-Caveat Lector-
Babies die, mothers arrested
U.S. health care and 'criminal negligence'
By Deirdre Griswold
New York
The case of Tabitha Walrond, who is to be sentenced for "criminally negligent
homicide" in the death of her infant son Tyler, brings into sharp focus the
criminal negligence built into the U.S. health-care system.
Tyler died after he and his 19-year-old mother were turned away from a New
York clinic when she couldn't produce his Medicaid card. It arrived in the
mail weeks after his death. He died because his mother, on the advice of
doctors, had tried to breast-feed him but wasn't able to produce the
necessary milk and never had a chance to find out what was wrong.
Walrond's case has many similarities to that of Tatiana Cheeks, who was
arrested in 1998 after her five-week-old daughter died of starvation. She
also had been unable to successfully breast-feed the infant and had been
turned away from a Brooklyn clinic because she had neither a Medicaid card
nor the $25 required for a checkup for her baby.
For most babies, breast milk is the best source of nourishment and in
addition provides temporary immunity to diseases.
In both cases, New York State's policy on paper is that a baby is covered for
the first year of its life by its mother's Medicaid card. But the facilities
supposed to serve the poor obviously violate this policy.
Tabitha Walrond has been treated as a criminal to cover up the criminality of
the profit system that has made access to health care unavailable for tens of
millions of people in this wealthy country.
If you're poor and depend on Medicaid, you have to fight for health care. You
have to find out from others like yourself how to get past the red tape, how
to deal with all the problems and errors that crop up to knock you out of the
system. You're on your own against a bureaucracy that is rewarded for getting
rid of you. If you're a person of color, like both Walrond and Cheeks, you
can also face racist hostility.
There are about 32 million people on Medicaid. Some 48 million more--and it's
a growing number--have no medical coverage at all. Some have been cut from
welfare and, with it, health coverage. Others are workers who can't get jobs
with benefits because of several decades of reactionary restructuring of
industry and union busting.
But the health-care crisis also extends to workers who can't afford the high
premiums now demanded for many medical insurance plans; seniors who are only
partially covered by Medicare; and everyone who can't afford the expensive
new medications prescribed by many doctors.
What can be done about the health-care disaster? Has medical care just become
too expensive? Is it impossible to have quality health care for all?
Anyone who thinks that way should study the Cuban health-care system. If they
truly care about the way all people are treated--and not just the elite few
who can afford to buy the best coverage--they will be astounded by Cuba's
success.
One objective measure of this success is Cuba's infant mortality rate--7.1
per thousand live births, and still dropping. The world average is 59.
Another measure is the ratio of doctors per inhabitant. Cuba's is the best in
the world. It has 64,000 doctors, or one for every 170 people.
For a developing country, this is an excellent achievement. For a country
that has been blockaded for 40 years, it is phenomenal.
Cuba has achieved this with a system that puts a doctor in every neighborhood
and workplace. They call it an "integral community health program." Some
30,000 of Cuba's doctors work in community health clinics that put the
emphasis on prevention.
Everyone in Cuba has a personal physician through this system. The health
workers live in the communities they serve. They don't wait for a sick person
to come see them. They follow up and make sure that newborns get their shots,
seniors receive proper care, everyone gets regular checkups.
Cuban doctors--2,500 of them--are also helping 50 Third World countries.
Eighteen Cuban medical brigades are currently in Guatemala, where they have
treated 200,000 people affected by Hurricane Mitch.
The numbers of Cuban doctors working in Haiti--400--and of Haitian students
enrolled in medicine school in Cuba--123--are both about to be doubled.
The corporate media here say repeatedly that socialism has "failed" and that
Cuba is repressive. But Tabitha Walrond and Tatiana Cheeks lost their babies
and their freedom in New York, not Havana. It's the profit system that has
failed by creating a glittering high-tech world that is completely out of
reach for an ever-growing part of the population.
- END -
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