[Nfbmo] Panel on How the Health Care System Treats the blind

Peter Donahue pdonahue2 at satx.rr.com
Mon Apr 4 19:16:43 UTC 2016


Good afternoon everyone,

	There's another issue with respect to health care and the blind
partitularly where ambulatory surgical centers are concerned. Although we
have not encountered such insensitivity of this kind ourselves we are aware
of blind patients that were scheduled for surgical procedures requiring the
use of anesthesia. It's a common practice of these facilities to require all
patients to have pre arranged transportation available for their trip home.
Whenever Mary or I have had outpatient surgery performed at a hospital or a
surgical clinic we give the staff the contact information for the person
designated to drive us home after the procedure is done and we're released
to leave. We are aware of a few cases where some blind individuals scheduled
for outpatient surgery were told that someone other than a cab or
paratransit would need to remain at the surgical denter while the procedure
was occurring and be able to drive them home after their release. One such
individual who underwent a colonoscopy and whose husband had walked out on
her did not have anyone who could do this for her. Fortunately some friends
of her's accompanied her to the surgery center and accompanied her home when
she was finished. Had there been no one available to do this she might not
be with us thanks to such horrible treatment by this surgical center.

	I'm not sure what the situation is in Missouri for blind persons
needing outpatient surgery but if incidents like the one described above
have occurred something needs to be done to stop them from happening. In San
Antonio we have several health care facilities that offer courtesy
transportation to individuals needing diagnostic procedures done or if
they're coming in for physical therapy. Sandero Imaging and Mission Physical
Therapy offer such curtesy transportation to their patients. It would
benefit blind patients particularly those who live alone and do not have
transportation if medical facilities such as outpatient surgical centers
offered courtesy transportation to their patients to eliminate this issue
for those patients such as the blind who often face transportation issues
when going for treatment.

Peter Donahue


-----Original Message-----
From: Nfbmo [mailto:nfbmo-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Daniel Garcia via
Nfbmo
Sent: Monday, April 04, 2016 12:24 AM
To: NFB of Missouri Mailing List
Cc: Daniel Garcia
Subject: [Nfbmo] Panel on How the Health Care System Treats the blind

On Sunday's general session there was a panel discussion on how the health
care system treats blind people whether they are patients or family members
of patients. If memory serves me, it was Carol Morgan who talked about the
challenges of filling out medical paperwork. Due to time Constraints there
was no opportunity for Q&A or comments from the floor.

If the doctor's office does not send the paperwork by mail in advance of the
appointment for you to fill out, another way of dealing with this issue is
to take to the doctor's office a printed paper with the type of information
they are likely to ask for. Most medical forms ask for your contact info,
your primary doctor, medicines you take on a daily basis and their dosage,
allergies, surgeries, family history of certain diseases, etc. Of course,
the social security number is not something to be said out loud on a crowded
waiting room as Carol pointed out. This information can be given in private
to a staff member or nurse once they call you into a room.
I hope that this message prompts other people to ask the questions or bring
up the comments they were not able to bring up at convention.
Best Regards

Daniel H Garcia
Board Member NFB of Missouri
First Vice President Kansas City Chapter NFB of Missouri

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