Heart Attack Care Often Delayed for the PoorBy Alan Mozes
HealthDay Reporter Tue Sep 23, 11:47 PM ET
MONDAY, Sept. 22 (HealthDay News) -- Poorer Americans, including those on Medicaid, are more likely to take much longer to get to the hospital when a heart attack strikes compared to more affluent people, a new study finds.
The finding suggests that patients without means may be at a greater risk of missing a critical window for time-sensitive care following a heart attack, the researchers noted.
"It's so important to get to the hospital quickly when a patient feels they are having symptoms of a heart attack," noted study lead author Randi E. Foraker, a doctoral candidate in the department of epidemiology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. "So it was particularly concerning to us that patients from lower socio-economic status areas, and patients covered by Medicaid insurance, experienced more of a pre-hospital delay in getting to a health facility."
CLICK HERE for the rest of the articleDr. Marshall Morgan, chief of emergency medicine at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, seems to think there might be a mystery relationship between income and the delay.
It's not that big of a mystery to me. Many low income people have told me they can't afford a trip to the emergency room for any reason yet alone the cost of being treated for a heart attack. They say they actually take time to weigh the cost versus the possibility of surviving the attack without treatment.
