No money, no problem: Miami doctor who treats poor, uninsured wins recognition

Source: Canadian Press

MIAMI — Dr. Pedro Jose Greer stands in a cool, dim operating room at Miami's Mercy Hospital, looking at a glowing image of a patient's digestive system on a flat-screen TV.

Greer is a gastroenterologist, and the patient lying on the treatment table has a potentially dangerous cauliflower-like growth on the lining of her colon. The patient's name is Nora Turcios, a 45-year-old woman with a family history of cancer.

"That's a polyp right there," Greer says, more to himself than any of the three nurses in the room. During the 15-minute-long colonoscopy, he snips off part of the mass for a cancer biopsy and then reviews Turcios' paperwork.

Turcios, a housekeeper, doesn't have health insurance. Not important, shrugs Greer.

Greer, known to his patients as "Doctor Joe," tells them all: If they lose their insurance while under his care, that's OK - he'll continue to treat them, regardless of how much, or little, they can pay.

"When did it become acceptable in my profession," says the 53-year-old physician, "to say 'No' to somebody because they have no money?"



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understand what his profession should be about, unlike the m.d. clowns in Congress.

:applause:

money, prestige, more money and protection from accountability for the consequences of their negligence, no matter how badly people suffer because of it. My best friend of thirty years died several months ago as a direct result of the gross negligence of a physician, and that dr's. supervisors' failure to correct the negligence in time, which they then attempted to cover up. She suffered horribly for months, including multiple long-term hospitalizations, before finally succumbing. I'm still so angry over it I can hardly see straight. They might as well have taken a gun and shot her. As far as I'm concerned, NONE of them should ever practice again, period.

Then there's the friend whose husband died of a heart attack after being sent home from the ER by an ER doc who couldn't be bothered with him and who sent him home saying it was "just heartburn" when it was later shown that the tests clearly indicated he'd had a heart attack and there was no way the doc couldn't have seen that. He had a second heart attack and died the next day. Then there was the co-worker whose teenage daughter died of a severe respiratory infection because the initial ER doc claimed she was just "playing dead" and didn't even run any tests or check on her for hours. By the time another doc checked on her, the infection was too far gone and it was too late. I could go on and on and on. But all too many docs seem to care about nowadays is money, more money, and protection from any accountability.

if he's still interested in politics, he'd be a great liberal senator or governor and Cuban no less.