Low income patient comes in to the office for evaluation and treatment - a
major cause of health care cost and one that I can do little about, other
than offer temporary support and referrals - another major cause of health
care costs.

Reason for the visit, she was absolutely stressed out
1. gunshots at night on a regular basis
2. not sure the police came when the gunshots actually hit the apartment
complex
3. opened her car door and came face to face with police with guns drawn
pursuing car thieves
4. opened her apartment door and again came face to face with policeman
with gun drawn, again because the parking lot has been a staging area for
car theft
5. worried about reporting crimes because the criminals are back on the
streets and await long delays in trial.
6. daughter afraid to go outside the apartment

She is behind on rent so has to pay back to be able to move to another
location and progress in this is slow.
Former husband fails to pay child support and has for some time.
Disabled, making it tough on mobility

It is hard to address crime when we create the conditions for more
criminals and choose to wall ourselves off individually instead of
investing in efforts that would make us all safer, and more efficient.

I chimed in about the counseling that I did to a 20 year police veteran who
came to investigate a break in at my place and he was also frustrated with
lack of backup from the legal system.

Sounds just like teachers and school conditions, family physicians and
their systems problems, nurses and hospital problems, counselors and lack
of mental health support, social workers and lack of public assistance
support

Those who are middle and low income do not often access the range of
professionals that the wealthy do, but they do interact with the more basic
service oriented and people oriented types. When these basic groups are
overwhelmed, mistakes are more likely to happen and conditions continue to
deteriorate.

My best to those meeting tonight  at   Healers focus on helping the poor
By Bill Dunphy    The Hamilton Spectator   (Mar 22, 2006)

Physicians talking to patients, and teachers, and policy, and counselors,
and social workers and working together can accomplish much.

Robert C. Bowman, M.D.
[log in to unmask]

-------------------
Problems/Questions? Send it to Listserv owner: [log in to unmask]


To unsubscribe, send the following message in the text section -- NOT the subject header --  to [log in to unmask]
SIGNOFF SDOH

DO NOT SEND IT BY HITTING THE REPLY BUTTON. THIS SENDS THE MESSAGE TO THE ENTIRE LISTSERV AND STILL DOES NOT REMOVE YOU.

To subscribe to the SDOH list, send the following message to [log in to unmask] in the text section, NOT in the subject header.
SUBSCRIBE SDOH yourfirstname yourlastname

To post a message to all 1000+ subscribers, send it to [log in to unmask]
Include in the Subject, its content, and location and date, if relevant.

For a list of SDOH members, send a request to [log in to unmask]

To receive messages only once a day, send the following message to [log in to unmask]
SET SDOH DIGEST

To view the SDOH archives, go to: https://listserv.yorku.ca/archives/sdoh.html