The New York Times and OSF's Oral Contraceptive Policy

The New York Times published an article today (February 21, 2012) explaining the ramifications of health care mergers.  They wrote about what happens when large Catholic health care systems buy smaller secular hospitals. Situations exist where patients still want to have contraceptives and sterilizations, but the Catholic health care system wants to restrict them.

Here is the link: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/21/health/policy/growth-of-catholic-hospitals-may-limit-access-to-reproductive-care.html

It is a very interesting article and mentions OSF in Rockford. OSF Health Care System based out of Peoria is trying to buy a secular hospital in Rockford.  OSF already owns OSF-St. Anthony's in Rockford. 

People in Rockford are concerned that they might not have access to sterilizations at their secular hospital if OSF acquires it. 

But I don't think the people of Rockford have anything to worry about regarding getting contraceptives from OSF physicians with the anticipated new hospital merger. And here is why.

For 15 years now The Catholic Diocese of Peoria and The Catholic Diocese of Rockford have worked with OSF to allow contraceptives to be prescribed by OSF physicians in Rockford and Peoria through the "limited private practice" provision designed in the mid-90's right here in Peoria. It is a loophole that was created to allow OSF to remain competitive in the medical market place. And I doubt most people would even know that this dismal policy even exists if the Peoria Journal Star did not publish the story in 1995.

The New York Times reports today:

"OSF says Rockford needs fewer hospitals and wants to expand its network to better serve the area. “It’s all about how to deliver care, coordinated and efficient care,” said Robert C. Sehring, an executive at OSF.

OSF has already developed an arrangement in which affiliated doctors can prescribe birth control pills through a separate practice."

The "affiliated doctors" mentioned by the Times are OSF physicians. Similar words, "affiliated physicians", were used in a Peoria Journal Star editorial last week that was describing the outcry created by the new Obama mandate and the Catholic bishops reaction. (See this post.)

So what is my point?

If OSF buys the secular hospital in Rockford, it should apply Catholic morals to this hospital. OSF should not give in and have an elevator to a "secular floor" (or any other provisions) where sterilizations can be performed. 

And there should not be ANY policy to allow ANY Catholic teachings to be butchered inside an OSF facility. The limited private practice policy/loophole mentioned above DOES allow the Catholic bishops in Peoria and Rockford to cooperate with evil regarding contraceptives and should be stopped. 

Peoria Bishops John J. Myers and Daniel Jenky, as well as the Sisters of the Third Order in Peoria and OSF Corporate Ethicist Joseph Piccione, should be hanging their heads right now. Their devious policy created 15 years ago is being scrutinized and should be abolished if the Catholic bishops of the United States really mean what they say about their disagreement with President Obama and religious conscience.

Peoria Journal Star Editorial--February 14, 2012

Peoria Journal Star Editorial--February 14, 2012

From a public health and personal freedom perspective, those who wish to engage in family planning should be able to do so, with the intricacies that go into that decision a fundamentally private matter. From a religious liberty view, churches and their affiliates should not be required by government to do things that violate their consciences.

Between those walls one hoped the president could find room for an accommodation regarding his wishes for free access to insurance coverage for contraception that would, if not make everybody happy, at least compel them to return the swords to their scabbards. Religious leaders, most vocally America's Catholic bishops, had objected to the initial mandate, arguing that it was contrary to their moral convictions and a First Amendment that begins, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ..."

President Obama thought a workable compromise had been found last week, announcing he would pursue a policy that, like Hawaii's, targets insurance companies rather than employers so that "religious organizations won't have to pay for these services, and no religious institution will have to provide these services directly." Some of those straddling this divide had wondered aloud why the White House hadn't gone that route in the first place.

Of course, it hit a brick wall with opponents, who found the wording a bit too careful. The bishops have no intention of participating, directly or indirectly, in any practice they consider an evil. Providing access to abortifacients falls into that category for them. "There are two other branches of government that may treat our concerns more seriously," said a spokesman.

In short, this fight is a long way from over. Sigh.

The battle lines are drawn, and this page has heard ... and heard ... and heard from both camps. Some observations:

"It's not about contraception," said GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum. "It's about economic liberty." It's disingenuous to say it's not about contraception. How many times have the bishops said recently that "pregnancy is not a disease"? One doubts this uproar would have accompanied a government command to provide flu vaccines.

The White House has been quick to note that 28 states already have similar measures, and eight don't even exempt churches. So why hasn't this fuss been raised before? Church leaders will forgive those who ask, as the director of the admittedly progressive Catholics United group did, whether the opposition "serve(s) the interests of a political agenda, not the needs of the American people."Even for those who believe in a strict, constitutionally guaranteed separation of church and state - though all too conveniently most tend not to explore both sides of that coin - no religious organization has carte blanche. Unfortunately, in recent memory great damage was done to the church, diminishing its moral authority, when some in its hierarchy failed to recognize their obligations to notify and cooperate with civil authorities as crimes against children were committed within their ranks. No right is absolute.

• On the flip side, Obama seemed flabbergasted and frustrated by the original firestorm. One is surprised he was surprised in this hyper-charged, hyper-partisan environment. He and others want to argue that hospitals, schools and social service agencies don't necessarily further a religious mission. That's debatable, especially in parochial schools that educate children not only in the three Rs but in the faith. The president also seems to subscribe to the myth that he can declare something "free" and magically, it becomes so. If someone is getting contraceptives for nothing, someone else - the employer, other health care consumers - is subsidizing them.

  Yes, some religious institutions already provide this coverage to employees. Doctors affiliated with Peoria's Catholic hospital can prescribe oral contraceptives for patients, though it must be made clear they're "acting separately from OSF." If some institutions are in noncompliance with the bishops' current stance, that's also an argument for letting the marketplace work. The fair counter is that but for government intervention historically, many reproductive and other health care procedures for women might never have been covered.

  One also is told that polling shows most Americans on the White House's side, that these institutions employ people of many faiths who are not obligated to subscribe to the beliefs of their employer, that 98 percent of U.S. adult women have used contraception. To which one might respond that constitutional rights are not subordinate to public opinion; that no one has a constitutional right to a job; and if that's so, what's the access problem in need of being resolved? Finally, disagreement exists on whether some of these contraceptives are abortifacients. That depends on how you define a pregnancy; there's not enough space left to get into that.

  All in all, this page continues to believe the White House overstepped at first. Beyond that, one agrees with the bishops' first-blush reaction to the compromise - later retracted - that this was a "step in the right direction." Regardless, between the "war on religion" and the "war on women" camps, there may be no bridging this divide.

