Friday, 24 June 2011 08:37
COUNTY: Life, Death and Politics at Chicago's Public Hospital, explores the recent history of Chicago's Cook County Hospital, once celebrated for medical training and scientific breakthroughs, but which became and remains the hospital of last resort for the county's uninsured, particularly African Americans and Latinos.
COUNTY recalls Dr. David Ansell's 17 years as a resident and then attending physician at Chicago's public hospital and through his telling, the inequality of health care in America is revealed. Dr. Ansell's story shows how "the triad of racism, poverty and lack of insurance conspired to kill my patients and their family members before their time." Dr. Ansell depicts activist doctors "ready to take to the streets at the drop of a hat" to fight for decent and dignified health care for their patients.
The memoir documents deplorable working conditions and the indignities patients experienced at County. Dr. Ansell shares his fears and frustrations, misgivings, mistakes, triumphs and tragedies.
Dissatisfied with the status quo, Dr. Ansell and others launched programs to end patient dumping, expand primary care and prevention services including programs to treat AIDS, while at the same time, advocating for universal health care in the United States as a "cure" for the inequalities before him.
"I have been witness to a health care system in crisis," says Dr. Ansell. "Equal access to health care is a basic human right. The idea of fairness in health care brought me to Cook County Hospital. It is a goal that as a nation, we have yet to achieve."
David A. Ansell, M.D., MPH, rose from intern to Chief of General Internal Medicine at Cook County Hospital. He is currently the Chief Medical Officer at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, and serves on the Cook County Health System Board of Directors. He has written extensively about health disparities.