Dr. Susan Moore, a 52-year-old black physician, was lying in a hospital bed breathing despite being given oxygen, stared into her cell phone and recorded a video claiming that her battle with COVID-19 had been made worse by the treatment she received. received from a doctor at a hospital in suburban Indianapolis, Indiana.
“This is how black people are killed. If you send them home and they don’t know how to fight for themselves,” Moore said in the December 4 video she posted on her Indiana University Health North Hospital Facebook page. Carmel located, Indiana, her hometown. ‘I had to talk to someone, maybe the media, to let people know how I’m being treated in this place.
“I argued, and I claim that if I were white, I wouldn’t have to experience that,” said Moore, who tested positive for COVID in late November, in her Facebook post. She added that she no longer trusted the hospital and asked for a transfer.
Moore’s case seems to underscore a concern that health advocates have highlighted by the pandemic: allegations that black people and minorities suffering from COVID are receiving inferior medical treatment compared to whites.
Black people have also been disproportionately affected and have died more from the coronavirus than their white counterparts. An analysis by the Brookings Institution released earlier this year found that black people with COVID died 3.6 times faster than whites.
An ABC News study published in April found that black people living in coronavirus hot spots are twice as likely to die from the disease than their white counterparts.
Moore’s 19-year-old son, Henry Muhammed, told ABC News that his mother tested positive for COVID on Nov. 29 and went to IU North because she had previously been in the hospital and it was close to her home.
He said his mother was discharged on December 7, but was home for only 12 hours before he had to call an ambulance to take her to another hospital. Moore wrote on her Facebook page that when she was admitted to Ascension-St. Vincent Hospital in Carmel, her temperature had risen to 103 degrees and her blood pressure had dropped to 80/60. Normal blood pressure is generally 120/80.
Her son said that while his mother received much better treatment, her health gradually deteriorated and she was placed on a ventilator. She died at 1 a.m. on Sunday, he said.
“I was hoping that when I got there she was still alive, but when they opened those IC doors and they told me she was dead … I was almost hyperventilating,” he told ABC News. “I was like, ‘Mom, I love you, Mom. I love you.’ And I just prayed and hoped that she was doing well in heaven, that she was doing better and that she was at peace. “
Muhammed said the treatment his mother claimed to have received at IU North Health makes him angry.
“I’m unimaginably outraged … because if what my mom thinks was true and that it was racism, and they neglected her for that, no one should go through that. , “he said.
“My mother was rightly very scared. I haven’t seen my mother so scared for a long time. She was concerned about the doctor’s lack of empathy. She did not feel that the doctor cared about her or her health.” she may or may not get better, “he said, adding that his mother would call him daily from IU North hospital, often with pain and tears.” She thought a little bit because the doctor wanted her to get out of the hospital as soon as possible. hospital and she was very concerned about that. ‘
In an email to ABC News, an IU North Health spokesperson said about Dr. Moore: “We are very sad to hear that she has passed away.”
“IU North respects and maintains patient privacy and cannot comment on any specific patient, their medical history or conditions,” the hospital said in a statement. “As an organization committed to equality and the reduction of racial inequalities in health care, we take allegations of discrimination very seriously and investigate every allegation.”
The statement continued, “Treatment options are often agreed and reviewed by medical experts from a variety of specialties, and we stand behind the dedication and expertise of our healthcare providers and the quality of care provided to our patients every day.”
Muhammed said he and his family have not decided whether to take legal action against IU North, but are exploring their options for redress.
“I was her only child. My mom and I were really close. I told her everything. She wasn’t just my mom, she was kind of my best friend. And she was always there to support me along the way,” he said . ‘It is a very difficult loss. It is incalculable how much loss it is. You can’t measure how much my mom means to me. It’s really disturbing to know she’s gone. ‘
He said his mother was also the main caregiver for her parents, who both have dementia. He said he now takes care of his grandparents.
They asked for her. I tried to tell them she passed away and… they don’t always remember, ”he said.
He said his mother decided to become a doctor after initially working as an engineer. She graduated from the University of Michigan Medical School in 2001, Muhammed said.
“I was born three months before she graduated from medical school,” said Muhammed.
He said they moved to Indiana when he was in high school because his mother got a job there as a family doctor. He said she eventually set up her own GP practice in Peru, Indiana, about 62 miles north of their hometown.
“She was always doing things for others, almost out of fault,” he said. “She was just a nice caregiver. She couldn’t have found a better profession for the doctor’s job she had. Her passion and her ability to care for others was my mother.”
Therefore, he said, it enrages him to think of how she was supposedly treated by people in her own profession, during the most dire moments of her life. He also said it scares him of other black people who suffer from COVID who are not doctors and who may not know how to advocate for themselves.
“All those thousands of people, all those people, I fear for them and I hope this inspires change,” he said. “We can’t have this in society. We have to hold the medical community accountable for this.”
He said he has not yet been able to watch the video his mother posted to Facebook from the hospital.
“Hearing my mother’s voice and seeing her … it’s hard,” he said. “It brings back everything I miss about her.”