Black doctor, 52, dies of COVID-19 just two weeks after posting video accusing her physician of racial bias for 'refusing to believe she was in pain'
A black doctor from Indiana has died in hospital just two weeks after posting a viral video claiming that she was denied pain medication by a white physician who didn’t feel comfortable ‘giving her narcotics.’
Dr. Susan Moore, 52, died on Sunday due to complications from COVID-19.
She was first diagnosed with COVID-19 on November 29. Since then, she had been admitted to the Indiana University North Hospital.
While lying in a hospital bed and connected to an oxygen tube, Moore, who was struggling to speak, posted a video on Facebook on December 4 in which she accused the white doctor who was treating her of downplaying her complaints of pain.
Dr. Susan Moore, 52, died on Sunday due to complications from COVID-19. Her death comes more than two weeks after she posted a viral video on Facebook saying that she was not given adequate medical care while hospitalized at Indiana University North in Carmel, Indiana
She was first diagnosed with COVID-19 on November 29. In the Facebook video, Moore said that medical staff at IU North waited hours before giving her desperately needed pain medication
Moore said in the seven-and-a-half-minute video that despite her complaints to medical staff that she was in pain, the doctors wanted to discharge her from the hospital.
She also said in the video that the doctors were dismissive of her complaints that she was experiencing difficulty breathing.
It was only after scans and tests proved her right that the doctors believed her.
A spokesperson for the IU Health system told DailyMail.com: ‘IU Health President and CEO Dennis Murphy has published a letter to all who have reached out and shown concern for the care of Dr. Susan Moore.
Moore said she was given inadequate treatment by Dr. Eric Bannec (above)
‘Murphy has called for a third-party review with a diverse panel of healthcare and diversity experts to understand both the technical aspects of the care provided and the human elements of the patient experience.
‘He says the external review can also illuminate ways the system can live up to its commitment to the equitable treatment of all patients.
‘IU Health has a commitment to enhance a culture of inclusion that seeks, welcomes and values all people and will conduct anti-racism, anti-bias civility and respect training for every team member.’
Dennis M. Murphy, the president and CEO of IU Health, said that while he doesn't believe 'that we failed the technical aspects of the delivery of Dr. Moore’s care,' he acknowledged that 'we may not have shown the level of compassion and respect we strive for in understanding what matters most to patients.'
In the video, Moore said that she was being given inadequate medical care due to her race.
‘This is the second worst day here at IU North,’ Moore says in the video from December 4.
‘Yesterday, Dr. [Eric] Bannec wanted to send me home.
‘At that time I had only received two treatments of the remdesivir. He says: “Ah, you don’t need it. You’re not even short of breath”.’
Moore continued: ‘I said, “Yes, I am”.’
‘Then he went on to say: “You don’t qualify.”
‘I must’ve because I’ve gotten two treatments,’ Moore said.
‘Then, he further stated: “You should just go home right now. And I don’t feel comfortable giving you anymore narcotics.”
‘I was in so much pain from my neck,’ she said. ‘My neck hurt so bad.’
Moore said that Bannec and the medical staff at IU Health North (above) did not believe her when she told them that she was in pain and needed medication.
When Bannec told her he would not give her pain medication, Moore said: ‘I was crushed.’
‘He made me feel like I was a drug addict,’ she said. ‘And he knew I was a physician.’
Moore added: ‘I don’t take narcotics. I was hurt.’
She said she was ‘left wanting’ after speaking to a patient advocate who told her: ‘There’s not much I can do.’
Moore said she then asked to be sent to another hospital ‘if they’re not going to treat me properly.’
She said that she was then administered a CT scan of her neck and lungs which showed inflammation in those areas, confirming her earlier complaints of pain and discomfort.
Those scans finally convinced the doctors to give her pain medication.
‘You have to show proof that you have something wrong with you in order for you to get the medicine,’ Moore said.
Moore, a physician who lived in Indianapolis, leaves behind a 19-year-old son and her two parents, both of whom are suffering from dementia
‘I put forth and I maintain if I was white, I wouldn’t have to go through that.’
Moore added: ‘That man (Bannec) never came back and apologized.’
She then said that it took staff more than four hours to administer pain medication treatment.
‘I have been in pain since 7am, you know,’ Moore told the nurse.
‘I can’t be here every five minutes,’ the nurse is reported to have responded to Moore.
‘No, you were here once in four hours,’ Moore said.
