Medical Care

In an era when the cost of medical care is downright frightening, a quiet revolution is going on inside Shepherd's Clinic, a trim suite just a few steps down from the sidewalks of St. Paul Street.Just listen to Kathy Moss, the administrator responsible for myriad chores, including making appointments and charging patients for their care."I'm not going to bill them; I'm not going to bill the patients," she said emphatically yesterday, a few minutes after the first patients walked into Baltimore's newest medical clinic.

WASHINGTON -- In his first response to calls for changes in the nation's health care system, President Bush is sending to Congress this week a plan to pressure states to limit court awards for medical malpractice.According to a draft of the proposal made available by White House officials, states would be encouraged to adopt limits on the amounts that malpractice victims can collect for pain and suffering, to set up mediation systems for resolving disputes and to strengthen medical licensing boards, among other things.

CHICAGO - Low-quality health care in the United States is costing nearly $400 billion a year, about 30 percent of the total $1.3 trillion annual medical expenditures in the nation, according to a study to be released today in Chicago. Medical errors and unnecessary treatments to misused drugs and bureaucratic waste - new research suggests such problems compromise quality medical care and each year cost private employers $1,700 to $2,000 per insured worker. The findings in a study commissioned by the Chicago-based Midwest Business Group on Health come as employers are wrestling with soaring health-care costs.

The mother of a 2-month-old child who died three months ago has been charged with second-degree murder for allegedly failing to seek medical attention for her sick infant, Baltimore police said yesterday. Sherry Marilyn Walls, 30, of the 6500 block of Rosemont Ave. in Northeast Baltimore was ordered held without bail by a District Court judge yesterday and was placed on suicide watch at the city Detention Center. Her next court date is scheduled for April 2. She was arrested Tuesday afternoon and charged late that night.

NEW YORK -- A wide-ranging, three-year study of young American children to be released today confirms some of society's worst fears: millions of infants and toddlers are so deprived of medical care, loving supervision and intellectual stimulation that their growth into healthy and responsible adults is threatened.The plight of the nation's youngest and most vulnerable children, the report says, is a result of many parents' being overwhelmed by poverty, teen-age pregnancy, divorce or work.

Aside from God, who has been endorsed by both major political parties, the big issue in the presidential campaign is health care. Every time we turn on the TV, we see either an ad from the Republicans telling us how horrible Al Gore's health-care plan is, or an ad from the Democrats telling us how horrible George W. Bush's plan is. So to summarize what we, as voters, have learned from this campaign: If Gore is elected: Health care will be controlled by...

WASHINGTON - With reports that hundreds of Army National Guard and Reserve soldiers mobilized for the war on terror are living in substandard military base housing and sometimes waiting months for medical care, the Army is sending more medical staff to the bases and moving the soldiers to better quarters. But Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, a Vermont Democrat and co-chairman of the National Guard Caucus, said he wonders whether the problems, which surfaced at Fort Stewart, Ga., are widespread. He wants an investigation of more than a dozen other bases where part-time soldiers stay before heading to duty overseas.

While Americans spent much of the August doldrums transfixed by the national debate over health care reform, state officials moved toward resolution of a long-running dispute involving the medical care inmates receive at the 150-year-old Baltimore City Detention Center. This week, officials announced a settlement in a lawsuit originally brought in 1971 aimed at ensuring jail inmates get adequate medical treatment for illnesses such as asthma, diabetes and infectious diseases, and that they are not held in facilities rife with safety hazards and vermin.

SHUMULLI, Iraq - Residents of this farming community southeast of Baghdad believed they had good reason to fear the approach of American troops. According to what Iraqi government officials have told them, the Americans planned to steal their land and kill all their young men. But a convoy of U.S. Marines rumbled into the community's palm fringed streets this week to attempt to prove them wrong. The Marines came bearing gifts of medical care, water and food for the community of 30,000.

Tony Davis is homeless, jobless, doesn't have a doctor, doesn't have medical insurance, but he does have ailments that could use a physician's touch. Despite his circumstances, Davis is fortunate. He's getting the medical attention he needs and from an unlikely source -- a full-fledged primary care doctor's office on wheels that visits two Baltimore homeless shelters each week. Davis, with bloodshot eyes, raspy voice and toothy smile, strolls into the huge white mobile home parked outside the Franciscan Center in Charles Village and looks for nurse practitioner Bill Gough, whom he has seen almost exclusively since first using the vehicle for medical care in May 2001.