Woman dies in ER lobby as 911 refuses to help

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19207050/

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/06/13/health/main2923545.shtml#ccmm

A woman who lay bleeding on the emergency room floor of a troubled inner-city hospital died after 911 dispatchers refused to contact paramedics or an ambulance to take her to another facility, newly released tapes of the emergency calls reveal.

Relatives reported she died as police were wheeling her out of the hospital after the officers they had asked to help Rodriguez arrested her instead on a parole violation.

(added later)
The CBS report is followed by reader comments. Some jerk said that if someone doesn't have medical insurance, it's ok that they die, that everybody could have insurance if they were willing to work hard. The following was my response:

I have an M.A. in math & more than 30 years experience in computer programming. Because of age discrimination, I worked for 4 years as a waitress. With so many baby boomers retiring, I was able to get back into the tech field, but I don't know for how long, because business is trying to get Congress to remove all caps on foreign visas, so they can bring in people from other countries, and go back to discriminating against older people. The jobs I can get now are as a contractor w/o benefits.

If everybody were identical, there were still be people who would end up working in low-paying jobs, because we don't have a need for well-paying jobs for everybody. The middle- and upper-class depend on the working class. Where do you think your food comes from? Do you grow it all yourself and cook it all from scratch? Do you build your car and other possessions from raw materials you have mined yourself? If so, how do you have the time to run your business?

For those who are capable, we are lucky. We could have been brain-damaged before birth because our mother was too poor to get enough to eat. We could have had a genetic mutation. Any day we might get brain-damaged or paralyzed in an automobile accident. If we are uncaring towards others, we help to create a world where others are uncaring to us.