Health Care Or The Lack Of

Many of us have gone to emergency rooms take for granted that we are going to be treated and be treated equally, but for many people that is not true. We are mocked and scorned and sometimes ignored. That happened at a hospital in Indiana to a trans-person, she and her family were mistreated and harassed when she had to go to an emergency room because she was coughing up blood.

Austen Crowder at Bilerico writes that,

[…] On Sunday I coughed almost a cup of blood and decided to go to the E.R. The doc told me if I had to go to the E.R. to go to Muncie rather than New Castle, as they would be more tolerant being a bigger city and a university hospital.

[…]So I go to the desk, my partner and son with me and start giving them my info. There were two people at the desk doing my intake; I think one was training. When they got to the surgery question, I told them all my surgeries, and she kept pressing, "Are you sure you haven't had any other surgeries?" I said that I didn't.

They completed my registration and I saw that had put "M" as my gender. I pointed out that my ID says female. She looked annoyed and the lady next to her snickered. She told this jock type triage person to take my vitals; he glared at me for a second and turned his head and said, "Remember payback sucks." I looked at him with a slightly angry look; he said, "Not about you, something from earlier."

We were sitting in the room with the door shut, and a nurse came in and told us they will probably want a urine test and she took me to the bathroom. While I was in there, I heard suppressed laughing and someone muttered something about "good thing it's a unisex bathroom." This was through the door - not to my face.

I was still trying to tell myself that it wasn't how I saw it until I got back to the room, and my partner was looking like she wanted to cry and fight someone at the same time. I asked her what was wrong, and she told me that people kept laughing while I was in there, and poking their heads in the room and asking about me. One nurse finally asked, "So is it a he or a she? Or a he-she?"

[…]o she came back in not long after bringing the coloring book and asked a series of bizarre questions. "Do you ever feel so angry you might lose control?" "Are you able to buy groceries every week?" "Do you ever feel overwhelmed?" "Have you ever thought about suicide?" We were confused and still are.

I was quite mad, but I kept it in check and said, "When are we going to see a doctor?" She told me that I could not be seen until I had my doc write orders. (For tests, I think she meant.) I said "Why do I need to do that? This is an emergency room."

She said, "Well, we don't know how to go about treating someone with your condition."

I responded, "I don't even know my condition. That's why I'm here!"

She replied, "No. Your other condition. The transvestite thing." I felt angry, and I was fighting my hardest to keep from crying, I was embarrassed and I grabbed my son and we left quickly so they wouldn't see me cry.

No one should have to go through this degrading and inhumane ordeal at the hands of medical personnel that are sworn to help people.

If you think that this could not happen here or that this is an isolated incident, you are wrong. In 2009, I wrote about a friend who slipped and fell at work and was taken to an emergency room here in Connecticut…

At the hospital, she was attended to by three medical staff people. They began treating her by cutting off her clothes. "S" was frightened, cold, alone, and in desperate pain. Then….they stopped. And walked away.

Having learned she was a transgender person, they left her lying alone on a table for two long hours without any medication or care. At one point one of the doctors said to the other, "you deal with `it;' I'm not dealing with `it.'

The "it" was a human being: "S". Both doctors left the room, and the nurses told "S" to "start walking." They threw off her bed covers, then left the room for 45 minutes.

X-rays ultimately revealed a fractured vertebrae, but the hospital still released "S". She was told to have her primary doctor evaluate her further with a CT scan, MRI, and more x-rays. She was told to find a ride home.

Finally, "S" was fully evaluated at another local hospital. Her diagnosis: three fractured vertebrae, two crushed vertebrae, and one fractured rib.

Since then, "S" has had severe chest and back pain and months of physical therapy, while missing over six weeks of work.

These unfortunately are not isolated incidents, according the Human Rights Campaign in the Healthcare Equality Index 2010 report said that…

83.7 percent of HEI-rated [Healthcare Equality Index] facilities (149 of 178) include sexual orientation in their Patients’ Bill of Rights and/or non-discrimination policy, while less than 30 percent (52 of 178 facilities) of those policies include “gender identity or expression” or “gender identity.”

Similar to the 2009 report, these survey results show a large disparity between the number of policies inclusive of sexual orientation and those inclusive of gender identity.

I worry that if I ever had to go to an emergency room or even just for routine tests about the way I would be treated.

In 2008, I wrote about a survey by the Transgender American Veterans Association (TAVA) on how transgender vet were treated and they found,

In addition, there were many reports of interpersonal discrimination, via lack of respect from VA doctors (22%), non-medical staff (21%), and nurses (13%). These cases of interpersonal discrimination ranged from what many veterans describe as “typical” – refusing to change to gender-appropriate pronouns, failure to use a new name consistently – to the extreme – refusing to look at transgender patients, referring to them in dismissive ways, refusing to treat them for general medical care.

Lets work together to stop this bigotry and hatered and work for a health care system that treats everyone equally no matter if they are rich or poor or what race they are or their sexual orientation or their gender identity or expression. Lets make this our goal.

(This is cross posted in Facebook and blogger)