Health & Medicine (HMPRG)

Questions from the Audience

Here's a list of the questions posed by the attendees at David Ansell, John Dittmer, Quentin Young, and Linda Murray:

• How did this happen to the system?

• You probably know that remote area medical is coming to chicago next month.  I was interested in your take on that. 

* Audience member: RAM is an org that goes mostly to 3rd world countries sets up shops, holds clinics and moves on.  More information on RAM can be found here.

• Was the mortality rate in County actually lower than the other Hospitals?

*Ansell: The issue is when demand exceeds capacity.  "It's not hospital based mortality, is the ability to get treatment for common illnesses.

• How do you see community health centers here compared to other forms of health care? 

• What kind of leadership is required to effect change in the health care system of Chicago?

• What should I or can I do in the way of find health care in light of recent reform?

• Can you talk more about Fred Hampton and the Black Panthers and is that something that can be reestablished today?

• Dr. Ansell, could you bridge your understanding of Rush [private] and County [public] and explain what private hospitals a struggling with and why they are not sitting at the table in this health system debate? 

Ansell: *You have to get beyond the self-interest.  Single payer system will benefit everyone in the long run. 

From the Author Himself

Dr. David Ansell reads aloud from his book County: Life, Death and Politics at Chicago’s Public Hospital, adding quips here and there that have the audience both laughing and empathizing in turn.  He closes with this:

'Leaving [County] was the hardest thing and the only reason I'm not there now is because I when I went back to County to ask for a job they didn't have one - but Rush did, so I took it and figured "well, it's across the street." '

John Dittmer's Parting Words

Dittmer shares a select number of historical anecdotes and rebellious feats such as one that retold of Quentin Young being called before the House of Un-American Activies Committee in 1968 where they prodded Dr. Young about the riots that had errupted at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago two months earlier.   "Two days later and unaware of what they had gotten themselves into HUAC was begging Quentin Young to plead the fifth."  As he concludes his reminiscening Dittmer leaves the listeners with the following:

Martin Luther King put it best at the Convention of the Medical Committee for Human Rights in 1966 when he said,

"Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane."

Quentin Young Sets the Tone

An introduction by Quentin Young sets the tone for tonight's chautauqua.  He offers that the stories found in these authors accounts are "authentic and illustrative" of how the Health system exists in Cook County historically.  Shortly after, in a moment of inspiration Dr. Young leads an impromptu chant with the crowd and all readily chime in, "Everybody in, nobody out!" before he passes the mic over to John Dittmer.  

Public Health Care in Crisis,: 1960s - Present, an author discussion with David Ansell, MS and John Dittmer, PhD.

Health & Medicine has readied the venue for tonight's event.  If there is anyone who'd like a closer look at what is being said about Dr. Ansell's book County: Life, Death and Politics at Chicago’s Public Hospital, check out HMPRG's announcement by clicking here.   

National Public Radio interviewed Ansell personally back in June.  The full recording and transcript can be found here.

An HMPRG First- Live Blog Tonight!

Our Kemper intern, Tom Newman, will be live blogging from our event: Public Health Care in Crisis,: 1960s - Present, an author discussion with David Ansell, MS and John Dittmer, PhD.

Follow us here or on  Twitter.

Breaking News: Illinois Birth Centers Clear Hurdle

Margie Schaps, Health & Medicine's Executive Director is quoted in the Chicago Tribune, re: the result of today's public hearing on free standing birth centers.

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NY Times July 25th Review of David Ansell's Book on Cook County Hospital

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Their Zeal Changed Lives, if Not the System

By ABIGAIL ZUGER, M.D.

“Man down in the men’s washroom!” This cry is not part of the usual hospital soundtrack, but when Dr. David A. Ansell heard it as he sped down a corridor in the old Cook County Hospital in Chicago, he barely broke stride. He veered into the men’s room, tried the locked door of the stall where a crumpled body lay, hoisted himself up over the fetid contents of the adjacent toilet, balanced on the metal divider and prepared to descend and administer CPR.

That was when the disheveled corpse on the floor roared to life, a lighted cigarette dangling from one hand, and requested with vigorous profanity that Dr. Ansell remove himself from the premises.

Dr. Ansell did just that. “Call security,” he muttered to the few onlookers paying any attention to the drama, and continued on his way.

 

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HMPRG's Martha Holstein Has Letter in NY Times Rebutting David Brooks, Re: Advance Planning

From The Opinion Pages (July 18, 2011), Letters, Ways to Think About End-of-Life Care

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To the Editor:

Yes, death is part of life, and the lack of such acceptance contributes to medical care costs, as David Brooks argues. But structural as well as individual changes are necessary. Mr. Brooks needs to convince his conservative friends that reimbursing doctors for inviting conversations about end-of-life care doesn’t mean establishing “death panels” or even more graphically “killing Granny.”

Advance care planning lets people limit the treatments that they will receive, which is not easy in today’s medical culture. The pressures to treat are great: families want to do what is “right” for their elder relatives, doctors want to cure and hospitals need the revenue streams that come from treatment. Mr. Brooks, as a respected conservative pundit, needs to take Republicans to task and convince them that their opposition to structural reform, their rhetoric about “death panels” or hysteria about “rationing” simply perpetuate the very conditions that make it so hard for people to accept death.

MARTHA HOLSTEIN
Chicago, July 18, 2011

The writer works on long-term care policy at the Health and Medicine Policy Research Group and teaches health care ethics at Loyola University.

New report shows Medicaid provides great benefits to the uninsured.

 

From the New York Times, July 7, 2011

First Study of Its Kind Shows Benefits of Providing Medical Insurance to Poor

By GINA KOLATA

Published: July 7, 2011

When poor people are given medical insurance, they not only find regular doctors and see doctors more often but they also feel better, are less depressed and are better able to maintain financial stability, according to a new, large-scale study that provides the first rigorously controlled assessment of the impact of Medicaid.

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