  We settle political disputes in America legislatively, to be sure, but ultimately through the courts and elections. Fortunately, both those opportunities present themselves this year. We'll just have to see those processes through.
  
  My comment:
  
  
  I appreciate the Journal Star devoting so much time to the issue of President Obama vs. the Catholic Church and religious liberties. Legal scholars are necessary who can debate all sides of this important issue. And legislation needs to occur to settle the issue.
  
  Many politicians are considered sincere and many are not. Same with Catholic Bishops.
  
  It has seemed strange to me that the Catholic Diocese of Peoria seems to be talking out of both sides of their mouth. The Journal Star editorial this morning states that Bishops have no intention of participating directly or indirectly in any practice they consider evil.
  
  Does Bishop Jenky view oral contraceptive use as evil?
  
  Two weeks ago Bishop Jenky wrote that Catholic institutions should not have to cover oral contraceptives in their insurance plans. But at the same time, the Diocese and OSF still concur on a policy that they designed over 15 years ago which allows OSF physicians to prescribe oral contraceptives from OSF offices for OSF patients throughout the entire OSF Health Care System. And they did this to keep OSF competitive in the medical marketplace.
  
  The Journal Star editorial this morning states:
  
  Yes, some religious institutions already provide this coverage to employees. Doctors affiliated with Peoria's Catholic hospital can prescribe oral contraceptives for patients, though it must be made clear they're 'acting separately from OSF.'
  
  I really doubt that OSFs patients who go to their OSF doctor at an OSF office and come out with their oral contraceptives understand that OSF is not responsible for this.
  
  It seems to me that there is cooperation in a direct or indirect way here from the Diocese who could stop this coverage if they really wanted to. Bishop Jenky cannot tell the Sisters at OSF what color to paint Saint Francis Medical Center, but he can intervene at OSF on matters of morals and faith.
  
  If it means that OSF-SFMC needs to lose its tax exempt status and not accept federal funds to be a Catholic hospital more than in name only, maybe that is what should happen. It sure would take some of the pressure off of Bishop Jenky and he would not have to cooperate with evil. The Diocese may lose the financial support of OSF, but legally and morally the Diocese would be doing the right thing.
  
  John A. Carroll, MD
  West Peoria

Does the Illinois Catholic Health Association Know about OSF and the Catholic Diocese of Peoria?

Officials at two major Roman Catholic policy groups expressed fears Friday that President Barack Obama's revised health insurance mandate still poses a moral quandary because it could override an exemption in Illinois law that allows Catholic institutions to avoid offering birth control to their employees.

"It forces us back into a position that we find untenable," said Patrick Cacchione, executive director of the Illinois Catholic Health Association. "We're not going to pay or provide or participate in something that we think is immoral."


My question to Mr. Cacchione is: "What do you think about OSF and the Diocese of Peoria and their policy which allows OSF physicians to prescribe oral contraceptives? Do you think that is participating in something immoral?"

Peoria Fire Department Station 20 is Paramedic!! The Fact that this is News is a Big Problem....

This article appeared on the PJS website a few minutes ago---

PEORIA —

A second Peoria Fire Department engine is now equipped with life-saving drugs and firefighters trained to use them during an emergency thanks to a joint public-private partnership.

Engine 20 has gained Advanced Life Support Service designation and is the second engine in three years to do so, Peoria Fire Department Chief Kent Tomblin said. Engine 12 initiated the program locally three years ago.

"We respond to all emergencies in the city with basic life support," Tomblin said. "But advanced life support . . . means we can now administer life saving drugs."

The engines equipped with the systems are strategically stationed in areas where life saving potential can be maximized, Tomblin said. Additional engines may be upgraded in the future as the need arises, he added.

"We have pinpointed these areas as places where we need to get to people with life-saving drugs as quick as we can," he said.

Those drugs include treatment for coronary issues, as well as diabetes and seizures among other common, life-threatening ailments. Engine 20 in particular is well situated to deal with a higher frequency of coronary emergency calls, Tomblin said.

The upgrade has been coordinated with the city's private ambulance service, Advanced Medical Transport, which provides the drugs and training to firefighters free of charge.

"By working together, all the citizens are benefiting from it," Tomblin said. "It's good for the citizens, it's good for the hospitals, and it's good for medical care."

Matt Buedel can be reached at 686-3154 or mbuedel@pjstar.com.

------------

My comments and questions:

1.  How can this be happening? We were told for years by OSF's Dr. George Hevesy and Dr. Rick Miller and AMT's Executive Director Andrew Rand that the Peoria Fire Department needed to stay out of the paramedic business. Were they wrong? Why were they not quoted in the JS article? Hevesy, Miller, and Rand for a decade assured all Peorians that everything was good...Chief Tomblin is implying above that advanced life support is better than basic life support. Gee whiz, what is going on here?

2.  I hope AMT does not get charged with Medicare fraud again and get fined 2 million dollars by the Feds again. The three hospitals in Peoria paid $750,000 dollars a piece to pay the fine. And taxpayers  like you and me were helping paying AMT's inflated rates at the time. 

3.  And the PFD still can't transport patients to local emergency departments. That is where the real money is made. AMT does that in Peoria and makes tons of money for the transport. The patient can just wait no matter how sick or how injured they are.


4.  See this post and this post


5.  And please see this post from a few years ago.

jc

Peoria Firefighters to be Paramedics

I heard from a good source recently that during the next four years, in order to be hired by the Peoria Fire Department, fire-fighter applicants must become Paramedics.

This is interesting.

We were told for years by our local medical powers that there was no need for the Peoria Fire Department (PFD) to provide Paramedic services. But now Engines 12 and 20 are both Paramedic 24/7. And they cover areas that Advanced Medical Transport (AMT) tells them to cover. In other words, areas where AMT Paramedics may have a slow arrival to a 911 call.

This is nice that the PFD is bailing out AMT when we were told at Peoria city council meetings that there was no need to have the PFD performing advanced life support for the people of Peoria. We were told that everything was ok.

I don't think it was ok.

Most likely AMT and the Peoria medical centers that support AMT have something financial to gain here, or the PFD would have remained at Basic Life Support with no transport rigs. (The PFD still cannot transport patients to local emergency departments...not even trauma patients whose lives depend on rapid transport.)

