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The family and the medical community is reeling after a Black doctor not only passed away from COVID-19 but dat a hospital.

Family and friends of Dr. Susan Moore confirmed that she died at Indiana University North Hospital on December 20, due to coronavirus complications. The doctor was diagnosed with the virus on November 29, 2020.

According to Dr. Moore herself, who posted updates on social media, she was adamant that the hospital staff was NOT providing her proper treatment in part because of her race. In one of her posts, she alleged that her doctor, Dr. Eric Bannec, did not want to prescribe her additional doses of Remdesivir, a life-saving treatment for COVID-19, and wanted to send her home even though she was still clearly very ill.

She also said the doctor didn’t perform a physical exam on her after she noted neck pain and requested narcotics to relieve it.

“I had to beg to get the Remdesivir because Dr. Bannec said my chest x-ray was normal. I then had to beg for a CT of my chest which I finally got and it showed large mediastinal lymphadenopathy right lower lobe infiltrate in a new left lower lobe infiltrate,” the doctor wrote on Facebook.

After receiving two infusions of the Remdesivir Dr. Bannec said I don’t qualify, I’m not short of breath, he doesn’t know why my neck hurts and he doesn’t feel comfortable giving me any narcotics. All I can do is cry I was in so much pain. He said you can just go home right now. Of note he did not even listen to my lungs he didn’t touch me in any way. He performed no physical exam. I told him you cannot tell me how I feel!

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“Now, that is not how you treat patients, period,” added Dr. Moore. “So, I don’t trust this hospital, and I’m asking to be transferred. This is how Black people get killed! When you send them home and they don’t know how to fight for themselves.”

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Later, Dr. Moore noted that she reached the higher-ups at the hospital including the chief medical officer who assured her that diversity training would take place and who adjusted her care plan to ensure “she gets the best care possible.”

Dr. Moore DID indeed receive better care and told Facebook that she was heading home. Within just 12 hours of being back home however she was back hospitalized again, this time at a different medical facility.

“I’m back in the hospital, a different hospital Saint Vincent Carmel. Those people were trying to kill me. Clearly everyone has to agree they discharge me way too soon. They are now treating me for a bacterial pneumonia as well as Covid pneumonia. I am getting very compassionate care. They are offering me pain medicine,” she wrote.

Her last post said she was being transferred to ICU after being on a BIPAP (Bilevel Positive Airway Pressure) machine to help her breathe.

Absolutely heartbreaking.

Dr. Moore’s family has launched a GoFundMe to help raise money for the 19-year-old son she was raising and her parents with dementia she was a caretaker for.

 

Dr. Moore’s death is also sparking shockwaves on social media from people, several Black doctors in particular, who are pointing out that racism and bias in medicine are indeed real.

R.I.P. Dr. Moore. Our condolences to all of her loved ones.

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