Parkland Hospital , Dallas

Virginia Rogers
Secretary, South Plains College Vocational
Nursing Department

UNBELIEVABLE!!!


Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas ,Texas is a fairly
famous institution and for a variety of reasons:

1. John F. Kennedy died there in 1963
2. Lee Harvey Oswald died there shortly after
3. Jack Ruby-who killed Lee Harvey Oswald, died
there a few years later..by coincidence

"On the flip side, Parkland is also home to the
second busiest maternity ward in the country with
almost 16,000 new babies arriving each year.
(That's almost 44 per day---every day)

A recent patient survey indicated that 70 percent
of the women who gave birth at Parkland in the first
three months of 2006 were illegal immigrants.
That's 11,200 anchor babies born every year
just in Dallas . According to the article, the
hospital spent $70.7 million delivering 15,938
babies in 2004 but managed to end up with almost $8
million dollars in surplus funding. Medicaid kicked
in $34.5 million, Dallas County taxpayers kicked in
$31.3 million and the feds tossed in another $9.5
million.

The average patient in Parkland 's maternity wards
is 25 years old, married and giving birth to her
second child. She is also an illegal immigrant. By
law, pregnant women cannot be denied medical care
based on their immigration status or ability to pay.


OK, fine. That doesn't mean they should receive
better care than everyday, middle-class American
citizens. But at Parkland Hospital, they do.

" Parkland Memorial Hospital has nine prenatal
clinics. NINE.

The Dallas Morning News article followed a Hispanic
woman who was a patient at one of the clinics and
pregnant with her third child---her previous two
were also born at Parkland. Her first two deliveries
were free and the Mexican native was grateful
because it would have cost $200 to have them in
Mexico. This time, the hospital wants her to pay $10
per visit and $100 for the delivery but she was
unsure if she could come up with the money. Not that
it matters, the hospital won't turn her away. (I
wonder why they even bother asking at this point.)

"How long has this been going on? What are the
long-term affects?

Well, another subject of the article was born at
Parkland in 1986 shortly after her mother entered
the U.S. illegally---now she is having her own child
there as well. (That's right, she's technically a
U.S. citizen.) These women receive free prenatal
care including medication, nutrition, birthing
classes and child care classes. They also get
freebies such as car seats, bottles, diapers and
formula.

Most of these things are available to American
citizens as well but only for low-income applicants
and even then, the red tape involved is almost
insurmountable.

Because these women are illegal immigrants, they do
not have to provide any sort of legitimate
identification---no proof of income. An American
citizen would have to provide a social security
number which would reveal their annual income---an
illegal immigrant need only claim to be poor and the
hospital must take them at their word.

"My husband is a pilot for the United States Navy
(yes, he fought in Iraq ) and while the health care
is good, we Navy wives don't get any of these perks!
Car seats? Diapers? Not so much. So my question is
this: Does our public medical care system treat
illegal immigrants better than American citizens?
Yes it does!

As I mentioned, the care I have received is
perfectly adequate but it's bare bones, meat and
potato medical care---not top of line.

Their (the illegals) medical care is free---simply
because they are illegal immigrants? Once again,
there is no way to verify their income.

Parkland Hospital offers indigent care to Dallas
County residents who earn less than $40,000 per
year. (They also have to prove that they did not
refuse health coverage at their current job. Yeah,
the 'free' care is not so easy for Americans.)

There are about 140 patients who received roughly
$4 million dollars for un-reimbursed medical care.
As it turns out, they did not qualify for free
treatment because they resided outside of Dallas
County. So the hospital is going to sue them!
Illegals get it all free! But U.S. citizens who live
outside of Dallas County get sued! How stupid is
this?

As if that isn't annoying enough, the illegal
immigrant patients are actually complaining about
hospital staff not speaking Spanish. In this AP
story, the author speaks with a woman who is upset
that she had to translate comments from the hospital
staff into Spanish for her husband. The doctor was
trying to explain the situation to the family and
the mother was forced to translate for her husband
who only spoke Spanish. This was apparently a great
injustice to her.

In an attempt to create a Spanish-speaking staff,
Parkland Hospital is now providing incentives in the
form of extra pay for applicants who speak Spanish.
Additionally, medical students at the University of
Texas Southwestern for which Parkland Hospital is
the training facility will now have a Spanish
language requirement added to their already
jammed-packed curriculum. No other school in the
country boasts such a ridiculous multi-semester
(multicultural) requirement.

In the meantime, I have to end my column here. I
have to go buy a car seat."