Explainer: When There Isn't Enough Medicine To Go Around, Who Gets It?

Arlington TX

10 February, 2022

7:14 PM

Description

By Alexis Allison, Fort Worth Report February 10, 2022 For nearly seven decades of marriage, Dorothy M. Lampkin and her husband have gone everywhere together and done everything together — until she contracted COVID-19 in mid-January, and he did not. They'd been vaccinated and boosted, and had both managed to survive the first two years of the pandemic unscathed. But in the evening on Friday, Jan. 14, Lampkin, who's 87, struggled to breathe. She found out she was positive the next morning in the emergency room of Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Southwest in Fort Worth. After an overnight stay, she returned home, stable but sick, and on the recommendation of some relatives who work in medicine, began to seek monoclonal antibody treatment. Her primary care physician, whose referral she needed to secure the treatment, told her there was a line of others also waiting. If she could find Lampkin a slot, her physician would call her back. She never did. To read the full article, click here. Fort Worth Report is a nonpartisan, nonprofit news organization that produces factual, in-depth journalism about city and county government, schools, healthcare, business, and arts and culture in Tarrant County. Always free to read; subscribe to newsletters, read coverage or support our newsroom at fortworthreport.org.