More Care, More Resources
The New York Times, Tuesday, May 1, 2001
To the Editor:
The article "As Technology Improves, More People Breathe With Machines" (April
24) details the economic pressures that health care institutions and
clinicians labor under when caring for patients on ventilators.
As a physician observing the treatment of my own father since August,
I know that many such patients risk developing complications and need
a high level of care best provided in hospitals.
The current reimbursement system demoralizes all concerned and creates
situations in which such care for patients can be rationalized as meaningless.
But even people who are severely debilitated and on ventilators can have
meaningful lives with hospital-level care. As America ages, we run the
risk of becoming a society that treats some lives as more equal than
others unless the reimbursement system is changed to provide more resources
rather than less.
DR. HAROLD J. BURSZTAJN
Cambridge, Mass.