Hospital No Longer Able to Treat Illegal Immigrants
November 23, 2009
New York Times
By Kevin Sack
Each had crossed the border years before, smuggled across the desert by a coyote, never imagining the journey would lead to a drab and dusty clinic on the ninth floor of Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta.
Some knew before the crossing that they had diabetes or lupus or high blood pressure, but it was only after they arrived that their kidneys began to fail. To survive, they needed dialysis at a cost of about $50,000 a year, which their sporadic work as housekeepers, painters and laborers could not begin to cover.
And so they turned to Grady, a taxpayer-supported safety-net hospital that would provide dialysis to anyone in need, even illegal immigrants with no insurance or ability to pay. Every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday morning, the 15 or so patients would settle into their recliners, four to a room, and while away the monotonous three-hour treatments by chitchatting in Spanish.
That all changed on Oct. 4, when the strapped public hospital closed its outpatient dialysis clinic, leaving 51 patients — almost all illegal immigrants — in a life-or-death limbo.
For Grady, which has served Atlanta’s poor for 117 years, it was an excruciating choice, a stark reflection of what happens when the country’s inadequate health care system confronts its defective immigration policy.
Like other hospitals, particularly public hospitals, Grady has been left to provide costly treatments to nonpaying illegal residents who most likely could not have obtained such care in their home countries. American taxpayers and health care consumers have borne the expense.
Over time, the mounting losses have compromised Grady’s charitable mission, forcing layoffs, increases in fees and the elimination of services.
“Years and years of providing this free care has led Grady to the breaking point,” said Matt Gove, one of the hospital’s senior vice presidents. “If we don’t make the gut-wrenching decisions now, there won’t be a Grady later. Then, everyone loses.”
But for the dialysis patients, the sudden end to their reassuring routine has prompted a panic.
“We didn’t know what to do,” said Ignacio G. Lopez, 23, who had been sustained by the clinic for more than three years. “We can pass away if we stay like two weeks without dialysis. They were just sending us out to die.”
Click here for the full report
Eliminate Diet Soda and Excess Salt to Keep Kidney Disease at Bay
November 13, 2009
Natural News
By S.L. Baker
According to the American Society of Nephrology (ASN), the number of people in the US diagnosed with kidney disease has doubled over the past 20 years. About 20 million Americans are at risk for developing kidney disease and the ASN web site states another 20 million Americans already have some evidence of chronic kidney disease. And when chronic kidney disease progresses, it often leads to kidney failure or end stage renal disease (ESRD) — resulting in ongoing, expensive dialysis treatments or even kidney transplants.
But like countless other diseases and conditions, kidney disease doesn’t just strike out of the blue. It is often the result of what people do to their own bodies. And researchers have just reported two direct ways diet appears to be associated with declining kidney function. The culprits? Eating food high in sodium (like the fast foods and processed junk snacks Americans love) and drinking artificially sweetened sodas.
Those are the findings of two new studies, both conducted by Julie Lin, MD, and Gary Curhan, MD, ScD, of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, which were recently presented at the American Society of Nephrology’s annual meeting held in October in San Diego, California. The first study, entitled “Associations of Diet with Kidney Function Decline,” examined the impact of specific dietary components on declining kidney function over 11 years in more than 3,000 women who participated in the Nurses’ Health Study. Dr. Lin and Dr. Curhan found that “in women with well-preserved kidney function, higher dietary sodium intake was associated with greater kidney function decline, which is consistent with experimental animal data that high sodium intake promotes progressive kidney decline.”
In previous research, scientists using information collected from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), a long-term collection of studies designed to assess the health and nutritional status of adults and children in the US, had found a link between sugar containing sodas and urinary protein. However, they did not collect data on any kidney function changes related to drinking sweetened sodas. So, in their second study, Dr. Lin and Dr. Curhan, decided to specifically check for any kidney function decline in women who drink sodas regularly. Once again, they used data from the Nurses’ Health Study.
In a statement for the media, Dr. Lin reported they found “a significant two-fold increased odds, between two or more servings per day of artificially sweetened soda and faster kidney function decline; no relation between sugar-sweetened beverages and kidney function decline was noted.” Moreover, this association persisted even when the researchers accounted for age, obesity, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, physical activity, calorie intake, diabetes and cigarette smoking. Clearly, artificially sweetened sodas are detrimental to kidney health.
“There are currently limited data on the role of diet in kidney disease,” said Dr. Lin in a statement to the press. “While more study is needed, our research suggests that higher sodium and artificially sweetened soda intake are associated with greater rate of decline in kidney function.”
Click here for the full report