And now what will all the excess PFD Paramedics do when they arrive on the scene of a medical call? If they are not from Engines 12 and 20 will these PFD Paramedics be allowed to use their skills to save lives, or will they have to wait for AMT to arrive BEFORE advanced life support can be implemented for the patient in extremis?

Violation of Conscience

I wrote the following Journal Star Forum article and sent it to the Journal Star on January 1, 2012. This was published (after a small revision by me) on January 28, 2012.

Forum: Bishop's stance on contraceptives disingenuous

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There is much in the media lately regarding the Obama administration and Catholic medical centers' religious conscience. Now Peoria Bishop Daniel Jenky has urged Catholics to oppose the new health law that requires insurance plans to cover contraceptives.

However, 15 years ago the Catholic Diocese of Peoria and OSF created and implemented a policy which allows OSF physicians to prescribe oral contraceptives for hundreds of thousands of OSF patients. The Diocese and OSF were not worried about exemption based on religious conscience when they constructed these moral loopholes. They were worried about OSF's bottom line as OSF purchased medical practices and hired hundreds of new physicians.

Doesn't it seem disingenuous now for Bishop Jenky to claim that the Diocese is in a religious liberty battle with the Obama administration over Catholic institutions' health plans being mandated to cover oral contraceptives?

It is time for the Diocese and OSF to decide whether OSF should remain Catholic.

John A. Carroll, M.D.

West Peoria

During the week of January 20, Bishop Jenky released a letter to the laity of the Diocese of Peoria stating how we needed to fight for religious conscience and to oppose President Obama's new mandate.

I am glad that Bishop Jenky supports the First Amendment and religious conscience, but I disagree with the Diocesan/OSF policy allowing OSF physicians to prescribe oral contraceptives. It seems like the Diocese preempted the Obama Administration by about 15 years.

Should OSF continue to be Catholic? What would happen if OSF refused to take federal funds and gave up its tax exempt status? Would OSF survive? Would OSF become more like it was when the founding Sisters established it as "St. Francis Hospital" over a century ago? Hopefully it would become a real Catholic medical center rather than a nominally Catholic medical center like it is now. And the Diocese and OSF could do away with their own oral contraceptive policy that they created which always seemed scandalous and laughable.

President Obama will probably back down some on his mandate. And some sort of loophole will be created which will allows Catholic medical centers to create an insurance rider which will provide oral contraceptives for their employees. And the Catholic Bishops will accept this in a "begrudging" fashion. And all will be just like....Peoria.

The following link is the PJS editorial from yesterday (2/9/2012).

http://www.pjstar.com/opinions/ourview/x1085185303/Our-View-Obama-should-back-off-contraception-mandate

Mike Miller's Religion Blog in the Peoria Journal Star

See this post.

Anniversary

Ten years ago last week my relationship with OSF-SFMC ended. It was really a shame for so many reasons. I had worked at OSF for twenty years and really believed in the Sister's Mission. I just loved the place.

I wrote this letter to OSF-SFMC CEO Keith Steffen in September, 2001.

As the letter and post explains, I was worried about the safety of the patients in the OSF-SFMC Emergency Department. In my opinion, the patients were waiting too long in the Emergency Department to be admitted to the hospital.

I was put on probation the day after I wrote the letter. Mr. Steffen told me that "when you have a cancer somewhere, you need to cut it out before it spreads". And over the next several months (October and November, 2001) Mr. Steffen would smile, look down, and say to me "when this comes out about you, John, it won't be good." He was obviously up to no good while both the Emergency Department patient satisfaction and employee satisfaction were the worst at OSF.

Five years ago Mr. Steffen stated in the Journal Star that the Emergency Department would be expanded because OSF was seeing 62,000 patients per year in SFMC-Emergency Department that was built to see 32,000 patients. The entire patient waiting problem was not just the Emergency Department over crowding. The hospital was poorly run and rooms were not available to accept sick Emergency Department patients who needed admission in a timely fashion.

The article below, published in Academic Emergency Medicine in 2011, describes how patient mortality and hospital length of stay increases when patients are kept ("boarded") in the Emergency Department for prolonged periods of time.

Now in 2011 "Occupy America" is a big thing. The 99% are saying that the 1% have not done things in a moral way.

And nurses unions around the country are striking for the same reasons. The nurses worry about patient care being poor due to corporate greed. This is not really "news" but is spoken about more openly now than it was a decade ago.

This is what happened at OSF in my opinion. Emergency Department patients just didn't count compared to OSF's bottom line.

Please see article below.



Acad Emerg Med. 2011; 18(12):1324-9 (ISSN: 1553-2712)

Singer AJ ; Thode HC ; Viccellio P ; Pines JM

From the Department of Emergency Medicine, Stony Brook University (AJS, HCT, PV), Stony Brook, NY; the Department of Emergency Medicine, George Washington University School of Medicine, and the Department of Health Policy, George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Sciences (JMP), Washington, DC.

Objectives:  Emergency department (ED) boarding has been associated with several negative patient-oriented outcomes, from worse satisfaction to higher inpatient mortality rates. The current study evaluates the association between length of ED boarding and outcomes. The authors expected that prolonged ED boarding of admitted patients would be associated with higher mortality rates and longer hospital lengths of stay (LOS).

Methods:  This was a retrospective cohort study set at a suburban academic ED with an annual ED census of 90,000 visits. Consecutive patients admitted to the hospital from the ED and discharged between October 2005 and September 2008 were included. An electronic medical record (EMR) system was used to extract patient demographics, ED disposition (discharge, admit to floor), ED and hospital LOS, and in-hospital mortality. Boarding was defined as ED LOS 2 hours or more after decision for admission. Descriptive statistics were used to evaluate the association between length of ED boarding and hospital LOS, subsequent transfer to an intensive care unit (ICU), and mortality controlling for comorbidities.

Results:  There were 41,256 admissions from the ED. Mortality generally increased with increasing boarding time, from 2.5% in patients boarded less than 2 hours to 4.5% in patients boarding 12 hours or more (p < 0.001). Mean hospital LOS also showed an increase with boarding time (p < 0.001), from 5.6 days (SD ± 11.4 days) for those who stayed in the ED for less than 2 hours to 8.7 days (SD ± 16.3 days) for those who boarded for more than 24 hours. The increases were still apparent after adjustment for comorbid conditions and other factors.

Conclusions:  Hospital mortality and hospital LOS are associated with length of ED boarding. ACADEMIC EMERGENCY MEDICINE 2011; 18:1324-1329 © 2011 by the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine.

