Medical Care For Kids, No Questions Asked

(CBS)  In the shadow of the Renaissance Center, far from a renaissance, Detroit is in crisis

Unemployment stands at 14 percent, nearly double the national rate. The poverty rate is over 33 percent, the highest of any large city. More than half the city's children live in poverty. And there's just one doctor for every 1,100 children, half the figure for Michigan as a whole.

Which is why a national health campaign kicked off here today, as CBS news correspondent Seth Doane reports.

The premise of the Children's Health Fund's Kids Can't Wait campaign is simple. The national, non-profit medical program is set up to serve anyone 18 years of age or younger. There are no prerequisites. The only qualification is that someone needs medical care - no questions asked.

It's an elaborate, high-tech version of an old-fashioned doctor's house call. Only here, it's about 100 doctors, dentists, and assistants and all of the care is free of charge.

As many as 2,000 children lose their health insurance every day as parents lose their jobs. Parents like Jeffery White.

"When the recession came, it took the jobs away," he said, "and it took the medical insurance away.

That meant regular checkups for son Edwin were gone too.

"He saw a dentist when he was in elementary," White said of Ediwn. "That's a long time ago." Edwin is 17 now.

It's a familiar story for as many as 100,000 kids in Michigan that do not have medical insurance

"It's one thing after the other that is piling on," said Dr. Irwin Redlener, president and co-founder of the Children's Health Fund. "And at the end of the day, children are not getting the healthcare they need."

So, Dr. Redlener's group partnered with Children's Hospital of Michigan in the first component of what will be a national effort to bring mobile medical clinics -- complete the same tools available in a regular exam room - to kids in need.

"Early examination is very important," said Dr. Jim Stenger, a dentist at the Children's Heath Fund's mobile center, because small problems can turn into big ones if they aren't caught early.

The program is meant to be a first-step to help some of the 10 million children nationwide that do not have easy access to medical care - like Cornelia Isaac's grandkids, here to see a doctor:

With all the different costs involved with raising the kids, medical care, "Well, you know, a lot of times - that goes lacking," Isaac said.

It's the lack of care at an early age that, in the future, will only compound the consequences and the costs. Those costs are not just financial. They can include the academic cost of losing class time as well.

Today more than 150 kids and teenagers were treated and the mobile center hopes to see many more tomorrow.

[erinsalone]

I would like to help out when it comes to prescription coverage. Is there someone I can talk to? I came from a difficult time (Vietnam War) & where lost our home, etc... basically everything then was adopted into the country which was a challenge itself. I don't want to see families, esp. children deprived of anything. They are our futures & deserve everything we can do to help them achieve their goals. Most importantly, I don't want them to loose faith in the human race or God. I would like to help & if someone can contact me I can explain how. Thank you Erin Salone (Souderton, PA. ) cell#[phone]

[irzumjan]

How can we help Ali Ghazi Zaidi
April 22, 2009 13:46 by Matt Way
How can we help Ali Ghazi Zaidi
I am asking you as President and Founder of the Milne Stevens Johnson Syndrome Society, to request your urgent help for , a four year old boy who lives in Karachi.

Ali is a survivor of Stevens Johnson Syndrome - SJS and as a result of the long term damage to his eyes, lives with severe ocular surface disease, a combination of numerous painful and debilitating eye conditions.

Ali had the most severe form of Stevens Johnson Syndrome known as Toxic Epidermal Necrolysis. All of the mucus membranes are involved and in addition to the external involvement shown in the photos, the same process was happening internally to the mouth, esophagus / trachea, lungs, gastrointestinal tract and even the genitals.

