From The Seven Guide: Healthcare: Facing the Barriers

Who has a right to healthcare?
What are the challenges?
Who is meeting them?

Seven years ago Salt Lake City Yvonne King was diagnosed with colon cancer.   She hopes she’s beaten it, but she doesn’t know for sure because she hasn’t been tested since her surgery.   A mother and grandmother who works full time without benefits, she struggles with affording health care. Every place she called, everyplace she tried to go, she was told “if you don’t have medical insurance, you just don’t bother.”

For Yvonne King, for every Utahn, for every American, there is a stark question.  Do I have a right to healthcare?   KUED addresses that question in a new hour-long documentary by Nancy Green, “Healthcare: Facing Barriers” that airs October 22 at 8:00 pm.

In the United States there are an estimated 47 million people just like Yvonne King.  More startling, every year 18,000 people die from diseases that could be prevented or cured, simply because they do not have access to the health care system.  In Utah, an estimated 300,000 to 400,000 people are uninsured.  That’s roughly twice the population of Salt Lake City.  Nationally, the number of uninsured equals the populations of Utah, New Mexico, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Nevada and California – combined. A 2001 Harvard study shows that among 1.4 million bankruptcies declared each year 700,000 are due to medical debt. 

 “It’s important for us to understand the barriers people face in accessing healthcare, because it affects each of us on a personal, financial, and societal level,” says Green.  “If you’re having a hard time finding care, you’re not alone.  Most of us know a neighbor, friend, or family member grappling with this issue.  Financially, we all pay increased healthcare costs to cover the uninsured or people who delay receiving care until they’re in a crisis. And then there’s the human cost when anyone suffers and feels lost.  We found people who are trying to provide care, to fill in the healthcare gaps, but the need is too great and resources too limited.  They often ask, how can we as a just and compassionate society continue limiting care to the people who most need it?  It’s a tough question.”

Green’s documentary shows that the barriers to health care are financial, geographic--both rural and urban, cultural, including language barriers, and the availability of healthcare.

Says  Dr. John Nelson, former president of the American Medical Association, in the documentary, “Probably the biggest reason patients don't have access to the system is they don't have access to health care coverage--they don't have a way to pay for what's there.”   And as healthcare costs rise, more people are being left behind.

The film profiles several clinics trying to help those left behind.  Dr. Mansoor Emam founded the Maliheh Free Clinic in Salt Lake City to offer care to the working poor.  As a young boy in Southern Iran, he saw suffering that motivated him to become a physician and provide basic healthcare to patients who otherwise don't have that privilege.  His clinic, which supplies $20,000 a week in donated medicine, takes 600 to 800 calls a day and sees 60 to 80 patients.  “What happens to the other 600 to 700 patients?” he asks.  “Where do they go?  Where do they get their care?”

The film also highlights community health centers that focus on family and preventative medicine in neighborhoods where language, culture, geography or poverty create barriers. Cobbled together through state, federal and private funds, these centers see a mix of patients – both insured and uninsured. But, the clinics often face financial crunches that put their services in jeopardy.

In rural towns, problems are compounded by geographic isolation. Over half a million people live in rural Utah where health professionals are scarce.  Some 90,000 of them are uninsured. Many work dangerous jobs.  The Wayne Community Health Center in Bicknell is where some turn for their basic needs.

Language and culture can be as cruel as miles of separation from services, Green says.  She also profiles the Ratcliffe Clinic in Rose Park that deals with patients who, although predominantly Hispanic, come from diverse cultures and speak a variety of languages.

While these clinics provide an important safety net, Dr. David Sundwall, Executive Director of the Utah Department of Health says the net is not big enough and is “pretty porous.”

“It comes back to the question, ‘Who has the right to healthcare?’” says Green.