New York Nurses May Strike

The New York Times reports tonight that thousands of registered nurses in three New York City hospitals may go on strike.

[The nurses, who voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike, say they are being disrespected by a corporate hospital culture that demands sacrifices from patients and those who provide their care, but pays executives millions of dollars. Management officials defend executive pay as the price of competition for top leadership, and accuse the nurses of refusing what many other American workers have accepted: paying a share of their health insurance premiums, along with higher co-payments, deductibles and prescription costs.]

I would hate to see more patient deaths due to a nursing strike and that is what could happen. If you are really sick, you better have a skilled and caring nurse.

The execs at OSF-Corporate in Peoria are paid immense salaries. And OSF-Saint Francis Medical Center Keith Steffen told me that if nurses want to leave OSF that is fine with him. Something seems very wrong headed here.

There is no nurses union at OSF in Peoria. Steffen has strongly discouraged one from forming. And I thought the Catholic Church would support a nurses union in Peoria...

George is Out

Dr. George Hevesy was voted out as Chairman of the Emergency Department at OSF in Peoria.

There are about thirty attending physicians who work in the ED now and their vote several months ago was not even close. Dr. Dick Frederick became the new Chairman.

Dr. Hevesy is still the Director of the Emergency Department. This is an appointed position by OSF Administration. So Keith Steffen, CEO at OSF, still supports George even though George's fellow colleagues overwhelmingly do not. This vote of no confidence in George was a long time coming. However, as I have documented many times in this blog and in Peoria's Medical Mafia, fear plays a big role in how things are done at OSF.

There were many reasons why George fell from his position. The Sisters have been protected from knowing too much about their own hospital, which is a shame. I think OSF Administration knows much about the concept of "plausible deniability" and understands how to use it effectively to keep the Sisters in the dark.

Dr. Hevesy is no longer EMS Director at OSF, but due to the fact that he is still Director of the ED, he controls the physician who is EMS Medical Director in his department. Peoria Area EMS, based at OSF, has about 60 agencies which they control. Advanced Medical Transport (AMT) is one of these agencies. And AMT is the only paramedic/transport agency in Peoria. Dr. Hevesy still receives a handsome salary from AMT and from OSF.

It won't be long before Dr. Hevesy is no longer Director of the ED at OSF. His utility at OSF is diminishing.

Keith Steffen, CEO at OSF, doesn't have much time left at OSF either. Keith, my unsolicited advice for you is to ditch George as Emergency Department Director while you still have the chance. No one will think worse of you...

In my opinion if Peorians knew the real details at our Catholic hospital both men would have been gone long ago.

Doing the Ethical Thing

Photo by John Carroll


From the New York Times--November 19, 2011:

Here’s another way we deceive ourselves. Most of us say we admire people who stand up for what’s right (or what is eventually shown to be right), especially when they are strong enough to stick to their guns in the face of strenuous opposition.

But again, research shows that’s not necessarily true. In “When Groups are Wrong and Deviants are Right,” published last year in The European Journal of Social Psychology, Australian academics argue that group members are often hostile to people who buck conformity, even if the members later agree with the dissenter.

Even when, say, a whistle-blower may prove to be correct, she is not always admired or accepted back into the fold, the academics found. Rather, the group may still feel angry that the whistle-blower damaged its cohesion.

Philip G. Zimbardo, professor emeritus of psychology at Stanford University and author of numerous books including, “The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil” (Random House, 2007), has spent a lifetime studying moral degradation. In 1971, Professor Zimbardo set up the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment, where the college student “guards” turned sadistic in a very short time, denying food, water and sleep to the student “prisoners,” shooting them with spray from fire extinguishers and stripping them naked.

Professor Zimbardo has classified evil activity in three categories: individual (a few bad apples), situational (a bad barrel of apples) or systemic (bad barrel makers).

“The majority of people can get seduced across the line of good and evil in a very short period of time by a variety of circumstances that they’re usually not aware of — coercion, anonymity, dehumanization,” he said. “We don’t want to accept the notion because it attacks our concept of the dignity of human nature.”

While it may be easy to give up in the face of such discouraging findings, the point, Professor Zimbardo and others say, is to make people conscious of what is known about how and why people are so willing to behave badly — and then use that information to create an environment for good.

Professor Zimbardo, for example, has established the Heroic Imagination Project. Already in some California schools, the project has students watch the Stanford Prison Experiment and similar ones about obedience to authority to teach how individuals can recognize the power of such situations and still act heroically.

He says he hopes to bring his project into the wider world of business and the military.

Although no one thinks it’s an easy task, Professor Zimbardo is not alone in his faith that people can be taught, and even induced, to do the right thing.

“I am a true believer that we can create environments to act ethically,” Professor Gino said. “It just might take a heavier hand.”

Mobility in Society

Time magazine (November 14, 2011) has a good article on social mobility in society. They site education, technology, health care, and the market as some of the factors playing important roles.

Time concludes:

"A large body of academic research shows that inequality and lack of social mobility hurt not just those at the bottom, they hurt everyone. Unequal societies have lower levels of trust, higher levels of anxiety and more illness. They have arguably less stable economies: International Monetary Fund research shows that countries like the U.S. and the U.K. are more prone to boom-and-bust cycles. And they are ultimately at risk for social instability."

Oligarchy

A decade ago I started thinking that OSF in Peoria had lost its way.

I thought that money had become more important to the hospital than patients.

I was afraid that they would let my Haitian patients die, and they have. And I thought that the ambulance monopoly in Peoria served the high end CEO's, not the people of central Illinois.

Leslie Moore of Metamora, Illinois wrote this in the Forum of the Peoria Journal Star on November 5, 2011:

"Early criticism of the corporate business structure have been offered by prominent persons this way: Peorian Robert Ingersoll said, "Every man is dishonest who lives upon the labor of others, no matter if he occupies a throne." "

Today's New York Times columnist David Krugman writes on the difference between those who have and those who don't in our society. Krugman feels that this difference is very dangerous to our society.

Please see the following few paragraphs from Krugman:


The budget office report tells us that essentially all of the upward redistribution of income away from the bottom 80 percent has gone to the highest-income 1 percent of Americans. That is, the protesters who portray themselves as representing the interests of the 99 percent have it basically right, and the pundits solemnly assuring them that it’s really about education, not the gains of a small elite, have it completely wrong.