During the reaction itself, supportive treatment is all that can be offered medically and the fatality rate is over 40%. While a lot of the skin involvement has now resolved (Ali has substantial hyper pigmentation over 90% of his body) the most severe long term damage has been to the eyes. Stevens Johnson Syndrome patients are not candidates for cornea transplant and this young boy must travel to England, for intensive occuplastic surgery to reconstruct his entire ocular surface so that he can have cornea stem cell graft using corneal epithelial cells grown from the mucus membranes in his mouth. I would like to describe the different conditions that young Ali lives with every day. It is worth noting that the current ocular diagnosis is standard in SJS survivors and daily life is excruciating for this young boy.



Request for your help:

Liaquat National Hospital, Pakistan Feb 2009: Further to previous examinations, Dr. Imran Ghayoor notes deterioration in Ali's eyes with additional entropian and symblepharon which will require surgical repair, and has referred him to the Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead just outside of London for extensive surgeries unavailable in Pakistan or India. The Queen Victoria Hospital is recognized as a world leader in the type of ocular surface disease (cornea / conjunctiva) and occuplastic (lid) deformities caused by SJS. Both Dr. Daya and Dr. Malhotra of the Queen Victoria Hospital have spoken to the doctors in Pakistan and India. Both Dr. Daya and Dr. Malhotra will perform an examination under anaesthetic to determine a surgical plan for complete ocular surface reconstruction. Based on conversations with Ali's current ophthalmologist we know that Ali will, at minimum, require:

Surgical removal of symblepharon with complete fornix reconstruction. Mucus membrane graft to upper and lower lids OD / OS (both eyes) Surgical repair of previous failed Tarsorrophy and Entropian. Permanent removal of eyelashes to prevent reoccurrence of Trichiasis Upon completion of the reconstructive procedures Dr. Daya will then establish Ali's candidacy for stem cell transplantation using the latest techniques of tissue engineered corneal epithelial cells grown from autologous oral mucosal cells (patients own mouth). This method of stem cell growth is not available in India where they use donor cornea stem cells for which Ali would not be a candidate due to the dry eye and required immunosuppressive therapies. Upon completion of the reconstructive surgery, Ali will hopefully be fitted with a Boston Ocular Surface Prosthesis, see http://www.bostonsight.org/.

There is lots of potential for this young boy's vision and a pain free life. The only problem so far has been accessing the necessary technologies and the funds to proceed with treatment. As such we would like to ask for your support in our fundraising efforts
during SJS
How can you help

After SJS
Send donations to the trust below


Please make cheques payable to ?Centre for Sight Trust? write Ali fund on the back and send to:

Corneoplastic Unit & Eye Bank

Queen Victoria Hospital
East Grinstead W. Sussex RH19 3DZ
Tel [phone] or [phone]
http://[e-mail]/
http://www.centreforsight.com/
Thanks to Helen in Canada the following has been achieved
Confirmed dates for Ali and his family (total 4) to be in UK: Arrive May 24 Depart June 13
This allows them to be available for interviews or meet members of the community once a

[littledevil1953]

Where do they get off crying.I have never made $35,000.. ! Very few times over the years have my 6 kids had ins? With the problems they have we keep going! Stop the crap!

[PasadenaDave]

This program should be expanded to the entire country, and FAST. Thank the MBA's, the NeoCons, and the Insurance Companies for their excessive attention to insurance requirements and medical liability laws. These clinics save lives. Somewhere, sometime, that used to be important. Many MDs used to provide free services to those in need, but the medical-legal-insurance system put a stop to that.

[caligula1--2008]

<As many as 2,000 children lose their health insurance every day as parents lose their jobs. Parents like Jeffery White.

"When the recession came, it took the jobs away," he said, "and it took the medical insurance away.

That meant regular checkups for son Edwin were gone too.

"He saw a dentist when he was in elementary," White said of Ediwn. "That's a long time ago." Edwin is 17 now. >

OK White, my question is what the hell were you doing in the 4 or 5 years between the latest this "kid" Edwin could have been in elementary school and today? Decided dental could wait until the kid could get his own insurance, or were you just to lazy or cheap to buy a dental plan, or even put money aside for dental work, for the last third of his life?

