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Sunday, September 5, 2010 | Serving Del Rio and Val Verde County: Since 1929
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Medical professionals talk health care
Published August 16, 2009
Regardless of what changes might come with health care reform, doctors, nurses and hospital administrators will be forced to deal with new issues.
“We have to deal with and contend with these issues based on what they implement,” said Rose Mary Slubar, a clinic manager for United Medical Centers who oversees branches in Del Rio and Brackettville.
Slubar was forced to deal with an argumentative group of citizens Saturday morning after a representative of Ciro Rodriguez's office miscommunicated to Del Rio News-Herald staff that a meeting between health care officials and Rodriguez was open to the public.
Dubbed a town hall meeting by Rodriguez's staff, and later reported as such by the News-Herald, about 35 citizens showed up at United Medical Center.
When Slubar turned them away explaining it was an invitation-only event, several were less-than-pleased.
Though the group never became violent, the police were called for a potential disturbance and remained at the clinic while Rodriguez's press secretary Rebeca Chapa explained the mix-up.
“There was a miscommunication on my part and the News-Herald was under the impression both events would be open to the public,” said Chapa, who later explained Saturday's morning meeting was meant to gain insight and address questions and concerns from medical professionals in the area.
Those on the invitation list included area physicians, nurses and hospital board members.
When those standing outside asked Rodriguez to allow them into the meeting, he referred them to a later public meeting at the Val Verde County Court.
Del Rio resident Nelson Reynolds spoke to Rodriguez just before he entered the building. “I intend to go to the 2 o'clock meeting, but I want you to take some things back to Congress with you,” said Reynolds. “We do not want socialized medicine…you must figure out how you are going to pay for this without passing it on to future generations…and you need to listen to the people because right now, Congress is not listening.”
Once inside Rodriguez sat for a round-table type discussion with area health care providers.
Among their chief concerns was how any new program would be implemented.
“I think for change can be effective it must be done slowly,” said Dr. David Land, the assistant medical director at UMC.
Land referenced a measure several years ago called Medicare Part D that subsidize the costs of prescription drugs for patients.
“How many years after passage did it take to implement it without chaos? If I remember, there was a 2-3 year period of chaos between implementing it and people using it and that was a very small change,” said Land.
When Rodriguez brought up the issue of “death panels”, medical professionals said they are concerned that issue has distracted the public from the big picture.
Still, they say they're glad the provision which would allow for reimbursement to physicians for end-of-life discussions with patients was pulled from the bill.
“It's' already done through the caregivers…It's such a personal issue I think its really inflaming people and I, as a nurse, we have those communications with our patients and the nurses do as well…it's clouding the issue and creating a lot of angst,” said Val Verde Regional Medical Center Chief Executive Officer Polly Davenport, who called it a relationship between caregiver and patient that shouldn't have government intervention.
Registered nurse Donna Kincaid agreed.
“Once the government gets involved in that they are going to start putting stipulations on what we can say and how we deal with it and right now we have a very close relationship when we take care of these patients and they depend on us for knowledge they might not feel they can get from their doctors,” said Kincaid.
Rodriguez explained that his preferred approach to the health care reform would be to include parents in a program similar to the Children's Health Insurance Program, which covers children in middle class families.
“We're already taking care of the children, the easiest thing to do is include the parents and then we've got it,” said Rodriguez. “But then the other thing we have to do is bring down the cost and focus on prevention. That would be the simplest way of approaching it.”
Rodriguez said by doing that, all bases would be covered. The upper class would have insurance, the poor have Medicaid the elderly would be covered by Medicare and the middle class would have coverage if they choose.
He also vowed to put more focus on waste and abuse already prevalent in the medical programs and insurance to help drive down costs.
When asked if the bill would pass by November 2010, Rodriguez said he believed it would.
“If we continue doing what we're doing, we are going to keep falling into a hole,” said Rodriguez.
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