If anything, the protesters are setting the cutoff too low. The recent budget office report doesn’t look inside the top 1 percent, but an earlier report, which only went up to 2005, found that almost two-thirds of the rising share of the top percentile in income actually went to the top 0.1 percent — the richest thousandth of Americans, who saw their real incomes rise more than 400 percent over the period from 1979 to 2005.

Who’s in that top 0.1 percent? Are they heroic entrepreneurs creating jobs? No, for the most part, they’re corporate executives. Recent research shows that around 60 percent of the top 0.1 percent either are executives in nonfinancial companies or make their money in finance, i.e., Wall Street broadly defined. Add in lawyers and people in real estate, and we’re talking about more than 70 percent of the lucky one-thousandth.

But why does this growing concentration of income and wealth in a few hands matter? Part of the answer is that rising inequality has meant a nation in which most families don’t share fully in economic growth. Another part of the answer is that once you realize just how much richer the rich have become, the argument that higher taxes on high incomes should be part of any long-run budget deal becomes a lot more compelling.

The larger answer, however, is that extreme concentration of income is incompatible with real democracy. Can anyone seriously deny that our political system is being warped by the influence of big money, and that the warping is getting worse as the wealth of a few grows ever larger?

Some pundits are still trying to dismiss concerns about rising inequality as somehow foolish. But the truth is that the whole nature of our society is at stake.

Crony Capitalism (Updated)

William Cellini from Springfield was found guilty last week in a courtroom in Chicago. It is the same courtroom that ex-Governor Blagojevich was found guilty in a couple of months ago.

The Peoria Journal Star had this editorial on the Cellini conviction.

I am sure Cellini has well heeled supporters not only in Springfield and Chicago but in Peoria too. See this article in the Peoria Journal Star.

And John Kass, the Tribune columnist has been following friendships from Peoria with Cellini for several years. See this Kass column too which was written last week after Cellini was found guilty.

Michelle Malkin is kind of rough on our leadership and its love of crony capitalism also.

Did ex-Governor Blagojevich's 400 million dollar loan from the Illinois Finance Authority to OSF in Peoria happen because he was so interested in health care in Peoria? In retrospect, it does not seem like Blago did much of anything for "free".

The entire lot of them--Blago, Rezko, Levine, Cellini, and others closer to home do seem pathetic now. But the Illinois taxpayer has been burned.

The article below by Michael Tarm/The Associated Press is about Tony Rezko trying to get out of prison.

jc

-------------
November 3, 2011

CHICAGO —

A convicted political fixer and onetime fundraiser for impeached Gov. Rod Blagojevich wants a federal judge to set him free at his sentencing hearing later this month, arguing that he has already served more time awaiting sentencing — and under harsh conditions — than others convicted in related schemes have or expect to.

Tony Rezko — once described by prosecutors as "the man behind the curtain, pulling the strings" in Blagojevich's administration — has spent much of his more than 3 1/2 years in jail in solitary, rarely getting fresh air and subject to a diet that has resulted in him losing 80 pounds, according to a defense filing unsealed Thursday.

"With his dramatic weight loss, Mr. Rezko has shrunk from a robust, somewhat overweight man to a frail and gaunt shell of his former self," the filing says.

In arguing for a sentence of time served, the document insists the 56-year-old Rezko accepts responsibility for his wrongdoing. But it also hastens to suggest Rezko didn't engage in criminality on his own initiative but at the urging of Blagojevich and his other confidants.

"When Mr. Rezko stepped across the proverbial line, he did so at the direction of Rod Blagojevich, he did so with the knowledge and encouragement of Blagojevich's closest advisers," it says, adding Rezko was "shocked" when the newly elected governor asked him to explore ways to profit from his state decisions.

Rezko's name was mentioned frequently during Blagojevich's initial trial and his retrial, which ended with a jury convicting the ousted governor of corruption including trying to sell or trade President Barack Obama's old Senate seat. Blagojevich's sentencing was postponed and a new date hasn't been set.

Rezko also raised campaign funds for Obama, who has never been accused in the case of any wrongdoing. The filing also notes Rezko's past connection to Obama.

The sympathetic portrayal of Rezko in the defense filing as a family man and eager philanthropist contrasts with the picture painted by prosecutors at his trial of a ruthless schemer with no qualms about using his access to the levers of power for personal profit.

A jury convicted Rezko in 2008 on 16 of 24 corruption counts, including fraud for scheming to squeeze campaign contributions or kickbacks from firms seeking state business. Several counts carry maximum terms of 20 years.

Rezko's sentencing before U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve is set for Nov. 22. Prosecutors are expected to offer their own recommended sentence in a court filing within a matter of days.

More than a dozen co-conspirators have been convicted since authorities launched an investigation of the Democratic governor's administration nearly a decade ago. Most never went to trial, choosing to cut plea deals that call for drastically reduced prison terms.

Rezko's lawyers singled out co-conspirator Stuart Levine, who pleaded guilty to money laundering and fraud. He agreed to testify against Rezko in exchange for a recommended prison term of 5 1/2 years. He has been free on bond as he awaits sentencing.

"Mr. Rezko has already served nearly as much time in jail as will one of the most despicable career fraudsters ever to darken the halls of the federal building," the filing said about Levine.

The crimes Levine pleaded guilty to, the filing continues, are a fraction of the crimes the former state board member has actually admitted to — most of which Rezko played no role in. Levine has admitted to abusing illegal drugs over three decades, the document adds.

Even though he wasn't asked to testify at any either of Blagojevich's two trials, Rezko's lawyers say he had been more than willing to. They say in the filing that Rezko provided enough detail to investigators of wrongdoing in Blagojevich's administration to fill 360 pages.

St. Eve delayed an October sentencing date for Rezko to avoid a conflict with the trial of businessman and political powerbroker William Cellini. He was convicted this week of conspiring with Rezko and two others in 2004 to extort a Hollywood producer for a $1.5 million campaign donation to Blagojevich.

A notice on the court's website did not say why St. Eve decided this week to unseal the defense filing, which was submitted in September. But she issued the order just one day after Cellini's trial ended.

Two More Haitian Hearts Patients to the Dominican Republic

Last year, while working at Hopital Lumiere in Bon Fin, I examined a number of patients with heart problems.

One of the heart patients was three year old Charles. He had a loud systolic murmur over his upper left sternal border and he was anemic.

I sent Charles and his mother to Port-au-Prince with a check from Haitian Hearts to obtain a formal echocardiogram.

Charles echo showed that he has severe pulmonary stenosis with a gradient across the valve of 80 mm Hg. This valve could be opened in the cath lab with a balloon or, if necessary, by an open surgical procedure to expand the valve area.

