By Helen Redmond LCSW
FireDogLake
July 26, 2010
As a medical social worker, I followed the story of Natasha McShane with horror and hope.
The luck of the Irish was not with 23 year-old Natasha McShane on the night of April 23rd. The exchange student from Belfast, Northern Ireland, was beaten with a bat and suffered a traumatic brain injury (TBI). She was rushed to Illinois Masonic Medical Center in critical condition and doctors werenāt sure she would live. Natasha did live and so began her odyssey through the for-profit American health care system.
Natasha was a student at the University of Illinois at Chicago when she was attacked. Students at UIC are required to have health insurance and many have CampusCare ī ŗ a bare bones HMO. The coverage is expensive; $471 a semester. If Natasha had CampusCare, she was out of luck the second the bat crashed into her cranium. Thatās because thereās a lifetime maximum benefit of $500,000 and a $2500 maximum drug benefit per year. The injuries Natasha sustained were catastrophic (she was in a medically induced coma for the first month) and required a vast array of medical resources: surgeries, anesthesia, x-rays, IV medications and round-the-clock monitoring by a coterie of highly trained specialists. In less than four weeks in the intensive care unit she would have reached the cap on the lifetime benefit and the drug benefit, in one hour.
Natasha was transferred to Northwestern Memorial Hospital and finally to the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. At RIC, Natasha began rehab with a team of physical and occupational therapists, speech language pathologists, social workers, nurses, neurologists and physiatrists.
The health care professionals that treated Natasha saw one thing only: a patient in need of treatment. The three hospital billing departments on the other hand saw the need to send bills which reached astronomical levels. If Natasha was a resident of the United States she probably would have declared bankruptcy. Instead, her parents Liam and Sheila McShane did what thousands of uninsured and under-insured Americans do when they canāt pay medical bills; start fundraising. All over the country medically indigent Americans plan pancake breakfasts, backyard barbecues, bake sales, bar nights, raffles and walk-a-thons. They set up websites that reveal diagnosis and cost of treatment in order to solicit donations. In the richest country in the world, people have to beg, borrow and plead for charity to pay for health care. It is humiliating.
With the help of the Irish community, the McShaneās organized a fundraiser at Cans Bar and Canteen with 15 percent of the barās sales given to Natasha. There was a silent auction and a āNatasha McShane Day.ā A website titled, Natasha McShane Fund (http://mcshanefund.com) was launched. An astonishing $400,000 was raised and is an example of the enormous amount of sympathy and solidarity ordinary people have for someone in need.
The McShaneās had to wonder why the American health care system doesnāt confer health care as a right for all because they are from Ireland which does. Ireland has a government run, national health care system funded by taxes that covers everyone. Fundraisers at pubs to save people from medical bankruptcy are unheard of. Not even a bad Irish joke.
The luck of the Irish returned to Natasha the second week of July. She was medavaced back home to Ireland. The staff at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast was waiting to admit her. The family must have sighed with collective relief when the plane touched down at Belfast International Airport. The McShaneās wouldnāt get one single bill for the medical care their daughter would now receive. They could focus exclusively on Natashaās rehabilitation and planning for her future.
I humbly apologize to Natasha McShane for the double assault she endured in my country ā the assault with the bat that changed her life forever and the assault of the bills her parents are still trying to pay.