Bronx Healthcare Still in the Stone Age

By Gallia Kassiano

Don’t take this the wrong way. I’m not some kind of Star Trek-y who believes in flying saucers and little green men with unusually large heads, but I’m starting to believe that the Bronx is stuck in some kind of time warp. Compared to the other boroughs, the Bronx is still in the Stone Age. How else would you explain our dangerously snail-like progress? In what aspects are we slow, you ask?

Well, there is plenty I could go off on. To fully answer that question, I would need to take up days, perhaps even weeks, of your attention. But alas I am on a deadline and must resort to sticking to only one topic, damn. It is nevertheless a very important topic. Ready? Dum duh dum dum: Healthcare.

Why healthcare? We are, after all, the most polluted borough, not to mention, the heaviest. I could have chosen either of those subjects to discuss and had ample evidence to support my case. The New York Times ran an article today however which addressed health care in the Bronx and well, how crappy it is. And surprise, surprise, it got me thinking.

Although I have two health insurance plans, and most of the doctors under both plans have their offices in Manhattan, where I enjoy empty waiting rooms, a large assortment of magazines to keep me entertained on the rare occasion that I am indeed forced to wait for my doctor, and in some places vibrating massage chairs, I am not in the dark when it comes to the strange and unusual treatment Bronx residents receive in Bronx hospitals. During my sophomore year in high school my family was hit with the news that my mother had developed a tumor near her ovaries the size of an orange. Luckily, it was benign, but she still had to undergo an operation to remove the tumor or face further health complications. Since it was a fairly delicate operation she was required to stay a few nights in the hospital, which is when the problems ensued. Not only was she forced to share a room with a complete stranger when we had specifically asked for a private room, but the hospital blankets she was provided with had holes in them. Yes, holes big enough for your head to go through (it seems funny now, but it was upsetting at the time).

Security in the hospital wasn’t the greatest either. Anyone could have waltzed into a patient’s room. My father, on the other hand, who had undergone minor surgery a year before, had been given a room to himself, with a, dare I say it, working TV, an extra small bed for visitors, and attentive personnel. The difference? Although both operations ran along the same price range, my father’s treatment was at Lenox hospital in Manhattan, while my mother’s took place in Our Lady of Mercy Hospital, located in, you guessed it, the Bronx.

The question that arises then is: “Why isn’t the treatment in Bronx hospitals at the same standard as those in New York City’s other boroughs?”

I don’t believe it is medical expertise, or the lack thereof. It might be an issue of a lack of funds, or maybe just a lack of caring. Whatever the reason, it is time that we put a halt to it. Maybe then we can push the Bronx out of the Stone Age and bring it into to the 21st century.