The second patient was seven year old Naika. She weighed 33 pounds.

Naika had a loud "wash machine" type murmur all over her chest. Her chest x-ray revealed a large heart due to too much blood circulation through a large congenital heart defect called "patent ductus arteriosus".

Haitian Hearts sent Naika to the capital too and her echocardiogram confirmed this diagnosis. Her lesion could possibly be closed in the cath lab as well, or she could have an open procedure without needing bypass. But she definitely needed a procedure because she is in volume overloaded heart failure.

So now what was I supposed to do?

Both of these kids are good surgical candidates and both deserve surgery. But they live deep in rural Haiti, have no money, and OSF administration in Peoria definitely will not accept these kids from Haitian Hearts. Charles and Naika are not covered by OSF's Catholic Mission Philosophy even though it states that OSF will turn no one away regardless of race, religion, or ability to pay. (Haitian Hearts would offer $10,000 for each case.)

So I wrote their names down on my Haitian Hearts "master list", brought their echocardiograms and chest x-rays back to Peoria with me, and kept my eyes and ears open for medical centers that may accept them.

Amazingly, this spring, Chadasha Foundation contacted Haitian Hearts and asked if we had any Haitian kids that needed heart surgery! We always have a "bunch" of babies, toddlers, kids, teenagers, and young adults who need surgery.

Well, Charles and Naika, are on their way this week to the Dominican Republic for heart surgery.

Many thanks to Angela, Chris, Clint, Judy, Gettie, and Miss Beth for helping make this happen.

Exterior Authority

"From the day when the first members of councils placed exterior authority higher than interior, that is to say, recognized the decisions of men united in councils as more important and more sacred than reason and conscience; on that day began lies that caused the loss of millions of human beings and which continue their unhappy work to the present day."

Leo Tolstoy

Sobering Statistics

Haiti: A History of Poverty and Poor Health

Haiti has extremely poor health indices. The life expectancy at birth is 61 years (9), and the estimated IMR (Infant Mortality Rate) is 64 per 1,000 live births, the highest in the Western Hemisphere. An estimated 87 of every 1,000 children born die by the age of 5 years (9), and >25% of surviving children experience chronic undernutrition or stunted growth (10). Maternal mortality rate is 630 per 100,000 live births (10).

Haitians are at risk of spreading vaccine-preventable diseases, such as polio and measles, because childhood vaccination coverage is low (59%) for polio, measles-rubella, and diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis vaccines (9). Prevalence of adult HIV infection (1.9%) and tuberculosis (312 cases per 100,000 population) in the Western Hemisphere is also highest in Haiti (11,12), and Hispaniola, which Haiti shares with the Dominican Republic, is the only Caribbean island where malaria remains endemic (13).

Only half of the Haitian population has access to health care because of poverty and a shortage of health care professionals (1 physician and 1.8 nurses per 10,000 population), and only one fourth of seriously ill persons are taken to a health facility (14). Before the earthquake hit Haiti in January 2010, only 63% of Haiti’s population had access to an improved drinking water source (e.g., water from a well or pipe), and only 17% had access to a latrine (15).

Emerging Infectious Diseases

Template Medicine

See this post from KevinMD.com.

The Emergency Room Reflects Your Hospital and Community

New England Journal of Medicine
June 16, 2011

"The ER is more than a hospital department. It's a “room with a view” of our health care system.5 The quickest way to assess the strength of a community's public health, primary care, and hospital systems is to spend a few hours in the emergency department. If public health is under-resourced, you will see more patients with vaccine-preventable illnesses, smoking-related health problems, preventable injuries, and foodborne diseases than you otherwise would.

If primary care is fragmented or weak, the ER's waiting room will be full of patients with problems that should have been prevented or treated by primary care providers.

If the hospital's administration is not adept at managing the flow of patients, the ER's exam rooms, resuscitation bays, and hallways will be packed with ill and injured patients, many of whom were stabilized and admitted hours earlier but now have nowhere to go."

Hospitals Put Emergency Department Patients at Risk

Ten years ago at OSF-SFMC in Peoria I thought my Emergency Room (ER) patients were at risk. I thought the system was stacked with elective admissions who were trumping my sick patients waiting in the ER.

See this article from Emergency Medicine News.

I thought that medicine had become more about business than taking care of patients.

This article, written by an academic surgeon in California, states the same. He lost his mother to the "system".

When You are Sick, Do You Want to be Checked by Your Provider or Your Doctor? And do you want to be the Consumer or the Patient?

See the paragraphs below from this weeks New England Journal of Medicine.

The words we use to explain our roles are powerful. They set expectations and shape behavior. This change in the language of medicine has important and deleterious consequences. The relationships between doctors, nurses, or any other medical professionals and the patients they care for are now cast primarily in terms of a commercial transaction. The consumer or customer is the buyer, and the provider is the vendor or seller. To be sure, there is a financial aspect to clinical care. But that is only a small part of a much larger whole, and to people who are sick, it's the least important part.

The words “consumer” and “provider” are reductionist; they ignore the essential psychological, spiritual, and humanistic dimensions of the relationship — the aspects that traditionally made medicine a “calling,” in which altruism overshadowed personal gain. Furthermore, the term “provider” is deliberately and strikingly generic, designating no specific role or type or level of expertise.

Each medical professional — doctor, nurse, physical therapist, social worker, and more — has specialized training and skills that are not recognized by the all-purpose term “provider,” which carries no resonance of professionalism. There is no hint of the role of doctor as teacher with special knowledge to help the patient understand the reasons for his or her malady and the possible ways of remedying it, no honoring of the work of the nurse as a nurturer with unique expertise whose close care is essential to healing. Rather, the generic term “provider” suggests that doctors and nurses and all other medical professionals are interchangeable. “Provider” also signals that care is fundamentally a prepackaged commodity on a shelf that is “provided” to the “consumer,” rather than something personalized and dynamic, crafted by skilled professionals and tailored to the individual patient.


When we ourselves are ill, we want someone to care about us as people, not as paying customers, and to individualize our treatment according to our values. Despite the lip service paid to “patient-centered care” by the forces promulgating the new language of medicine, their discourse shifts the focus from the good of the individual to the exigencies of the system and its costs. Marketplace and industrial terms may be useful to economists, but this vocabulary should not redefine our profession. “Customer,” “consumer,” and “provider” are words that do not belong in teaching rounds and the clinic. We believe doctors, nurses, and others engaged in care should eschew the use of such terms that demean patient and professional alike and dangerously neglect the essence of medicine.

