The University of Chicago Medical Center (UCMC) has been under fire for months now because of its controversial Urban Health Initiative. The American College of Emergency Physicians recently released a statement accusing the UCMC of patient dumping. It reads, in part:
“The University of Chicago Medical Center is failing in its obligation to treat emergency patients… With hospital plans in place to reduce staffing and beds for emergency care even further, the chair of medicine and the chief of emergency medicine at the medical center have resigned.
“The University of Chicago’s policy toward emergency patients is dangerously close to “patient dumping…” and reflect[s] an effort to “cherry pick” wealthy patients over poor…
This is a dangerous precedent that could have catastrophic effects in poor neighborhoods across the country… The University of Chicago Medical Center is located in a poor neighborhood whose residents have few, if any, other options for emergency care.”
Unfortunately the problems don’t end at the emergency room. The University has laid off over 450 hospital workers and recently announced plans to close a Women’s Health Clinic on 47th st. and Cottage Grove. “The University of Chicago has treated our community like a guinea pig since its inception. Now that they are at the Forefront of Medicine, they want to treat us like we are toxic waste. We as patients need this clinic and other local clinics cannot handle the dumping the University is planning,” says Deborah Taylor, a patient at the clinic and organizer with Southside Together Organizing for Power (STOP).
STOP members are joining with workers, students and other advocates to organize and fight for the human right to health care. The newly formed Coalition for Healthcare Access Responsibility and Transparency (CHART) is connecting the dots between lay-offs, patient dumping at the emergency room, clinic closures, and inadequate healthcare for workers, students and community. While focused on the UCMC because of the dangerous precedents it is setting and the devastating impact of its policies on all parts of the community, the coalition sees this as part of the larger struggle for universal, single-payer health care in this country. Coalition members include STOP, Students for a Democratic Society, the Southside Solidarity Network, Students Organized and United with Labor, the Illinois Single Payer Coalition, and members of Teamsters Local 743.
Read more about what doctors, patients, and commentators have had to say about the UCMC here.
