Fear, frustration mounts for dialysis patients

By Craig Schneider

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Fear and frustration are mounting among patients who had received dialysis at Grady Memorial Hospital, and who have only a month left of care paid for by the hospital.

Grady closed its outpatient dialysis unit in early October, citing expenses. The hospital has paid a separate dialysis clinic to provide three months of additional care for those patients with no health insurance, no government assistance and no place else to go.

That extended care expires Jan. 3, and the approximately 30 patients receiving this care -- virtually all low-income illegal immigrants -- worry that their health will spiral downward after that.

Grady spokesman Matt Gove said Tuesday that the hospital's contract with the dialysis provider Fresenius actually allows for up to a year of care. But the hospital's signed agreements with the patients only provides for three months care.

Gove said that should a patient have no where to go after Jan. 3, their care could be extended with Fresenius for as long as the full year to September. But that would be considered on a "case-by-case" basis, he said.

Patients and advocates on Tuesday tried once again -- and generally failed -- to bring together forces to find a way for them to receive long-term care. But a forum at Emory Center for Advocacy and Dispute Resolution largely failed to attract elected officials, community leaders and others to find an answer.

Organizerssaid some might have been busy on election day, but that most did not even respond to their invitation.

Only one of several invited dialysis firms showed up to a meeting afterward with advocates, and that firm declined to take on these patients.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution first reported preliminary plans to close the Grady dialysis clinic in May. Many of its 90 patients were poor, uninsured and illegal immigrants. Grady has helped relocate several back their home countries and to other states that provide such care for illegal immigrants.

Bineet Kaur, a 26-year-old dialysis patient who lives in north Fulton, said she fears for her life after the care runs out.

"I don't have any options," she said.

Professor Paul Zwier, director of the Emory advocacy center, said he had hoped to bring together more people to discuss the problem of care for the illegal immigrants. The 75 people who attended were mostly patients, their families, students and some advocates.

Dorothy Leone-Glasser, head of the group called Grady Advocates  for Responsible Care, also said she was disappointed.

"It's the unwillingness to come to the table that's disappointing," she said.

She said the advocates plan to try a new argument in their ongoing lawsuit that aims to force Grady to reopen the outpatient dialysis clinic.

The judge has been cool to the arguments that Grady has denied these patients their rights under the state constitution. She said the group plans to argue that Grady's closure of the clinic constitutes "medical abandonment" of the patients.