[McHineguy]

...
Many physicians are of dubious character and manipulate the system for all they can get by over billing, over testing and deceit. The system itself prevents individuals from clearly understanding their charges.
...
Posted by drivelphobe at 7:19 AM : Apr 26, 2009

Excellent post with good ideas. I add only one thing.

The miriad of tests, many unnecessary, that physicians run today are not a plan to jack up profits. They are the direct result of liability laws. Physicians are often sued, or threatened with lawsuits. Performing a battery of tests becomes clear evidence in any potential lawsuit. so, a physician often orders tests for the sole purpose of proving in a potential court case that all diagnostics were completed. Thereby, spending your money and time to build a case that protects the physician if you later decide to sue him.

I would do it too. A physician might get sued for miss-diagnosing an ailment. But its nearly impossible to get sued for overprescribing a non-invasive test. Regardless of the price of the test. Further, if you refuse because of the cost of the test, your future lawsuit is dead.

[6591Hou]

My young daughter's first chemo treatment; 3 days inpatient, 2 days chemo IV + 1 day IV flush was billed @$20,000.00 - I know what it takes to support your kids. I have changed jobs four times in the past seven years, requiring three moves and two states - you absolutely have to go where the work is in order to provide for your kids.

[Dgunner]

If you are thirty years old or older ? You need to support this program as much as possible. The children we save today will taking care of all your old a===es in the future. How? Well the marine on watch five years from now is in junior high today. The man who walks into burning buildinds to save lives and property five years from now is sophmore in high school . Well I think you can figure my point. I should be upset that I am paying for child care now because I never had children . Instead I just go with the flow try to do my part. Welfare breeders are just that breeders. I don't blame the children I blame our government for allowing them to continue to drop kids like a kfc chicken bone that paid for with welfare money or the wic they sold in the parking lot for cigarette money.

[Kaelieh]

Is it just me or is it that whenever we talk about universal healthcare we're really talking about universal health coverage?

The more that I've started to follow this debate, the more that's what it's starting to sound like to me. If that's the case I think we're committing a logical fallacy when we talk about this, and I'm starting that that is relevant. For instance, if I want to go to the doctor for say a checkup and it's $100. Well, let's say that I don't health insurance, that doesn't necessarily mean I can't get a check up. It just means I pay the full $100 instead of a copay or coinsurance.

So, there's clearly a problem with the kind of thinking that a lack of insurance means a lack of healthcare. As well as, the idea that health insurance necessarily guarantees access to healthcare. (Please don't reach for the pitchforks yet.)

So, I'm starting to wonder if we're looking at health reform in entirely the wrong way. What if the reason why costs are so high, is because we're trapped in this ideology of a proverbial middle man? Even single-payer has a type of middle man, it pools together funds from individuals (taxpayers) and then pays the doctors from the pool. (Typically single-payer programs aren't profit seeking, so we do see more capital available for services and that is undoubtedly a good change.)

Where I think we undoubtedly went wrong in the healthcare industry was when health insurance became pretty a necessity. For instance, a basic fundamental of business is that if no one can afford the product then in order to stay in business the prices have to come down. But whenever you pool resources from individuals who do use and those who don't, you can charge more because there's more capital available, but you're not producing or providing anymore then previously demanded.

Every proposal I've heard for healthcare reform always has entails some time of insurance or middle-man pool of funds. What if we came up with one that didn't?

[panhandlpete]

We may call it "free" healthcare, but sorry folks, nothing is free. Someone is paying for this somehow. Don't you suppose those healthcare workers are deducting from their taxes for their time, etc., and supplies come from somewhere at a cost.

What's wrong with some education and practicality along the lines of people doing things for themselves in a preventive manner? A better health program teaching kids about proper foods for bettter health, and extensive biology lessons on how the body works should be a must at every school...........even taking precedent over history lessons. Individual responsibility gets lost when dependence upon government takes the forefront.