As the COVID-19 pandemic hurdles us to the breaking point of our medical system in various hot spots across the country, we are being forced to face our faults and our fears in the raw. We are at a critical point in history, and how we care for vulnerable patients will be judged by generations to come. Many people with disabilities who require their own ventilator are living (and may die) in fear of a hospital visit where their vent could be snatched for someone more likely to survive.
It is no wonder that every major national disability rights organization that has taken a stance on assisted suicide vehemently opposes it. Individuals with disabilities are all too familiar with the healthcare disparities in our broken profit-driven healthcare system to ever trust that insurance companies will do the “right thing” instead of the “cheapest thing.”
“…DeShae Lott Sadow is an accomplished woman, a college professor, a poet, an attorney, a PHD. But about 20 years ago, muscular dystrophy weakened her diaphragm, creating the need for a ventilator.
“This is a piece of durable medical equipment Mrs. Lott relies on in order to stay alive,” said Amitai Heller, her attorney.
DeShae Sadow is married to LSU-S political science professor Jeff Sadow, well known for his conservative writings for websites like “The Hayride.” He summed up what the ventilator means for his wife.
“Basically,” said Jeff Sadow, “if a vent failed right now, she would have about a minute before she would suffocate to death.”
So here’s the problem. Jeff Sadow even wrote an article about it entitled ‘In Virus Gloom’ where he details how their insurance provider, great until now, no longer wants to service the ventilators his wife uses, will no longer provide ventilators and, in fact, declared they were coming to the Sadow’s home to pick up her current ventilator.
“Of course, that would kill her,” said Heller.
And he added, “Mrs. Lott’s home health provider of ventilators of nearly two decades, APRIA, decided to refuse to service her ventilators during the coronavirus global pandemic.”
Heller is an attorney for a group called Disability Rights Louisiana. He figured this had to be a misunderstanding, some sort of red tape mix up.
It wasn’t…”
Read the full story at KTBS3CBS…