SICKO: The Murder of Edith Rodriguez by the USA Medical System
Ernesto Cienfuegos
La Voz de Aztlan
Los Angeles, Alta California - June 19, 2007 - (ACN) Edith Isabel Rodriguez was murdered in cold blood by a very sick USA medical system. On May 9, 2007, a day that will live in medical infamy, Edith Rodriguez, a 43 year old mother of three, suffered an excruciating death on the floor of a Los Angeles inner-city hospital emergency room. The medical staff at the infamous "Hospital from Hell" named King-Harbor refused to treat Edith Rodriguez as she laid on the linoleum, writhing in pain, for 45 minutes vomiting blood. One action a nurse took was to summon a janitor. The janitor is seen on video mopping the vomit around Edith Isabel Rodriguez as if she was just a piece of furniture.
No US citizen, or for that matter, no human being should meet death in such a tragic and unnecessary way. Edith Rodriguez was a US citizen of Mexican descent and this may have contributed to why she was not properly treated by the medical staff of the county government run hospital. Martin Luther King-Harbor County Hospital in the Watts area of Los Angeles has an abominable history of medical crimes against Latinos. In February, a gravely ill brain tumor patient named Juan Ponce, lingered in the same emergency room for four days and nearly died. His family saved his life when they checked Juan Ponce out and took him to a Latino friendly hospital. Emergency surgery was then performed within hours and Juan Ponce survived.
The lethal medical services against Latinos at King-Harbor Hospital may be due to the current anti-Mexican hate rhetoric being spouted by the anti-immigrant xenophobes in Los Angeles county. A primary propaganda point that anti-immigrant organizations use against Mexican immigrants is that undocumented Mexicans are abusing the county hospitals' emergency rooms. This propaganda is constantly being heard over English language radio stations. It is easy to understand how such beliefs and attitudes in the minds of certain doctors, nurses and medical administrators in county hospitals could negatively impact the quality of medical services for Latinos. Edith Isabel Rodriguez could have easily been mistaken for an undocumented Mexican immigrant.
Overall blame for the horrific death of Edith Isabel Rodriguez can be squarely placed, however, on the entire greed based USA medical system. Los Angeles county hospitals, after all, serve mostly those who can not afford medical insurance. Edith Rodriguez had no alternative but to seek emergency care at a county hospital, and this killed her. It does not have to be this way in a nation that supposedly is the most advanced in the world. Even the small island nation of Cuba puts the USA medical system to shame. Cuba was ready to send 1,500 medical doctors and 34 tons of essential medicines to Louisiana and Mississippi soon after the Hurricane Katrina disaster but the White House, to avoid embarrassment, refused the Cuban offer of medical aid. Many poverty stricken Blacks died for lack of medical care because of the White House refusal.
As we await the release of Michael Moore's new film "SICKO", which condemns the USA medical system, we should contemplate the unnecessary death of Edith Isabel Rodriguez on the cold linoleum of the King-Harbor Hospital emergency room. The next victim could be your grandmother, your mother, your sister, your daughter or your wife. In the USA today, the "Hippocratic Oath" has been replaced by the "Hypocritical Oath" where life saving medical care is given not to those who need it but only to those who can pay.
CNN News coverage of the death of Edith Isabel Rodriguez
Click to view:
