“I don’t trust this hospital,” Dr. Susan Moore said from the bed of the Indiana hospital, an oxygen tube connected to her nose. “That’s not how you treat patients.”
Moore, an Indianapolis doctor who was being treated for COVID-19 at North Indiana University Hospital, died of the virus this week. Earlier this month, she posted a video on Facebook to share that she believed she was not receiving proper medical care because she was black.
Moore tested positive for coronavirus on Nov. 29 and said its symptoms include high respiratory rate, high heart rate, high fever and coughing up blood. He described the hard battle he had to face to receive treatment from white doctors and nurses in the hospital, including the supplication of the antiviral drug Remdesivir, the waiting hours for the treatment of pain and the demand for a CT scan. computed from the chest to show that the pain was real.
His scan detected pulmonary infiltrates and inflamed lymph nodes, he said, but he continued to wait for hours for pain medication.
“All I know is that I have intense pain,” Moore said in the heartbreaking video, adding that the doctor minimized his pain. “[The doctor] he made me feel like a drug addict, and he knew I was a doctor. ”
She spoke with a patient advocate, who she said told her nothing could be done. She also asked to be taken to a different hospital, but was told she would have to return home.
“That’s how blacks are killed,” Moore said. “When you send them home and they don’t know how to fight for themselves.”
As a doctor, Moore clearly knew what to ask for, but she struggled to continue defending herself as her condition worsened.
“I filed and I maintain, if I was white, I shouldn’t go through that,” Moore said. “I [the doctor] he never came back and apologized. ”
Eventually, Moore was sent home, but less than twelve hours later she suffered a fever and her blood pressure plummeted, so she returned to the hospital.
GoFundMe
“Those people were trying to kill me. Obviously everyone has to accept that I’m being fired too soon,” he wrote. “I am now being treated for both bacterial and covid pneumonia.”
Moore’s story has become too common for black Americans, as COVID-19 disproportionately sweeps black communities across the country. Black Americans are 4.7 times more likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19 than white Americans and three times more likely to die from the virus.
According to a GoFundMe set up to cover his family’s expenses, Moore’s son Henry Muhammed, 19, is “in a good mood” but now has to deal with his death as well as the dementia of his notice. Dr. Moore had been the only provider in the family.
GoFundMe
Henry previously enrolled at Indiana University to study biochemistry and math, but dropped out of school to care for his mother and grandparents. An update from GoFundMe said some of the funds will be used to ensure their schooling.
“Susan was a phenomenal doctor,” organizers said in a statement. “He loved practicing medicine, he loved being a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., he loved helping people and he didn’t apologize.”
In Moore’s Facebook post, she said the hospital’s chief medical officer told her staff to receive training in diversity and that she would receive an apology from the doctor who treated her.
“We are very saddened to learn of the death of Dr. Susan Moore and our hearts are directed to her friends and family,” the hospital said in a statement Wednesday.
“As an organization committed to equity and the reduction of racial disparities in health care, we take allegations of discrimination very seriously and investigate all allegations. Treatment options are often agreed upon and reviewed by medical experts from diverse specialties and we maintain the commitment and experience of our caregivers and the quality of care that is provided to our patients every day. ”