Kevin Sack’s article, “Immigrants Cling to Fragile Lifeline at Safety-Net Hospital,” speaks about the closing of an immigrant friendly hospital. Grady Memorial Hospital currently serves about 90 outpatients a day, and it does not base its willingness to serve people on their legal residency status; about two-thirds of its patients are illegal immigrants. Many people rely on this hospital for outpatient dialysis treatment, and are begging for the hospital to be kept open. This dialysis program is free to the patient, but it costs the hospital about $50,000 each patient every year, and this is causing problems because its budget has had a very large deficit. The financial need is so great that the hospital has announced it has to close on September 19th of this year. One woman, a 32 year old illegal immigrant from Honduras, said she hopes to make it “back to [her] country to die.”
This is an unbelievably sad story, and it is terrible that our healthcare system has gotten to the point where we need to shut down entire hospitals that serve the poor; these recent and illegal immigrants that are being served here have no other hope to get this type of treatment, and since it will be cut off, they have a large chance of dying. Our system should serve anyone that is in need; we are all humans.
To read more on the article check out the NewYork Times website.
This is an incredibly sad situation. It’s so rare that a hospital such as Grady Memorial even exists and it’s horrible that it had to close its door on September 19th. Now those illegal immigrants are left without treatment and without dialysis. I do see where controversy can stem from this though: I’m sure there are people who are relieved this closed and that the money going towards the patients and hospital now can be used to serve actual legal immigrants. However, it would have been nice to see if any rallying or fighting could have been done to save the hospital. I agree that our health care system should serve anyone in need, and it’s painful to think about all the people now who will be left without the security of this hospital serving him or her.
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