Our health care system is so broken that people who desperately need medical help may not be able to get it.
My blogging here has bee a bit irregular lately. That’s because we’ve been preparing for my wife Sue to have cornea transplant surgery. She has Fuch’s Dystrophy, which clouds the cornea and eventually leads to blindness. They did her left eye yesterday and the operation is a success. Sue says she can see much better out of that eye now, just 24 hours later.
The operation is done by peeling the bottom two layers off the cornea, replacing it with the donor cornea, then holding it in place with an air bubble. Amazingly, this is an out patient procedure. Sue had to lie on her back for 18 hours afterwards to give the new cornea time to bind to the eye. Thus, we took turns watching her at night to insure she didn’t roll over.
Recuperation will take about two weeks. We are fortunate in that Sue works for the government so we have good insurance. But what’s happens to people who have no insurance? A friend of hers called last night to see how Sue was doing and mentioned she has scoliosis, is in terrible pain, and needs a custom brace. But Medicare doesn’t cover it and she can’t afford the several thousand it will cost.
It is just wrong that a prosperous nation like ours has such substandard health care that our friend must suffer in increasing pain.