Patients, Doctors Rally Against County Hospital Cutbacks

The cuts in services are due, in part, to a shrinking budget and protesters demanded that the county find new sources of revenue. Last year, there were more than $100 million in service cuts.

Dr. Janice Benson, president of the medical staff at Stroger Hospital, said she has witnessed service cuts firsthand. She said a lack of health care is an injustice, and told of patients who frequently wait hours in the publicly-funded clinics to be seen by a doctor – often having to return the following day due to lack of physicians and resources.

Carrie Gathright, 76, from Chicago’s South Side, said she has been waiting five years to get what is supposed to be an annual mammogram. Gathright also suffers from asthma, and said she has waited weeks to get her inhaler refilled because there were no doctors available to call it in to the hospital pharmacy.

“They have good doctors at Stroger, but they just have too many patients,” Gathright said.

Dr. Enrique Martinez, a physician at Stroger Hospital, said 244 women with abnormal Pap smears and 733 women with pain, unusual bleeding or other symptoms were waiting for gynecological appointments at Stroger Hospital’s outpatient clinics at the end of January. Martinez is chief medical officer for the county’s ambulatory and community health network and watched the number of outpatients drop by 100,000 from 2006 to 2007.

Cook County Board President Todd Stroger has proposed a 2008 budget that would provide $96.8 million to the Bureau of Health Services, fill 270 open positions and hire 420 new employees to alleviate long waits for appointments. He is also seeking to increase the county’s share of the sales tax from .75 percent to 2 percent, but has met opposition from county commissioners.

The commissioners have yet to approve his tax increase, which would give Chicago the largest sales tax in the nation.

“The real solution to the problem of quality health care and the budget is putting professionals in charge of the health-care system,” said Commissioner Forrest Claypool (D-Chicago), in a Feb. 8 Chicago Tribune story. Claypool also argued in favor of collecting more than $250 million in back bills from patients instead of raising taxes.

Benson said the county provides care to more than 27 percent of all diagnosed tuberculosis patients, 24 percent of all patients with HIV and 10 percent of emergency room visits. Most of the county’s patients are uninsured or covered under Medicare or Medicaid, according to Benson.