How many people do you think the hospital can treat with the $3 <i>billion</i> (yes, with a B) that Langone helped raise? Or even just the $200M he personally donated?<p>Which is better for the individual people who might (and I stress "might," since the hospital denies it) have to wait slightly longer on a day he needs care? To wait slightly longer there, or to wait slightly longer because they had to route to a different hospital that's struggling to deal with the demand?<p>If you remove Langone from the situation, you're not simply left with "everybody gets seen one person sooner." That's a small-picture view. You're left with "many of these people just can't be seen here at all."<p>I'm not saying people have to <i>like</i> the rich. I'm just saying if I'm next in line after him at NYU Langone hospital, I'm glad I have that hospital to go to, even if that bumps me to 2nd priority in the room.
I used to live down the block from this hospital and used it frequently, and I feel like the article has it backwards. In one of the examples they cite, the person given favorable treatment raised <i>$3 billion</i> for the hospital - that does not seem unreasonable, to show a little gratitude to not just a major benefactor, but the person whose name is on the literal hospital.<p>Another example is a sitting senator, who has been the target of threats in the past - probably shouldn’t be sitting out in the waiting area.<p>Much more concerning to me are the reports in the back half of the article where they shuffled off poor patients to Bellevue, which is already stretched thin and ends up taking the brunt of homeless and indigent ER admissions.
I’ve seen a similar thing happen at another well known NY hospital. My wife was waiting to give birth with all beds taken up. A couple walks in, very unhappy that there is a wait, and we exchanged some conversation with them. It was quite apparent they were from wealthy families. She had requested to be induced, after being a couple of days past her due date (extremely normal for a first pregnancy).<p>A nurse told us privately that we’re first on the list for a room as my wife was most in need of care; there was one becoming available in an hour or two. However, the other couple started complaining and calling family members. They were ushered off to a different waiting room. We waited 15 hours for a bed, and in the meantime heard someone give birth in the hallway.<p>A few days later we bumped into the same couple on the way out of the hospital. They’d been given a bed 12 hours before we eventually got one despite being there voluntarily.
These hospital systems aren’t even just hospitals anymore. They are gobbling up medical practices at a high rate.<p>While their tax status is non profit, de facto they are profit maximizing partnerships with the profits distributed as excess comp to their executive-partner-owners.
If that is how it is, then be public about it. Don't pretend to treat everyone equally. Pretending otherwise is the most despicable issue regarding this.
Don't get me wrong corrupting the key tenant of triage isn't good, but I feel like this article really glosses over the below. Blimey you lot need to fix your healthcare system. It's busted.<p>"Giant hospital systems illegally sent exorbitant bills to Medicaid patients. They used hospitals in poor neighborhoods to qualify for steep drug discounts, funneling the proceeds into wealthier neighborhoods. "
Receiving VIP care sounds like an unalloyed good, but it’s more complicated.<p>Mortality for some conditions is higher on VIP floors because nursing is geared towards hospitality over clinical specialization/acting without deference to patient convenience.<p>VIPs often want to access new/off-label treatments, which can go quite poorly. VIP get all sorts of inadvisable care (“the best”; “access to experimental treatments”).<p>I’ve always thought about quality of care as an upside down U shaped curve: if you’re poor it’s bad, but if you’re a VIP it can also be bad. To be clear, the U isn’t symmetric, but weird things happen at the high end.<p>The ideal state is building a human bond with your caregiver, and in general, it will be returned with appropriate attentiveness. This is just harder when you’re poor or have complex stressors, but it also seems hard for many VIPs.
After my daughter was born her mother and her were put in a labor and delivery VIP room which was also an infectious disease room. I didn't know using infectious disease rooms as VIP rooms was an industry standard practice until reading this.<p>At this hospital the room was mostly used by members of the royal families of Middle Eastern countries. They like to have their children born in the US so they have US citizenship. Makes it easier to flee on short notice if needed.
It shouldn’t be a surprise that a hospital would seek to help its donors, but the fact it was put on probation by an accreditor of residencies speaks for itself. NYU seems to have directly interfered with doctors’ professional independence to prioritize non-urgent donor care.
Interesting to see Dr. Anand Swaminathan quoted - he is a prominent, highly regarded figure in CME/CPD (ongoing education) for ER docs nationally and internationally, with a large Twitter following.