A black doctor who claimed to have been abused because of his race while suffering from COVID-19 in an Indiana hospital has died, according to his family.
Dr. Susan Moore died Sunday, her cousin announced on Twitter.
Moore was diagnosed with the virus on Nov. 29 and was hospitalized. But he went viral on social media with videos claiming he had to order a computed tomography and remdesivir, an antiviral drug that can speed up the recovery of the virus.
In a Dec. 4 video posted on Facebook, Moore claimed that doctors at Indiana University Health Hospital even tried to send her home.
“That’s how they kill blacks when you send them home and they don’t know how to fight for themselves,” he said in the video. “I had to talk to someone, maybe the media, someone, to let people know how they treat me on this site.”
Moore said he had to seek treatment from a white doctor at the hospital, but was told he would probably be sent home.
“I suffered so much pain in my neck, my neck hurt,” he said in the video. “I was crushed. He made me feel like a drug addict and he knows I’m a doctor. “
Moore said he spoke with a patient advocate “who left me wanting” and asked that he be transferred to another hospital.
When doctors finally did the scan, they found new damage to her lungs, but made her wait for hours for painkillers, she charged.
“And that nurse was saying to me, ‘Oh, I was going to Black Lives Matter,'” Moore said. “I probably can’t even write it.”
“I went ahead and argued that if it was white, it shouldn’t go through that,” he said. “And this man never came back and apologized.”
In a statement Wednesday, the hospital said it does not comment on specific patients or their medical history.
But, according to the statement, “as an organization committed to equity and the reduction of racial disparities in health, we take allegations of discrimination very seriously and investigate all allegations.”
“Treatment options are often agreed upon and reviewed by medical experts from various specialties and we maintain the commitment and experience of our caregivers and the quality of care that is given to our patients on a daily basis.”