Empathy

Photo by John Carroll


New York Times
David Brooks
September 30, 2011

"Nobody is against empathy. Nonetheless, it’s insufficient. These days empathy has become a shortcut. It has become a way to experience delicious moral emotions without confronting the weaknesses in our nature that prevent us from actually acting upon them. It has become a way to experience the illusion of moral progress without having to do the nasty work of making moral judgments. In a culture that is inarticulate about moral categories and touchy about giving offense, teaching empathy is a safe way for schools and other institutions to seem virtuous without risking controversy or hurting anybody’s feelings."

Poverty in Peoria

Photo by John Carroll


From the Peoria Journal Star, September 2011--

About 19,000 Peorians, or 18 percent of the city's population, live below the poverty line, according to statistics released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau.

That includes about 11,000 blacks, or 38 percent of the city's black population, and nearly 1,500 Latinos, or about 25 percent.

Almost 24 percent of all children in the city live in poverty.

Here are some other statistics for the city:

- 27 percent of families received some type of public assistance last year.

- 21 percent of families with children are in poverty.

- 44 percent of unmarried women who live alone with children fall under the poverty line.

While the statistics are alarming, they also come with a high margin of error because of the sample size and the way the Census Bureau conducted its survey last year. However, the numbers still fall in line with national averages.

"Even with the margin of error, Peoria still has a high number of people who live in poverty. This year's data looks to be that one in five people in Peoria are living in poverty," said Amy Rynell, the director of Heartland Alliance's Social IMPACT Research Center, a private Chicago-based think tank that studies social issues. "Not only is there is a large number of people living in poverty but there is a growing number of people who are living at half poverty rate."

Meg Newell, a spokeswoman for the South Side Mission, sees it every day.

"The human side, for us, that people who never thought that they would be in that position are now in that position. People who five years ago were supporting our food pantry, who were buying extra at the grocery store to donate, are now our customers," Newell said.

She points to the 10 percent increase in food baskets distributed by the mission this year. In 2011 so far, the mission has passed out 4,918 baskets, compared to the 4,433 baskets during the same time period in 2010.

The numbers come from the annual American Community Survey, which is the Census Bureau's effort to keep track of yearly trends by surveying only about 2 percent of the population and then extrapolating estimates from there.

As such, the bureau only provides detailed information for cities and counties with populations of more than 65,000, meaning areas like Woodford County, East Peoria or Pekin would not have any detailed information.

The numbers released Thursday also state the obvious: Those who have less education and poor work history tend to fall below the poverty line.

The Long Defeat

I posted this and this on the Peoria Journal Star website.

Jenny Still Survives

 

(Photo by John Carroll--September 5, 2011)

Jenny had heart surgery at OSF-SFMC in Peoria in 1999. At nineteen years of age she looked like a victim from Auschwitz before her heart surgery.

I have been treating her in Haiti for over a decade since her surgery in Peoria. Haitian Hearts has provided her with medication, echocardiograms, and money in Haiti.

Jenny needs more heart surgery, but OSF-SFMC won't take her back. I gave OSF-Children's Hospital of Illinois a check for $23,000 dollars before her surgery in 1999. (All the physicians did pro-bono work.)

Other medical centers believe she is OSF's medical and ethical responsibility. And she is.

Jenny has survived tropical storms, hurricanes, kidnappings, heart failure, a biblical earthquake (she was living in a car), and poverty.

However, I don't think she will survive the greed and power of our Catholic hospital in Peoria.

Nuns a "Dying Breed" at Catholic Hospitals

(Photo by John Carroll)

See this article from the New York Times.

Unfortunately, I have to agree with the Times article.

I watched as the Sisters at OSF in Peoria lost control of their medical center and I also watched my Haitian Hearts patients die.

It is a shame for the patients who suffer the most as power and greed take over. Money is more important than lives.

Luckner Accepted for Heart Surgery!

See this post from the Peoria Journal Star website.

Haitian Hearts Patient Operated in the Dominican Republic

This is Kewine.

I examined Kewine for the first time in June, 2010.

Kewine was living in a tent in Carrefour, just outside of Port-au-Prince.

She was born with a Ventricular Septal Defect. This is a hole between the lower chambers of the heart that allows blood to go in the wrong direction.

Kewine was operated in the Dominican Republic in June, the hole in her heart was patched, and she is now back in Haiti.

Her mother is very happy with the results.

And so are we.

Thank you to EVERYONE involved in Kewine's care.

When Hospital Crowding Leads to Emergency Department Overcrowding

During the last few years that I worked at OSF-Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria, I thought that patients were not treated fairly in the Emergency Department. Patients were waiting for hours in the Emergency Department to be admitted to the hospital. We were "boarding" patients and that was dangerous for them.

I talked with Dr. Rick Miller, the Medical Director of the Emergency Department, many times during the 90's about the dysfunction in the Emergency Department. Miller was afraid of OSF-SFMC President and CEO Keith Steffen and did not adequately support the rights of his patients or his staff in the Emergency Department.

Patient and employee satisfaction in the OSF Emergency Department was the worst in the Medical Center in 2001.

The decision was made to relieve Dr. Miller of his duties as ED Medical Director in 2001 and to replace him with Dr. George Hevesy on August 1, 2001.

Dr. Hevesy was director of EMS in the Peoria area for many years and was on the salary of Advanced Medical Transport and OSF-SFMC.

I wrote a letter to Mr. Steffen in September, 2001 and told him of my concerns regarding long and dangerous boarding times in the ED. I cc'd all of my attending partners in the Emergency Department including Drs. Hevesy and Miller.

I was placed on probation the next day by Dr. Hevesy for writing the letter.

In December, 2001 while working a Prompt Care shift at OSF, Dr. Hevesy showed up and told me, while I was seeing patients, that Mr. Steffen wanted me in his office. We walked to Mr. Steffen's office. The OSF lawyer, Mr. Douglass Marshall was present, and I was fired.

What Mr. Steffen put my family through in his office at OSF during the months before he fired me has been documented on Peoria's Medical Mafia. Clearly Mr. Steffen should not be in charge of the largest Catholic hospital in downstate Illinois.

Here is a great article in the New York Times regarding why hospital crowding occurs. And this leads to dangerous ED overcrowding.

I thought this was happening at OSF-SFMC ten years ago.

