Letter to Cardiologist

Peoria’s Medical Mafia

Letter to Cardiologist for Jackson
Date: 26 Dec 2005 16:05:37 -0000From: “Realname”
Subject: Jackson

Dear Doug,
Hope you had a good Christmas.
Doug, through some fairly miraculous circumstances during the last coupleof days, Jean-Baptiste was accepted into Cleveland Clinic. (They areasking for no fees.) They wrote the letters immediately and Maria and Iwill apply for his visa to travel tomorrow. We have alot to do tomorrowmorning but if all goes well, sans kidnapping, we will get on an AA flightat 3 PM tomorrow for Cleveland. (There have been dozens of kidnappings inthe last 2 months here with white Americans as prime targets.)
Jackson is doing some better. I added spironolactone to his meds and heseemed to start to mobilized some of his ascites and feels better. Hebreathes well at rest and I have only seen him really dyspneic once ortwice. His heart still sounds terrible of course. His liver remainspulsatile and big.
We wish we were bringing Jackson to you. You know the faith I have inyou. I never received a response from OSF since my pleading with them forJackson started in May. Unfortunately, even with YOU advocating forJackson to the “committee”, I had no faith that they would accept him evenfor 20,000 dollars. The events that occurred while you were gone forseveral years, diminished my faith in CHOI to a very, very low level. Iknow we all see from where we stand, but some incredible events occuredwhich does not instill much confidence in the business leaders at OSF orCHOI. Jackson is the third Haitian Hearts patient OSF has rejected in thelast one and one half years—Willie (we offered full charges for hisfailed pacemaker generator–he was syncopal and in heart failure when Iexamined him in Haiti in Feb, 04 with a heart rate that did not go above60), Faustina (we offered 10,000 dollars…fortunately, she has beenaccepted as well for no charge, and will be leaving Haiti in a week forher mitral stenosis), and Jackson. All 3 kids were/are in terrible shapeand OSF-CHOI was going to let them die in Haiti. This is so wrong. As Isaid, I want you and the other docs at CHOI and the nursing staff to takecare of these kids, but the administrative team at OSF is so incompetentand uncaring about these Haitian Hearts patients, I don’t ever see CHOIbecoming what it really could with them running the show. You areemblematic of what a childrens hospital should be about. They are not. Istill love OSF because OSF is not the administrative team and corporate.It is the people that give the care at the bedside, in my opinion. Thereare 5,000 good employees that work at OSF.
Doug, there will be other Haitian Hearts patients that need valvereplacements. I know of three right now. I will approach OSF the same wayand hope that the current administrators are gone and replaced withadministrators that agree with the hippocratic (sp?) oath and good medicalethics. My hope is that doctors and nurses in Peoria really publicallyquestion the administrative team at OSF and say that patient abandonmentlike this must stop.
Thanks for reviewing all the echoes over all of the years and giving thesekids and all kids your best, Doug.
John