphia," Roberto Santiago, executive director of Concilio, told the Daily News. "He comes to a new place, incorporates himself, contributes to the city, takes it upon himself to play folkloric music and brings it to the community."
He gave everything to his community, and his community was not there for him when he needed assistance, not his neighbors who ripped him off rather than calling for help, and not a healthcare system that couldn't help him when he showed up on its doorstep. Over the next couple of weeks, our representatives down in Washington are going to be debating and putting the finishing touches on the first but hopefully not final steps toward healthcare reform in this country. I hope that they're thinking about Joaquin Rivera every second of that debate.
Because no one should be allowed to die like this in America, ever again.
Thanks for smearing thousands of emergency care workers based on one incident. I'm sure all these people will be delighted to know they are now enemies of the people.— jmc
You are so right! My prayers go out to his family and all the the lives he touched...— lharlan- Ohstop with the moral outrage. These things happen in countries with universal care as well. sometimes a tragedy is just a tragedy, no amount of legislating will change it. And no, Rivera's awful death does not give people the right to take from others in order to subsidize their care. Life isn't fair. And BTW, maybe, just maybe you should ask why this happens in the city and not the 'burbs.— RG
- The ER waiting rooms at Penn and Jefferson are full of poor people, too - but if you walk in there complaining of chest pain, a triage team sees you right away. I wonder what Frankford's ER protocol for heart attacks is.
- Rivera "highly likely" had decent coverage, and the emergency room was "most likely" filled with uninsured, which made Mr. Rivera wait for care. You obviously don't know the circumstances, yet you project what you want on to the situation. What if those others in the ER had health insurance, would Mr. Rivera have been taken right away? What if everyone was on the government plan, would there be no waiting? Your arguing why we need to spend trillions of dollars on "reform", and failing miserably.— jmc
- When was the last time he saw his PCP? Did he have a pre-existing condition (i.e diabetes, high blood pressure, etc..) that went undiagnosed or ignored? Doesn't an employee of the Phila School District have good health care coverage? The fact that Riveras gave so much to his community is admirable, but it conveniently ignores the circumstances that led to his decision to go to the emergency room in the first place. Aside from TPS and SycophantMarge, who reads this drivel and agrees with the author?— A Friend
Comment removed.- Wait I thought dying while waiting in line was supposed to happen AFTER the public plan was in place.— cuso20
- What a tortured way to shoehorn Will's liberal view of health care into a column. This incident had absolutely nothing to do with health insurance. It had everything to do with Frankford's ER protocol, as Susie correctly points out. I last was at a suburban hospital ER one evening having been bitten by a dog while taking a walk. The VERY FIRST thing the duty person at the ER asked me when I walked in - even before starting the paper work - was "Are you having any chest pains or shortness of breath." And while I waited to be stitched up, that was asked of each person who walked in, even of those accompanying the person seeking treatment. Now that's a correct ER protocol.— pj katauskas
- I believe A friend has inadvertently made exactly the point that JMC rails against. JMC says that, "What if those others in the ER had health insurance, would Mr. Rivera have been taken right away? What if everyone was on the government plan, would there be no waiting?" Well actually the point is that if they had been able to see their personal care physician for such minor things as the flu or other common ailments that clog up the emergency room triages, (as A friend so conveniently points out), he might have been able to be seen much more quickly. RG, if you only look at what is potentially spent in the health care debate, you will only see it as a redistribution of wealth, but that ignores so many other factors that allows for considerable savings in the health care industry (and our economy as a whole). What might cost a grand total of a few hundred dollars in treatment at a physicians office ends up costing thousands of dollars in an Emergency Room. From there, those who are too poor to get health care can certainly not pay for an ER bill that will cost them much more than insurance would. The hospital must repeatedly bill, send the file to collections, potentially hire a lawyer to collect, and on and on with no hope of ever collecting a dime from those patients. Meanwhile the hospital, knowing that a certain given percentage of their patients will be unable to pay them back, doesn't just sit back and accept that loss, they will in turn increase the prices of services to everyone (that's you) in order to cover this loss. This causes your premiums to become higher and higher. I mean I dont know about you, but that few hundred dollars to cover a PCP visit sounds pretty good to me, and a much lower "redistribution" of my wealth than the alternative. Just saying...think for a second before making up your mind about "reform".— x7227
- Will, I can't see how this sad story has anything to do with the healthcare reform debate. This isn't the first guy who keeled over in an ER waiting room. Basically he was forgotten by the people at the desk and once he passed out, that was that. Most people who don't have chronic conditions (the ones who flood the ER's) don't go to primary care doctors anyway. You really think the people who went to the ER on a Saturday night would have waited until regular office hours to see a primary care doctor? I fail to see how reform clears these cases out of ER's or makes the ER's foolproof. If this is an example of anything, it is an example of why tort reform is a bad idea.— SteveMG
- It doesn't matter what the last time he saw his PCP was. He went to the emergency room because he probably thought he was having a heart attack. You go to the emergency room when you're having a medical emergency. That's what they're for. The highest level of medical training I got was my first aid merit badge. Mr. Rivera worked in a school system. He was certainly required to get CPR training at one time or another, which would have included the symptoms of heart attacks. Don't you dare try to pin this on Mr. Rivera. He died because of a nurse or doctor made inattentive and callous due to a broken system. If someone starves to death you don't say "Well, why didn't they go work on a farm? They'd have had access to food there", you try to figure out how to make sure no human being starves to death in this day in age ever again, even if you don't or can't completely succeed. Why? Because you're a human being.— Vasily
- PJ Katauskas wrote what I was going to. Maybe a more useful piece would be one examining the ER policies in that and other hospitals. I'd like to see an expose piece comparing and contrasting services / mortality rates among different ERs. Maybe that would effect some change, and would be less like finger-pointing and griping.— whsmith
- x7227, thank you very much for your comment. It is spot on!— formerphilly
- Clearly we have the best of all possible health care systems. Or, at least that's what the marginalized minority would have you believe... How seriously are we supposed to take the Chip Diller Faction of the Hate Americans First crowd wailing "all is well, all is well"?— E.Plebnista
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