A01=Laurie Kaye Abraham
A23=David A Ansell MD
african american
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aging
anxiety
Author_Laurie Kaye Abraham
automatic-update
case studies
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=JBSD
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Category=MBP
chicago
chronic illness
COP=United States
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depression
diabetes
discrimination
disease
emergency room
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er
generations
health care
home nurse
hospice
IL
inner city
insurance
kidney dialysis
Language_English
medicaid
medical policy
melancholy
mental
modern medicine
mt sinai
nonfiction
PA=Available
poor
poverty
prescriptions
preventative
Price_€20 to €50
primary
PS=Active
race
racism
science
sociology
softlaunch
stress
technology
transplant
underserved communities
urban life
white doctors
Product details
- ISBN 9780226623702
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 22 Mar 2019
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
- Language: English
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North Lawndale, a neighborhood that lies in the shadows of Chicago's Loop, is surrounded by some of the city's finest medical facilities, Yet, it is one of the sickest, most medically underserved communities in the country.
Mama Might Be Better Off Dead immerses readers in the lives of four generations of a poor, African-American family in the neighborhood, who are beset with the devastating illnesses that are all too common in America's inner-cities. Headed by Jackie Banes, who oversees the care of a diabetic grandmother, a husband on kidney dialysis, an ailing father, and three children, the Banes family contends with countless medical crises. From visits to emergency rooms and dialysis units, to trials with home care, to struggles for Medicaid eligibility, Laurie Kaye Abraham chronicles their access--or more often, lack thereof--to medical care. Told sympathetically but without sentimentality, their story reveals an inadequate health care system that is further undermined by the direct and indirect effects of poverty.
Both disturbing and illuminating, Mama Might Be Better Off Dead is an unsettling, profound look at the human face of health care in America. Published to great acclaim in 1993, the book in this new edition includes an incisive foreword by David Ansell, a physician who worked at Mt. Sinai Hospital, where much of the Banes family's narrative unfolds.
Laurie Kaye Abraham is a freelance writer and senior editor of New York Magazine. She lives in Brooklyn, NY.
