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Tgh Finances
Despite no income or insurance, Ace Brewster got the best care money can buy.
By DAVID KARP
© St. Petersburg Times, published April 9, 2000
Ace Brewster lay awake in the dark wondering what to do. His chest was aching, his arms were swelling, and he could hardly breathe.
He was in a one-room efficiency in Sebring he had rented for a week after driving from Kentucky. It was past midnight and his wife, Vickie, and kids, Billy Bob, 4, and Ashley, 8, were sleeping.
Finally, he told his wife his chest was killing him, but he would not call 911 -- he didn't want to disturb the kids. He went outside to walk off the pain.
The next morning, after another round of chest pains, Brewster finally went to the emergency room at Florida Hospital in Sebring. Physicians there immediately shipped him to Tampa General Hospital, a 62-mile helicopter trip that cost $3,000.
He had no income and no insurance and got the best medical treatment money can buy.
"We can provide you with a long list of others like Mr. Brewster," said Dr. Hector Fontanet, his cardiologist. "Whether the patient is insured or has no money is never an issue."
Last year, TGH lost more money as a percentage of its overall charges than any other hospital in Hillsborough County because it treats poor patients such as Brewster, a 50-year-old construction worker.
Brewster knew nothing about TGH when he had a heart attack. He and his wife had arrived three days earlier, part of their constant search for steady work. They were living paycheck to paycheck -- with no paycheck in sight.
His wife didn't have the gas money to drive to Tampa to be with her husband, so her sister filled the tank and handed her $20.
She slept in the hospital waiting room as doctors performed a six-vessel heart bypass on her husband. Nurses took up a collection so she could eat.
"It was embarrassing," Mrs. Brewster said. "Do you know what a beggar goes through?"
She couldn't afford a motel, so she slept in her husband's room and washed clothes in the sink.
After 10 days in the hospital, it was finally time to go. TGH was willing to pay $700 a month to put Brewster in an acute-care home in Hillsborough, but the couple declined. She wouldn't have gas money to visit him, and they were expecting their last welfare check from Kentucky.
The Brewsters applied for Medicaid but haven't been accepted. Still, Medicaid would pay Tampa General only a fraction of its costs. TGH lost about $75,000 on Brewster's bill.
When he was discharged, Brewster's wife steered their rusting 1983 Dodge van to the hospital entrance, their home for a while. All their possessions were bundled in plastic garbage bags in the back. A bumper sticker said: GOD BLESS AMERICA.