The old proverb, “The reward for good work, is more work,” came to mind when a distressed senior citizen (whose quality of life and health depends on the Harris County Hospital’s neighborhood clinics), called to register yet another complaint. In case you wondering why the irate citizen called African-American News &Issues, rather than an over paid HCHD official, you probably missed our Jan. 23-29, 2002 edition.

On the other hand, if you read that edition’s feature (“HCHD on life support: Greedy bosses traumatize needy patients’ healthcare”), you fully understand why the seniors, as well as many HCHD employees consider our newspaper their ombudsman and an editorial voice for disenfranchised citizens who are unfortunately at the mercy of an uncaring bureaucratic public agency. “Did you know that everybody has to pay for their medicine at the clinics now?,” the agitated citizen asked. No, we had no idea that HCHD’s “Gold Card” indigents were no longer exempt. Nor did we know that the clinics have arbitrarily changed patients’ medicine without considering the negative effect it is having on them.

But that’s a future editorial we’ll deal with later. The complaining patients had nothing but praise for the clinic’s staff. It was unanimously agreed that the short-staffed clinic personnel have performed heroically since John Guess replaced Lois Moore as president and CEO of HCHD. What irritates the complainers, however, is the total lack of respect for them that HCHD’s hierarchy demonstrates. “I guess, just because we’re old and poor, they think we should be glad to get any kind of help we can,” was how one well-spoken senior put it. In other words, the senior felt that it was a small thing to inform patients that they would be required to pay a small fee for medication in advance, rather than surprising them.

When patients wait six hours to see a doctor and then stand in line at the pharmacy for another 20 or 30 minutes, it’s understandable why they might be just a bit ticked off to suddenly learn they must pay the cashier before getting their prescription filled. Although it was only a $2 fee on each medication, the lady had to pay cab fare to get to and from the clinic and hadn’t planned for an extra expense. In essence, patients feel it was just plain disrespectfull to not be told of the new policy in advance. We certainly agree. After checking, we learned that many of the employees in the pharmacy hadn’t been told of the policy change.

In fact, one kind sister in the pharmacy actually loaned patients money so they wouldn’t have to make a return trip to get their much-needed medication. Again, we salute those special kinds of public servants who are the backbones of our neighborhood clinics, inasmuch as they have bonded with the patients and became somewhat like their extended family. Need we explain that Lois Moore’s administration indoctrinated those kind of loving, caring employees? As we indicated in the article that is rumored to have cost Guess his raise, HCHD has changed its policy considerably in the post-Moore era.

One can easily be fooled when they see the new state-of-the-art neighborhood clinics, insofar as patients are paying for the improvements because of reduced staffs and other cost-cutting measures. Unfortunately, new buildings and automatic flushing toilets have no medicinal value when treating patients. We Must Understand, although we realize that having Black faces in high places don’t automatically translate to equity for African-Americans, but when we allowed HCHD to run Moore off, our community took a major hit. Moore saw it coming, when she told the County Commissioners that she would quit, rather than be part of a healthcare agency that didn’t put patients first.

Moore warned us, that there were people in the County and on the HCHD board that cared more about image, building new facilities and greedily swilling from the public troth than poor, sick people. There is plenty of evidence that the chickens have come home to roost. Cutting to the chase, we called Alicia Reye’s office and were told that Guess had announced several months ago that small fees would be required from all HCHD patients, without exception. We were assured that the neighborhood clinics were aware of the policy change. We Must Understand, it makes little difference who dropped the ball, but a failure to communicate has become a major problem for HCHD.

Since HCHD has a rather well-paid media relations’ staff, it shouldn’t have been a problem to send out news releases to inform citizens being served by neighborhood clinics of a simple policy change. Certainly Reye’s office passed the buck to clinic directors, but what it boils down to is that the current HCHD hierarchy has little or no respect for the citizens it serves, therefore failing to inform them about a minor policy change is no big thing. Who owes poor broke senior citizens an explanation about why they have to cough up $2 bucks to pay for a medicine that would cost them $50 at the drug store? After all, beggars can’t be choosey. Can they?

In a real sense, poor folks are faring better than many hard working people paying big bucks for company HMOs. And, lest we forget, HCHD isn’t the only tax-supported agency that disrespects poor citizens, who are indigenous to areas of town where human resource offices and neighborhood clinics are located.

Yes Marvin, “It’s hell being poor.” However, we have a real problem with tax supported agencies and public servants that add the insult of disrespect to the injury of poverty. Surely, respect isn’t a miracle cure for what ails poor folks, but it certainly eases their pain.