Dr. Marjorie Moss stitches up Dorothy Harris' finger in the hallway of Detroit's Riverview Hospital. Harris waited in her wheelchair after cutting her finger on a broken juice glass. A financial storm is lashing Metro Detroit's health care system, widening the gap in treatments delivered to the haves and have-nots and causing unease among medical workers. In the suburbs, nurses take time to fetch a blanket for a cold patient or fly in a special meal from an exotic location to nurture a healing body. But in the city, because of an influx of patients, doctors have trouble getting lab reports on time and must treat some patients in hallways.
Doctors report seeing unnecessarily advanced stages of disease because of lack of proper treatment.
Even waiting times vary widely for patients seeking care in the city and its suburbs. The average waiting time in Detroit clinics is 25 minutes to an hour, according to research by Dr. Richard Douglass, an Eastern Michigan University professor of health administration. In upscale Novi, however, he said, it's less than five minutes. In Ann Arbor, it's three minutes. It's not just race, it's not just class.