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For Ye Have the Poor with You Always
A Sermon Given
by Rev. Roger Fritts
on April 21, 2002
at Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church
Bethesda, Maryland
Eight years ago, in the spring of 1994 there seemed to be an opening, a
possibility that Congress would finally establish some form of universal
health care. However, in the summer of 1994 support disappeared, and the
opportunity was lost. We remain today the only industrialized country in the
world that has no form of universal health care.
The problem is not that our government is not spending enough money.
Fourteen percent of our gross national product goes to health care; in Canada
the figure is 9 percent, and in Sweden 8.6 percent. Yet for all our spending,
our health lags behind that of many other countries. Life expectancy is lower
and infant mortality is higher in the United States than in other
industrialized countries. In spite of spending 14 percent of our gross
national product, (according to a World Health Organization) in fairness and
in access we rank 54th out of the 191 health care systems in the world.
As a result, people with serious illnesses suffer. A nurse working in a
community health center in Brandywine, Maryland, wrote in The Washington
Post about a patient named Lucinda who had no health insurance.
Although Lucinda brought her children regularly for their checkups, she waited
several months after noticing a swelling on her neck before making an
appointment for herself. When she finally came to see the staff at the
Community Health Center, the swelling was massive. The medical professionals
knew right away that something was wrong. Lucinda spoke virtually no English,
so the staff slowly explained to her the urgency of her situation, while
trying not to scare her to death.
The clinic staff scrambled to get Lucinda a basic evaluation, using every
local contact they had. They managed to get her a sonogram, and arranged for
her to see a surgeon. A biopsy confirmed that she had cancer. A local
oncologist agreed to evaluate her and found that she needed to see a
specialist, because of the type of cancer she had.
The local doctors in Brandywine, Maryland were wonderful. They did much
work for no pay. A surgeon inserted a special device into Lucinda's chest to
prepare her for chemotherapy, at no charge. An oncologist arranged for her to
see a specialist at a world class hospital. The specialist examined her, told
Lucinda that she would die unless she got treatment, then told her to come
back when she had the money to pay for the treatment.
After hearing this, Lucinda went home and did nothing, because she did not
know what else to do. Meanwhile, the staff at the community clinic thought
that she was getting treatment. They did not realize she was sitting at home
getting worse.
About a month later, Lucinda called the clinic in tears because her pain
was so severe. She was short of breath, could not sleep at night and was
having difficulty taking care of her children. The local doctors could give
her medicine for her pain, which helped a little.
\The clinic's Executive Director contacted a doctor at the University of
Maryland hospital in Baltimore, who agreed to see Lucinda. He said that for
her type of cancer, the only hope of a cure was a bone marrow transplant. This
operation costs a hundred thousand dollars, which obviously Lucinda and her
husband did not have. The alternative was chemotherapy, which if started early
enough, could give her a remission of ten to fifteen years. University of
Maryland Hospital agreed to provide the chemotherapy to Lucinda every week at
a great discount.
Writing in the Post, the nurse said, "I used to work in an
emergency room, I've seen people die. But at least when I went to break the
news to their families, I could tell them that we did everything we could. I
can't say that to Lucinda's husband, or to her five children."
Studies show that 70,000 adults and 16,000 children in our county have no
health insurance. The uninsured are not all misfits sleeping on the street.
According to a Kaiser Commission Report, 75 percent of the uninsured have
full-time jobs or live in a family where at least one person works full-time.
I believe that eventually our nation will join the other industrialized
nations of the world, and we will have some form of universal health care.
Meanwhile, people who do not have health insurance continue to get sick. A few
remarkable people are doing something about it. A few months ago Stephanie
Garber came to my office to tell me a little about the Mobile Med. I found the
story so inspiring that I want to share it with you.
Back in 1968, Dr. George Cohen and Dr. Herman Meyersburg, worked in the
Ken-Gar neighborhood as volunteer tutors. Ken-Gar is a traditionally African
American community between Kensington and Garret Park. It is about two miles
north of here, about a quarter of a mile west of my own home in Kensington.
The goal of the volunteer tutoring was to ease the transition of black
youngsters into county schools, when our county schools were first integrated.
