Updated: December 24, 2020 9:50:02 AM
Moore’s case has sparked outrage and renewed calls to fight the 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 looks at her smartphone and, in a strained voice, complains about an experience too common among black people in America.
Susan Moore, the patient, said the white doctor at the suburban Indianapolis hospital, where she was being treated for COVID-19, downplayed her complaints of pain. He told her he felt uncomfortable giving her more drugs, she said, and suggested she be discharged.
“I was crushed,” she said in a video posted on Facebook. “It made me feel addicted to drugs.”
In her post, which circulated widely on social media, she showed a knowledge of complicated medical terminology and a complex knowledge of treatment protocols while detailing the ways in which she advocated for herself and the medical staff. She knew what to ask for because she was a doctor too.
But this was not enough to receive the treatment and respect he said he deserved. “I presented and claim if I were white,” she said in the video, “I shouldn’t go through this.”
She was eventually sent home, and on Sunday, just two weeks after she posted the video, Moore, 52, died of complications from COVID-19, said her son, Henry Muhammed. .
Moore’s case has sparked outrage and renewed calls to fight the biased medical treatment of black patients. Large-scale 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 in which Moore complained of poor treatment, said in a statement that he could not comment on specific cases because of privacy laws.
A complicated mix of socio-economic and health factors has made COVID-19 particularly devastating for black and Latino communities. Blacks died 3.6 times more than whites, and Latinos 2.5 times more than whites, according to an analysis by the Brookings Institution.
Moore tested positive for coronavirus on November 29 and was hospitalized, according to her Facebook post, which she wrote on December 4. some doctors use COVID-19 to treat it.
Moore said she received a scan of her throat and lungs after her doctor denied her shortness of breath, despite telling her he was, and after telling her he couldn’t justify giving her more. many narcotic analgesics. The scan detected problems – lung infiltrates and new lymphadenopathy, she said – and so began receiving more opioid drugs. But he said he was in pain for hours before a nurse gave him the dose.
“This is how black people are killed when you send them home and they don’t know how to fight for themselves,” Moore said.
Moore’s experience highlights what many black professionals say they have met on a regular basis. Education cannot protect them from abuse, they say, whether they are in a hospital or elsewhere.
Born in Jamaica, Moore grew up in Michigan. He studied engineering at Kettering University in Flint, Michigan, according to his family, and earned a medical degree from the University of Michigan Medical School.
She was no stranger to the challenges of receiving adequate medical care, said Muhammed, her 19-year-old son. He had sarcoidosis, an inflammatory disease that attacks the lungs and has been frequently treated in hospitals.
“Almost every time she went to the hospital she had to plead for herself, to fight for something in one way or another, just to get the initial and proper care,” he 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 her fight with the coronavirus at IU Health North Hospital in Carmel, Indiana, Moore wrote in a Facebook update that she eventually spoke with the hospital’s chief physician, who assured her she would receive more care. and that the formation of diversity will be maintained. She received a new doctor, and her pain was better managed, she wrote.
But even though things seemed to be improving at the hospital, Moore still felt that the care was not excellent and that the medical staff had become less receptive, according to Muhammed, who spoke to him daily. Although she didn’t really feel good enough to be discharged, she was eager to get home to take care of her parents, he said.
The hospital released her on December 7, he said, and she became lazy and tired when she got home. The hospital called several times to check on her, he said, and when she did not respond, she sent an ambulance. His mother could barely walk and was breathing hard when the ambulance arrived. She was taken to another hospital 12 hours after she was previously discharged, she said on Facebook.
“I raised a temperature of 103 and my blood pressure dropped to 80/60 with a heart rate of 132,” she wrote.
Moore described her care at the new hospital as compassionate and said she was being treated for bacterial pneumonia in addition to COVID-19 pneumonia. However, her condition would deteriorate rapidly. The last time Muhammad spoke to her, just before she was put on a fan, she coughed so hard she could barely speak, he said.
Doctors intubated her on December 10, Muhammed said. The medical staff launched a Zoom call in her room and more than a dozen relatives spoke to her, hoping she would be able to hear them even if she was unconscious, he said.
By last Friday, Moore had become 100% addicted to a ventilator, her son said, and doctors told her she might not succeed. He visited her with his grandparents and told her that he loved her and not to worry about him.
“If you want to fight, now is the time to fight,” he remembered, telling her. “But if you have to leave, I understand.”
Two days later, Moore’s heart stopped beating.