‘That is not how you treat patients,’ she said. ‘Period.’
‘I don’t trust this hospital and I’m asking to be transferred.’
Moore also said that Bannec told her that if she stayed in the hospital she would eventually be discharged at 10pm the next Saturday.
‘Who does that?’ Moore said of being sent home from the hospital late at night.
When the nurse told Moore that she was ‘marching in Black Lives Matter,’ Moore responded: ‘I told her that I don’t believe none of that. Not one bit. Not one iota.’
Moore's death was confirmed by her 19-year-old son, Henry Muhammed (pictured left with his mother)
‘He wouldn’t even know how to march,’ Moore said of the nurse. ‘[He] probably can’t even spell it.’
'This is how black people get killed, when you send them home and they don’t know how to fight for themselves,' she said.
'I had to talk to somebody, maybe the media, somebody, to let people know how I’m being treated up in this place.'
Moore said that the physician who treated her knew that she was a doctor.
‘[Bannec] didn’t want the black doctor to have no medicine,’ she said. ‘Nothing.’
Moore then said that the nurse bragged that it was ‘because of him’ that she was getting pain medication.
She later posted an update on Facebook saying that she had spoken to the IU healthcare system’s chief medical officer and that her pain was being ‘properly managed.’
Moore said the CMO ‘stated that there will be some diversity training’ and that they were ‘working on’ getting an apology from Bannec.
After she was sent home by IU North, she was back in a different hospital - Ascension-St. Vincent in Carmel, Indiana - within 12 hours on December 7.
Moore said she experienced a spike in temperature and a drop in her blood pressure.
On her Facebook page, Moore described having to 'beg' the doctors to give her medicine to treat the pain in her neck
She accused the medical staff at IU Health North of 'trying to kill' her
After she was sent home by IU North, she was back in a different hospital - Ascension-St. Vincent (above) in Carmel, Indiana - within 12 hours on December 7. Moore said she experienced a spike in temperature and a drop in her blood pressure
‘Spiked a temperature of 103 and my blood pressure plummeted to 80/60 with a heart rate of 132,’ she wrote in an update on Facebook.
‘Those people were trying to kill me,’ Moore said of the medical staff at IU North.
‘Clearly everyone has to agree they (discharged) me way too soon.’
She gave a much better assessment of her care at Ascencion-St. Vincent.
‘They are now treating me for a bacterial pneumonia as well as Covid pneumonia,’ she said.
‘I am getting very compassionate care. They are offering me pain medicine.’
On December 10, Moore’s condition deteriorated to the point where she had to be intubated. She died on Sunday, two days after she was placed on a ventilator.
Moore’s 19-year-old son, Henry Muhammed, confirmed his mother’s death to The New York Times.
He said that by the time his mother was placed on a ventilator, she was coughing so much that she could barely speak.
When doctors intubated her on December 10, they set up a Zoom call in her room so a dozen relatives could speak to her while she lay unconscious.
On Twitter, there was outrage in reaction to Moore's death. Danielle Doyle said Moore was 'gaslit and stigmatized when asking for effective pain medication'
Another Twitter user wrote that 'HOW she died is unacceptable'
A woman who says that she was a classmate of Moore at the University of Michigan said that 'we must all pay attention and make this better'
'Black people are still being mistreated by the healthcare system, even those who WORK WITHIN the system,' tweeted one Twitter user
Dr. Carmen Brown wrote: 'She had to advocate for herself and was STILL ignored.'
A GoFundMe crowdfunding effort started for Moore's family has already raised more than $120,000
Doctors who followed Moore’s case from afar cannot definitively say that the claims of inadequate treatment at IU North directly led to her death.
Still, observers said her experience at the hospital is an all-too common occurrence for African American patients, many of whom do not get adequate care.
Muhammed also told the Times that his mother suffered from an underlying condition - sarcoidosis.
He said his mother was frequently admitted to the hospital to be treated for the condition, which is an inflammatory disease that attacks the lungs.
Muhammed said that his mother routinely needed to struggle to get adequate care whenever she was ill.
‘Nearly every time she went to the hospital she had to advocate for herself, fight for something in some way, shape or form, just to get baseline, proper care,’ he said.
In the United States, black people and Latinos are almost three times more likely to die from COVID-19 then whites, according to the Centers for Disease Prevention (CDC), which cited economic disparities.
A GoFundMe crowdfunding effort started for Moore's family has already raised more than $120,000.