Here is one paragraph from this article:

The major challenge for any patient in the emergency room is a reimbursement system that offers little incentive to decrease crowding or minimize boarding. Hospitals prefer patients who come in electively for scheduled procedures, at least from a financial perspective. For one thing, they are far more likely to be well insured than those admitted through the emergency room. By boarding E.R. patients in crowded halls, hospitals can offer the required emergency care for all while minimizing the effect on their bottom lines.

Willie

 

This is Willie.

Willie is 23 years old now.

OSF denied Willie a new pacemaker when the pacemaker that was put in at OSF was failing a few years ago. When I examined Willie in Haiti, he had no get up and go due to the weak pacemaker. He would die unless we did something.

Haitian Hearts offered OSF full charges for a new pacemaker, but that didn't help. OSF still refused to care for Willie.

Haitian Hearts paid another well known children's hospital $5,000 and they gave Willie a new pacemaker right after their pediatric cardiologist examined him.

Willie is doing well.

Bishop Jenky and Notre Dame Take One on the Chin

Bishop Jenky and The Catholic Diocese of Peoria had quite a bit to do with eliminating Haitian Hearts patients from coming to Peoria's OSF.

Young Haitians who were operated at OSF in the 90's have died as I have documented numerous times on my blogs.

It is all very sad.

And now Bishop Jenky and his colleagues on the Board of Trustees at the University of Notre Dame look pretty sad.

Roxanne Martino, a newly appointed wealthy pro choice member of the Notre Dame Board of Trustees, just resigned this afternoon.

See this article in the Chicago Tribune.

I wonder what The Catholic Post in Peoria will report about this. Bishop Jenky is the publisher.

Bishop Jenky and Notre Dame

See this article published in the National Catholic Register and the comments that follow.

I will explain soon how this is related to Haitian kids being denied medical care.

As always it is about power and money.

Overcrowding in Emergency Departments and Adverse Outcomes

See this article in the British Medical Journal.

Desiderata

As the Desiderata, by Max Ehrmann says, “Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism.”

Calvin Coolidge in West Peoria Helps Haiti

See this article on WEEK-WHOI TV today.

Calvin Coolidge Grade School in West Peoria had an event today at Franciscan Park that raised 2,000 dollars for Haitian Hearts.

The funds will be used for the pediatric malnutrition program in Cite Soleil in Port-au-Prince.

Haitian Hearts is very grateful for all of the kids efforts and for the very hard work of teacher Hedy Elliot-Gardner, Principal Blumer and the entire faculty and staff at Calvin Coolidge.

Fewer ER's, Longer Waiting

See this article from the Chicago Sun-Times.

Peoria

Physicians Owned by Hospitals

"...most of us feel that any doctor who is an at-will employee of a hospital system fundamentally isn't working for his patients any longer but instead works for his boss (i.e., the guy that can fire him), whoever that may be. A doctor should not willingly put himself in any position where he can be fired by anyone but the patient. To practice medicine as an employee who can be terminated without cause is tantamount to a breach of medical ethics. You are simply giving too much control of your practice to someone who is not the doctor of your patients."

Nick Benton, MD
Emergency Medicine News
May, 2011

Hospital Negligence in the Emergency Department

See this article on emergency department crowding and the concern emergency department physicians have had about this for ten years.

I was concerned too.

Ten years ago I asked Keith Steffen, administrator of OSF-SFMC in Peoria, if OSF was guilty of "institutional malpractice" because of overcrowding in the Emergency Department at OSF. I thought that patient's lives were on the line in our overcrowded dysfunctional Emergency Department in Peoria.

And I doubt things are going just peachy in the Peoria EMS world. See this article from two years ago by Elaine Hopkins.

More on Peoria's EMS soon.

All Three Girls

 

Photo by John Carroll

All three girls were really sick with heart problems.

All three girls had heart surgery.

And by the mercy of God, all three girls recovered fine.

Haitian Hearts thanks all of its supporters for helping all three girls.

Haitian Hearts Has Heart

Photo by John Carroll


See this article written by Pam Adams of the Peoria Journal Star.

A Great Day in Haiti!

 

Photo by John Carroll

Since the earthquake last year, I have been able to work about four months in hospitals and medical clinics in Haiti.

The majority of Haitian Hearts work in Haiti is spent examining common Haitian problems in Haitian medical centers staffed by Haitian doctors and nurses. These problems include malnutrition, parasitic infections, respiratory infections, diarrhea and dehydration, skin infections, malaria, tuberculosis, HIV, typhoid, and a wide variety of trauma.

During the course of a week it is not unusual to see a new pediatric heart patient.

During these four months I accumulated eight new heart patients with a wide variety of congenital and acquired cardiac defects who I considered reasonable candidates for evaluation for operative repair.

The kids are from Port-au-Prince and southern Haiti.

Their faces, their mom's faces, their exams, and their echocardiograms always haunt me as the days and weeks go by when Maria and I cannot find a medical center in the United States to accept them for surgery. I think I am on a chronic guilt trip when I know that most of these kids could easily be "cured" in the hands of a skilled and gentle heart surgeon.

Several months ago an organization e mailed Haitian Hearts and told us that they have a grant to operate on 400 Haitian and Dominican children's' hearts during the next five years. The surgeries will be performed by American and Dominican teams in the Dominican Republic.

And this organization wanted to know if I had any kids that needed surgery!

I answered back immediately and sent a clinical vignette of these eight Haitian Hearts patients. I also sent their VHS echocardiograms to this organization's cardiologist in the States.

I will call their cardiologist Dr. C.

Dr. C reviewed the echocardiograms and then flew to Haiti. He was in Haiti right after the return of President Aristide and during the weekend of the presidential elections (March 20, 2011).

To make it easier on the kids mothers, he rented a little plane and flew south from Port-au-Prince to Cayes and examined the kids that we had lined up to see him. ALL the kids were accepted by Dr. C to go to the Dominican Republic for heart surgery in early May!!

Thus, eight of the kids were accepted for heart surgery and when Dr. C arrived back in Port-au-Prince, he travelled to Cite Soleil and examined yet another Haitian Hearts patient, Dusousa.

Dusousa is the 17 month old toddler who is blind from cataracts and is in the malnutrition program in the back part of Soleil. Dr. C and an ophthalmologist examined Dusousa and, believe it or not, Dr. C's daughter who is an ophthalmologist, will operate Dusousa in the States!!

This is what I would call a gran coup d'etat in Haiti.

Thank you, Dr. C., for all of your efforts for these Haitian children.