As we know, Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy has an advanced stage brain tumor, and was recently hospitalized for a seizure.
Seizures are a common side effect of malignant brain tumors, and often controlled with a variety of anti-seizure medications. There will be times where seizures can break through medication control, leading to the frightening episode that occurred on Inauguration Day.
Family physician Doug Farrago asks some pointed questions about the stellar care that the Senator receives, observing that “he travels around with a team of physicians,” and, “most patients in [Senator Kennedy's condition] usually are in hospice care.”
Senator Kennedy should be commended for his efforts to bring about health care reform. But is the care he is receiving, including instant opinions and access from revered institutions like Massachusetts General Hospital and Duke University Medical Center, representative of the kind of care he’s advocating for the American public?
Related posts:
- Ted Kennedy has a malignant glioma
- Robert Novak on his brain tumor
- Senator Kennedy’s seizure
- The irony of Ted Kennedy and universal healthcare
- Operated for a brain tumor, found a tapeworm instead
- Hospice faces tough times
- Jett Travolta’s seizure and death, was Scientology a factor?
{ 8 comments }
I am a member of the democratic party but am offended by this hypocrisy.
A family practitioner
I find it pretty hard to blame the guy; he’s paying for most of it out of pocket. I have a problem with people being unable to afford adequate healthcare. Conversely, however, I’m ok with people who want to spend gobs of their own money for excessive healthcare – traveling physicians, consultations at MGH – if they think it will improve their outcome. It won’t in this case, unfortunately.
I agree with anon. 12:34. All the money in the world will not buy Mr. Kennedy another day. His care is futile.
Someone who has inherited $50,000,000.00 and NEVER had to work in his entire life is in no position to lecture WORKING-CLASS non-Democrats about anything.
He cannot “reform” health care because he has no authentic work experiences.
If that is not “being nice” — that’s on you, not me. I’m working-class, and I’m not going apologize for it.
I am fighting the same type of brain tumor that Ted Kennedy has. No matter how good the care, the survival rate is still measured in months for our cancer. Treatment is more like reasearch as not a great deal of progress has been made. Because not nearly the amount of people get GBM as breast, lung, colon and other cancers, reseearch is not well funded in comparison. I commend Ted Kennedy in his battle as the money he is spending may not help him live longer but may help find a treatment that will make a measurable impact on those who come after us.
Yet the proposed healthcare bill on the table will allow a commission or board to decide the medical application of life giving care by one’sage, political power, financial power and who they know. Of course we all know how important Senator Kennedy is to America, so, therefore we should keep him at various hospitals and treatments as long as necessary. Where did we get the information HE is paying for his medical care ? These senators have a health care plan that’s unlimited in breadth and scope. These are leftist elitists far superior to the great unwashed…
All people were created equal. It’s just that some are more equal than others.
If the Democrats, and Obama in particular, want us to have the kind of care that he has, then why doesn’t he submit to the legislatures that kind of health care bill. Fact is, he doesn’t want the kind of health care for himself that he is pushing for the rest of us.
Comments on this entry are closed.