- Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas , Texas is a fairly
famous institution and for a variety of reasons:
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- 1. John F. Kennedy died there in 1963
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- 2. Lee Harvey Oswald died there shortly after
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- 3. Jack Ruby-who killed Oswald, died there a few years
later.
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- On the flip side, Parkland is also home to the second
busiest maternity ward in the country with almost 16,000 new babies arriving
each year. (That's almost 44 per day---every day.)
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- A recent patient survey indicated that 70 percent of
the women who gave birth at Parkland in the first three months of 2006
were illegal immigrants. That's 11,200 anchor babies born every year just
in Dallas.
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- According to the article, the hospital spent $70.7 million
delivering 15,938 babies in 2004 but managed to end up with almost $8 million
dollars in surplus funding. Medicaid kicked in $34.5 million, Dallas County
taxpayers kicked in $31.3 million and the feds tossed in another $9.5 million.
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- The average patient in Parkland in maternity wards is
25 years old, married and giving birth to her second child. She is also
an illegal immigrant. By law, pregnant women cannot be denied medical care
based on their immigration status or ability to pay.
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- OK, fine. That doesn't mean they should receive better
care than everyday, middle-class American citizens. But at Parkland Hospital
they do. "
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- Parkland Memorial Hospital has nine prenatal clinics.
NINE.
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- The Dallas Morning News article followed a Hispanic woman
who was a patient at one of the clinics and pregnant with her third child---her
previous two were also born at Parkland . Her first two deliveries were
free and the Mexican native was grateful because it would have cost$200
to have them in Mexico. This time, the hospital wants her to pay $10 per
visit and $100 for the delivery but she was unsure if she could come up
with the money. Not that it matters, the hospital won't turn her away.
(I wonder why they even bother asking at this point.)
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- "How long has this been going on? What are the long-term
effects?
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- Well, another subject of the article was born at Parkland
in 1986 shortly after her mother entered the US illegally - now she is
having her own child there as well. (That's right; she's technically a
US citizen.)
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- These women receive free prenatal care including medication,
nutrition, birthing classes and child care classes. They also get freebies
such as car seats, bottles, diapers and formula.
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- Most of these things are available to American citizens
as well but only for low-income applicants and even then, the red tape
involved is almost insurmountable.
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- Because these women are illegal immigrants, they do not
have to provide any sort of legitimate identification - no proof of income.
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- An American citizen would have to provide a social security
number which would reveal their annual income - an illegal immigrant need
only claim to be poor and the hospital must take them at their word.
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- Parkland Hospital offers indigent care to Dallas County
residents who earn less than $40,000 per year. (They also have to prove
that they did not refuse health coverage at their current job.. Yeah, the
'free' care is not so easy for Americans.)
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- There are about 140 patients who received roughly $4
million dollars for un-reimbursed medical care. As it turns out, they
did not qualify for free treatment because they resided outside of Dallas
County so the hospital is going to sue them! Illegal's get it all free!
But U.S. citizens who live outside of Dallas County get sued! How stupid
is this?
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- As if that isn't annoying enough, the illegal immigrant
patients are actually complaining about hospital staff not speaking Spanish.
In this AP story, the author speaks with a woman who is upset that she
had to translate comments from the hospital staff into Spanish for her
husband.
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- The doctor was trying to explain the situation to the
family and the mother was forced to translate for her husband who only
spoke Spanish. This was
- apparently a great injustice to her.
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- In an attempt to create a Spanish-speaking staff, Parkland
Hospital is now providing incentives in the form of extra pay for applicantswho
speak Spanish. Additionally, medical students at the University of Texas
Southwestern for which Parkland Hospital is the training facility will
now have a Spanish language requirement added to their already jammed-packed
curriculum. No other school in the country boasts such a ridiculous multi-semester
(multicultural) requirement.
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- Remember that this is about only ONE hospital in Dallas,
Texas. There are many more hospitals across our country that must also
deal
- with this.
-
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- Check this for yourself...
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- http://www.snopes.com/politics/immigration/parkland.asp
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