Dr. Meyersburg was a psychiatrist in private practice. Dr. Cohen was on the
staff of Children's Hospital. Through the tutoring, they discovered that the
children needed more than help with their school work. Many of them needed
basic medical care. Herman Arnold Meyersburg, along with George Cohen and
several other medical professionals were helping the Home Study program in
KenGar, and they had noticed that the children and their families suffered
from medical problems which they were unable to address, or for which they
were unable to get medical assistance. Dr. Meyersburg’s son Rich Meyersburg
describe what happened this way: "My father called together these health care
professionals in a meeting in his living room,(in the house where he still
lives) and, as George Cohen related it, Dr.Meyersburg detailed some of the
medical problems faced by the families of the children and then said, ‘What
are WE going to do about it?’"
In his own childhood, Dr. Meyersburg recalled the various people in
education and medicine that made a difference in his life. To show
appreciation for those who helped him, Dr. Meyersburg and Dr. Cohen decided
with the help of colleagues and friends, to open a medical clinic. They placed
the clinic in the basement of the First Baptist church in Ken-Gar. The clinic
delivered free or low-cost medical care. The first clinic was open in 1970.
From the beginning members of this congregation volunteered to work in the
clinic.
Starting in 1972, they established additional clinic locations, including
the Rockville Senior Center, Elizabeth House in Silver Spring, Holly Hall in
Silver Spring, and Arcola Towers in Wheaton.
In 1991 the doctors got an econ-o-line van with the goal of delivering
primary and preventive medical care to the uninsured, the working poor and
homeless people in our County. The van visited places like Shepherd's Table in
Silver Spring, Bethesda Cares in Bethesda, Twinbrook Recreational Center in
Rockville, Lincoln Park Community Center in Rockville, and the Men's Shelter
on Gude Drive in Rockville. Because of the van, the organization became known
as Mobile Med.
In 1996 Mobile Med purchased a building on Georgetown Road as its first
permanent headquarters. When neighbors complained, Helen Strang, a Cedar Lane
member, spoke up. She helped Mobile Med get a special exception to zoning
rules, so that they could move into this first permanent headquarters.
In 1999 Mobile Med replaced its van with "Moby"--a 35 foot fully equipped
mobile medical facility. Moby is a Winnebago type vehicle, with a waiting
room, an office, two exam rooms and a restroom.
This week I spent two hours on Moby. The Mobile Clinic was parked at the
Longbranch Community Center on Piney Branch Road. It was just across the
street from the apartment complex where my wife had lived in the 1960s when
she was a student a Montgomery Blair High School.
Mobile Med's President, David Davidson, met me at the site about 8:30
Wednesday morning. A retired Administrative Law Judge with the national Labor
Relations Board, David is a member of Temple Emmanuel, the Jewish congregation
on Conn. Ave. "To use a Catholic phrase," David said to me, "Meyersburg and
Cohen are the Patron Saints of Mobile Med. They asked me to serve on the
Board. Then they asked me to serve as the Interim President, and here I am,
still President, several years later."
The new Executive Director, Bob Spector, arrived a few minutes later. Bob
worked as a community organizer in Chicago for many years and just took over
the responsibility of Mobile Med a week ago. He explained that currently the
budget was just more than a million dollars, with support coming from United
Way, various government agencies, many foundations, and churches and temples,
such as Cedar Lane.
I talked with an Americorp volunteer who is working with Mobile Med full
time for a year and hopes to go to medical school. She lives with four other
volunteers in a house own by Westmoorland Congregational Church. The
congregation provides this housing as part of its social action commitment.
After finishing her year with Americorp, the volunteer I met hopes to enter
medical school.
Another staff member described her work. She said, "visits to Long Branch
Community Center are like visits to the United Nations." She sees people from
every part of the world, men, women and children who had no where else to go
to receive primary medical care. Record-keeping is not easy. Many people from
places like Africa have no date of birth. When asked they might say that they
were born in the spring of 1956, or the winter of 1960. They often have no
Social Security number, and they might go by several difference names, making
it difficult to find their medical record from previous visits.
