Updated: December 24, 2020 at 9:50:02 AM
Moore’s case has generated outrage and renewed calls to face biased medical treatment of black patients. (Source: Facebook)
Written by John Eligon
Lying in a hospital bed with an oxygen tube hugging her nostrils, the black patient looked at her smartphone and, in a strained voice, complained of an experience too common among blacks. of America.
Susan Moore, the patient, said the white doctor at the Indianapolis hospital in the suburbs, where she was being treated for COVID-19, had downplayed her complaints of pain. She told him she felt uncomfortable giving him more narcotics, she said, and suggested he be discharged.
“They crushed me,” he said in a video posted on Facebook. “It made me feel like I was a drug addict.”
In his message, which has since circulated widely on social media, he showed a mastery of complicated medical terminology and an intricate knowledge of treatment protocols while detailing the ways in which he had defended himself with medical staff. She knew what to ask for because she was a doctor too.
But that wasn’t enough to get the treatment and respect he said he deserved. “I presented and I argue that if it were white,” he said in the video, “it shouldn’t go through that.”
She was finally sent home and on Sunday, just over two weeks after the video was released, Moore, 52, died of complications from COVID-19, her son, Henry Muhammed, said.
Moore’s case has sparked outrage and renewed calls for partial medical treatment of black patients. Extensive research suggests that black patients often receive inferior treatment to their white counterparts, especially when it comes to pain relief.
A spokesman for Indiana University Health, the hospital system where Moore complained of abuse, said in a statement that he could not comment on specific cases because of privacy laws.
A complicated mix of socioeconomic and health factors have made COVID-19 particularly devastating for Latino and black communities. According to an analysis by the Brookings Institution, blacks have died 3.6 times the percentage of whites and Latinos 2.5 times the percentage of whites.
Moore tested positive for coronavirus on Nov. 29 and was admitted to the hospital, according to his Facebook post, which he wrote on Dec. 4. She wrote that she had to ask the doctor to treat her to give her remdesivir, an antiviral drug. some doctors usually treat COVID-19.
Moore said he received an examination of his neck and lungs after his doctor denied him shortness of breath, although he said yes, and after he told her he could not justify giving her more painkillers. The scan detected problems (pulmonary infiltrates and new lymphadenopathy, he said), and began receiving more medications for opioid pain. But she said she was in pain for hours before a nurse gave her the dose.
“That’s how they kill blacks when you send them home and they don’t know how to fight for themselves,” Moore said.
Moore’s experience reveals what many black professionals say they met on a regular basis. Education cannot protect them from abuse, they say, either in a hospital or in other settings.
A native of Jamaica, Moore grew up in Michigan. He studied engineering at Kettering University in Flint, Michigan, according to his family, and earned a doctorate from the University of Michigan School of Medicine.
She was not unaware of the challenges of receiving proper medical care, said Muhammed, her 19-year-old son. He had sarcoidosis, an inflammatory disease that attacks the lungs and was frequently treated in hospitals.
“Almost every time she went to the hospital she had to fend for herself, fight for something in some way, shape or form, just to get basic and proper care,” she said.
An image provided by Henry Muhammed shows Dr. Susan Moore with Muhammed, her 19-year-old son. (Henry Muhammed via The New York Times)
In his fight with the coronavirus at IU Health North Hospital in Carmel, Indiana, Moore wrote in an update on Facebook that he finally spoke with the chief medical officer of the hospital system, who assured him that he would get better care and that the training in diversity would be retained. He got a new doctor and the pain was better controlled, he wrote.
But even though things seemed to be improving in the hospital, Moore still felt the care was not excellent and the medical staff was less sensitive, according to Muhammed, who spoke to her daily. While she didn’t really feel good enough to be discharged, she was eager to get home to take care of her parents, she said.
The hospital released her on Dec. 7, she said, and when she got home she was tired and exhausted. The hospital called several times to check on her, she said, and when she did not respond, she sent an ambulance. Her mother could barely walk and was breathing hard when the ambulance arrived. She was taken to a different hospital 12 hours after being discharged from the previous one, she said on Facebook.
“It raised the temperature by 103 and my blood pressure dropped to 80/60 with a heart rate of 132,” he wrote.
Moore described his care at the new hospital as compassionate and said he was being treated for bacterial pneumonia in addition to COVID-19 pneumonia. His condition would deteriorate rapidly, however. The last time Muhammed talked to her, just before they put a fan on her, she coughed so badly she could barely speak, she said.
Doctors intubated her on Dec. 10, Muhammed said. Medical staff made a Zoom call to her room and more than a dozen relatives spoke to her, hoping she could hear them even though she was unconscious, she said.
Last Friday, Moore had relied 100% on a respirator to breathe, his son said, and doctors told him he might not get it. He visited her with his grandparents and told her that he loved her and that she didn’t care about him.
“If you want to fight, now is the time to fight,” he recalled telling her. “But if I have to go, I understand.”
Two days later, Moore’s heart stopped beating.