THE FLORIDA CHAPTER OF THE AMHE HAD A FUND RAISING GALA THIS PAST WEEKEND.IT WAS ATTENDED BY NEARLY 300 PEOPLE. HERE IS AN EXCERPT OF THE PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE.
Fellow members of the medical community,
Health care providers,
Business community,
distinguished officials and elected representatives
Executive members of the AMHE and CEC PRESIDENT
Chairman and members of the Board
Gala participants.
Let me first express my deepest gratitude to all of you who gather here tonight in a spirit of solidarity and have made possible the event of this day. This is again the time of the year when we renew faith in our common destiny and express support and commitment to the local chapter.
We wish you the finest moment together here at the AMHE gala tonight and hope you will continue to support and lead us toward the brighter and more solid future that we all dream for the association. We know well how hard it is to leave the comfort of your nest to come join hands and pledge support to the Association at this time of the year. Your time among us is for a good cause and you can rejoice to know that your association has been faithful to its commitment which is to preserve and protect the interest of its members, to save lives, and to work tirelessly toward a more inclusive health care delivery.
“ONE MEDICINE FOR ALL, WITH LESS DISPARITYIN THE HEALTHCARE DELIVERY. “, this is the theme we would like to debate with you all this year.
The delivery of care has changed tremendously over the past few years. While we cannot predict in advance the kind of natural disaster that will fall upon us, or the kind of illnesses we may be affected by, we should not have to worry either of which conditions or diseases the health care system might or might not accept to treat .Despite living in a country with the best medical technology and the best possible treatment outcomes, the health care delivery continues to lag behind and remains absent in certain areas.. People living in the rural communities continue to travel miles and miles to get treated for certain conditions. Sometimes even to those living in the urban communities, access to the healthcare remains a utopia. The health care delivery has been resumed to what insurance you have and whether you can be seen or not.
Quite often we hear our patients asking us whether we will accept or not their plan of health coming next year. Many want to keep their doctors but are not sure whether their doctors will be able to keep them or not. This is one example, among others, of the anxiety expressed by too many at the receiving end of the health care delivery, anxiety yet unheard by a corporate system that assures but doesn’t necessarily reassures. Providers are forced to turn away people who are in real need for treatment.
Short of prior authorization or by virtue of denial, patients end up accepting a different product that may or may not respond to their need. Providers and patients get switched between insurances year after year; and patients, just for having a known precondition; end up with a higher premium and higher risk of cancellation. These facts are just some of the hurdles that exemplify how tedious can be the delivery of care to our patients.
Added to this list, is the sky-high cost of some medicine, often equal to the monthly salary of a patient that has created a glass- ceiling effect and reminds the patient that good providers and good medicine do not always go hand in hand.
On the other hand, Many Homeless people living in the streets on a day to day basis, and many minority groups, unable to navigate thru the complexity of the system, continue to use the Emergency room for conditions that could have been addressed at a different level of care. This leaves the system, more often than not, with a hefty bill without giving the patient a chance to recover fully from his or her condition.
Lastly, the mistrust vis a vis the system and the belief in alternative forms of treatment have forced minorities, consciously or not, to curtail their access to the regular Health care system. This represents one more roadblock in the delivery of care to our patients. It renders more fatal conditions that could have been diagnosed earlier and treated in a timely manner. So, even with a higher prevalence of certain conditions in the other patients’ population, the mortality rate is still higher than it should have been in our communities.
Problems of all sorts continue to arise from the present healthcare system. And the question remains how to solve them all or at least some of them? We continue to educate our population about the different aspects of their condition thru radio and TV program all over the south Florida area.
We educate them about the need for a change in lifestyle and for better compliance.
The problem is complex. It is socio-cultural, financial and educational. It is not the fight of one single individual or association it’s a battle by all and for all..That’s why we ask you to join us in this campaign for a healthier and a more productive community
May the joy and the love of Christmas reach your heart and continue to surround you abundantly; and may you realize, for the coming year, all the dreams deeply hidden within your heart,
We wish you a Happy and successful year 2020!
Rony Jean-Mary, M.D.