A Black doctor who died of COVID-19 after weeks of battling the virus said she was mistreated and delayed proper care at an Indiana hospital because of her race.
Dr. Susan Moore, 52, died Dec. 20 following multiple hospitalizations for complications from COVID-19, first at IU Health North and later at Ascencion-St. Vincent in Carmel, Indiana.
Her frustrations with the care provided at IU Health were chronicled on Facebook in multiple updates. The first came Dec. 4 when she said delays in her treatment and diagnosis were motivated by the color of her skin.
In a 7 ½-minute video posted to her Facebook page, Moore described frustrating back-and-forths with a white hospitalist with the IU Health system.
She described having her complaints of severe neck pain disregarded, despite drawing from her years of medical expertise to make a self-assessment.
“I was crushed,” a tearful Moore said of the doctor’s refusal to provide her pain medication. “He made me feel like I was a drug addict. And he knew I was a physician. I don’t take narcotics. I was hurting.”
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She said she had to plead with and convince her physician she was having trouble breathing before receiving a CT scan. When the scan revealed that what she was saying was true, she was given medication to manage her pain. But only after hours of waiting.
“I put forth and I maintain,” she said in the video, “if I was white, I wouldn’t have to go through that.”
‘Clearly everyone has to agree they (discharged) me way too soon’
From her hospital bed, Moore, who is remembered as someone who loved helping others, said she was speaking out so that the treatment she endured would not be overlooked.
“This is how Black people get killed, when you send them home and they don’t know how to fight for themselves,” she said into the camera. “I had to talk to somebody, maybe the media, somebody, to let people know how I’m being treated up in this place.”
Moore’s experience and tragic death sparked outrage and sadness across social media. Many pointed to it as the latest example of racism and discrimination in health care, as well as the disproportionate toll COVID-19 has has taken among Black patients.
It also led to an outpouring of support for the loved ones she leaves behind.
Moore is survived by her 19-year-old son and recent high school graduate, Henry Muhammed. In an interview with the New York Times, Henry said his mother was still thinking of others to the very end.
During their last conversation, Moore said she was going to help her son go to college.
Moore’s family told the New York Times that she was Born in Jamaica but grew up in Michigan. She studied engineering at Kettering University and earned her medical degree from the University of Michigan Medical School, according to her family.❐
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