This story is simply appalling. That this should happen in a hospital in the United States under a black president who campaigned on universal health care is simply unthinkable. Shame on Children's Hospital of Atlanta. Shame on the capitalist system. Shame on the United States of America.
by Rania Khalek, Dispatches from the Underclass
Doctors at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta estimate that without a heart transplant, 15-year-old Anthony Stokes will die within three to six months from heart failure. Yet despite his prognosis, they refuse to put Anthony on the transplant list, telling his family he doesn’t qualify due to “a history of non-compliance” characterized by “low grades and trouble with the law.”
“They said they don’t have any evidence that he would take his medicine or that he would go to his follow-ups,” Melencia Hamilton, Anthony’s mother, told WSBTV. Hamilton says that a transplant is the only option for her son’s enlarged heart.
In a recently issued statement, the hospital would not reveal any specifics about how they came to their decision, saying, “The well-being of our patients is always our first priority. We are continuing to work with this family and looking at all options regarding this patient’s health care. We follow very specific criteria in determining eligibility for a transplant of any kind.” The hospital wants to send him home with medication, presumably to die.
But Anthony’s loved ones haven’t given up on him. Neither has the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), which has taken up his cause.
“He’s been given a death sentence because of a broad and vague excuse of noncompliance. There was nothing specific in that decision. Just noncompliance,” Christine Young Brown of the SCLC told CBS Atlanta.
Mack Major, Anthony’s mentor, added, “We must save Anthony’s life. We don’t have a lot of time to do it, but it’s something that must be done.”
It’s no secret that children of color, particularly black children, are far more likely to be suspended and expelled for minor infractions than their white peers, pushing them out of the classroom and into the criminal justice system in a process known as the “school to prison pipeline.” With this in mind, is it fair for Anthony to be denied life-saving treatment because he is a black male and therefore the target of discriminatory discipline policies and structurally racist criminal justice system?
Little Value Placed On Black And Brown Lives
Anthony isn’t the only person being pushed to his death by institutional racism.
Last week, 14 undocumented Mexican immigrants in desperate need of organ transplants embarked on a hunger strike outside of Chicago’s Northwestern Memorial Hospital to protest the facility’s refusal to provide organ transplants to the undocumented and uninsured.
According to the Moratorium on Deportations Campaign, “Hospitals routinely deny life-saving patient care based on immigration status and inability to pay: in a profit-driven medical system, only certain lives are deemed to be worth saving.”
But that doesn’t stop hospitals from using organs donated by the undocumented and uninsured to save the lives of more privileged Americans.
Dr. David Ansell, chief medical officer at Rush University Medical Center, told the Chicago Sun-Times that, “20 percent of organs come from uninsured people, but around 1 percent of organs go to uninsured people who need them. These people donate the organs, but mostly don’t get access to them.”
As census data indicates, an overwhelming 55 percent of uninsured Americans are people of color, including 20 percent of African Americans 30 percent of Hispanics. And with that, a disturbing picture begins to emerge of a system that happily harvests the organs of poor minorities to give to the privileged while cutting off their access to life-saving treatment.
Over the years several studies have shown that lack of insurance isn’t the only factor contributing to transplant disparities. A 2012 study published in the American Journal of Transplantation by researchers at the Emory Transplant Center in Atlanta, Georgia, found significant racial disparities throughout the organ transplant process even after controlling for demographics.
“Socioeconomic factors, including health insurance and access to care, explained almost 1/3 of the lower rate of transplant among black vs. white patients,” the research reveals. “However, even after adjusting for demographic, clinical, and socioeconomic factors, blacks had a 59% lower rate of transplant than whites.”
A more recent study by the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine revealed similar findings that showed African Americans were 56 percent less likely to receive a kidney before dialysis than their white counterparts.
People of color are at a clear disadvantage when it comes to organ transplantation. And absent some sort of intervention, 15-year-old Anthony Stokes will die because of it.
by Rania Khalek, Dispatches from the Underclass
Doctors at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta estimate that without a heart transplant, 15-year-old Anthony Stokes will die within three to six months from heart failure. Yet despite his prognosis, they refuse to put Anthony on the transplant list, telling his family he doesn’t qualify due to “a history of non-compliance” characterized by “low grades and trouble with the law.”
“They said they don’t have any evidence that he would take his medicine or that he would go to his follow-ups,” Melencia Hamilton, Anthony’s mother, told WSBTV. Hamilton says that a transplant is the only option for her son’s enlarged heart.
In a recently issued statement, the hospital would not reveal any specifics about how they came to their decision, saying, “The well-being of our patients is always our first priority. We are continuing to work with this family and looking at all options regarding this patient’s health care. We follow very specific criteria in determining eligibility for a transplant of any kind.” The hospital wants to send him home with medication, presumably to die.
But Anthony’s loved ones haven’t given up on him. Neither has the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), which has taken up his cause.
“He’s been given a death sentence because of a broad and vague excuse of noncompliance. There was nothing specific in that decision. Just noncompliance,” Christine Young Brown of the SCLC told CBS Atlanta.
Mack Major, Anthony’s mentor, added, “We must save Anthony’s life. We don’t have a lot of time to do it, but it’s something that must be done.”
It’s no secret that children of color, particularly black children, are far more likely to be suspended and expelled for minor infractions than their white peers, pushing them out of the classroom and into the criminal justice system in a process known as the “school to prison pipeline.” With this in mind, is it fair for Anthony to be denied life-saving treatment because he is a black male and therefore the target of discriminatory discipline policies and structurally racist criminal justice system?
Little Value Placed On Black And Brown Lives
Anthony isn’t the only person being pushed to his death by institutional racism.
Last week, 14 undocumented Mexican immigrants in desperate need of organ transplants embarked on a hunger strike outside of Chicago’s Northwestern Memorial Hospital to protest the facility’s refusal to provide organ transplants to the undocumented and uninsured.
According to the Moratorium on Deportations Campaign, “Hospitals routinely deny life-saving patient care based on immigration status and inability to pay: in a profit-driven medical system, only certain lives are deemed to be worth saving.”
But that doesn’t stop hospitals from using organs donated by the undocumented and uninsured to save the lives of more privileged Americans.
Dr. David Ansell, chief medical officer at Rush University Medical Center, told the Chicago Sun-Times that, “20 percent of organs come from uninsured people, but around 1 percent of organs go to uninsured people who need them. These people donate the organs, but mostly don’t get access to them.”
As census data indicates, an overwhelming 55 percent of uninsured Americans are people of color, including 20 percent of African Americans 30 percent of Hispanics. And with that, a disturbing picture begins to emerge of a system that happily harvests the organs of poor minorities to give to the privileged while cutting off their access to life-saving treatment.
Over the years several studies have shown that lack of insurance isn’t the only factor contributing to transplant disparities. A 2012 study published in the American Journal of Transplantation by researchers at the Emory Transplant Center in Atlanta, Georgia, found significant racial disparities throughout the organ transplant process even after controlling for demographics.
“Socioeconomic factors, including health insurance and access to care, explained almost 1/3 of the lower rate of transplant among black vs. white patients,” the research reveals. “However, even after adjusting for demographic, clinical, and socioeconomic factors, blacks had a 59% lower rate of transplant than whites.”
A more recent study by the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine revealed similar findings that showed African Americans were 56 percent less likely to receive a kidney before dialysis than their white counterparts.
People of color are at a clear disadvantage when it comes to organ transplantation. And absent some sort of intervention, 15-year-old Anthony Stokes will die because of it.
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