"Our standard," she said, "is to give the people the same medical care that
they would receive if they had health insurance. We strive hard to treat them
with the same respect they would receive, if they were going to a private
doctor and they could pay their way. When they need tests or more treatment,
Suburban Hospital will see them." No one on the staff could tell me how much
Suburban Hospital donates in medical services to Mobile Med clients. They
guessed that it was about three to four hundred thousand dollars a year.
Unfortunately the numbers of uninsured continue to grow. The state of
Maryland privatized its mental healthcare system in 1996. Private mental
health providers have had difficulties getting payment for older patients
under Medicare. They have difficulty handling the large amount of paperwork
they say the state requires. Chestnut Lodge in Rockville closed last April.
Montgomery General Hospital closed their Colesville clinic in February.
Threshold Services in Silver Spring closed in March. This past week two mental
health clinics, "Washington Assessment and Therapy Services" in Silver Spring
and "Affiliated Sante Group" in Wheaton announced they do not have the
resources to treat the many patients coming to their doors for help. They will
no longer take new patients. A coalition of community leaders is holding
public meetings at Saint Mark Presbyterian Church in Rockville on May 1, May
15, and May 22 to respond to the mental heath service crisis in our community.
Meanwhile, one of the staff at Mobile Med told me that these days 50
percent of her work is psychological. "With the mental health facilities
closed down, where are these people going to go?" she asked me as we stood in
her very small examining room in the converted mobile home. She answered her
own question. "They are going to end up on the street. They are going to
affect you and this community. They have nowhere else to go but the street. I
have nowhere to refer them."
I talked to a few of the dozen people sitting on folding chairs outside the
vehicle. A man and a woman told me that they were from Ethiopia, and had been
in the United States for nine years. A woman told me that she was from
Trinidad. She had come to the area in 1985 to live with her sister. She had
been struggling with a serious infection in her toe, but the antibiotic the
Mobile Med staff had given her, was working. She asked me to pray for her. I
put my arm around her shoulders closed my eyes and said "Rose, I pray that the
infection will leave your body and your toe will heal."
We can be proud that over the years this church has supported Mobile Med
with money and with people. Last year, for example, our Social Justice Council
gave $930 from our church budget to support Mobile Med. Our Church Alliance,
which has its own budget, and just voted to give $1,000 to Mobile Med. In
addition over many years our members have continued to be involved with Mobile
Med. As a way of saying thank you to her for help with zoning issues Helen
Strang is now on the Mobile Med's Honorary Board. Cedar Lane member Stephanie
Garber is a member of the Mobile Med's regular board. Cedar Lane member Jo Ann
King (whose father died this past week) works on the staff of Mobile Med. We
can be proud that we are one of many faith communities in the county who has
supported Mobile Med.
On Thursday the New York Times published a story with the headline
"Hard Decisions for Employers as Costs Soar in Health Care." According to the
article "Employers are bracing for their third year in a row of double-digit
increase in health care costs." The reporter quoted one expert as predicting
that employees "are going to pay a lot more out of pocket, and we are going to
see a huge spike in the number of uninsured." The last time this happened was
in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It led to the health care debate of 1993
and 1994. As private insurance costs rise, we may see renewed interest in some
form of universal health care.
Meanwhile, I believe we have a moral obligation to do what we can to help
organizations like Mobile Med. If you would like to help, there are many
volunteer opportunities. Of course, health care professionals are always
welcome as volunteers. Those with no medical training can help registering
people who come to the clinics. If you have any skill as a fund raiser, the
new executive director would welcome your help. If you have any influence in
county or state politics, I hope you will use that influence to support
funding for Mobile Med.
In my twenty-four years as a minister I have worked and eaten in soup
kitchens. I have worked in shelters and visited health care clinics. What
separates me from the poor is not my skill, or my intelligence, or my hard
work. What separates me from the poor is luck. I was lucky to be born into a
middle class family. I have been lucky that doors have opened for me at just
the right moment. Jesus of Nazareth is reputed to have said, "For Ye Have the
Poor with You Always." The question I hear in that statement is, "How will I
respond to the poor?" How I answer that question partially shapes my spiritual
health. How we all answer shapes the spiritual health of this nation.
Office@CedarLane.org
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