Tag Page ClinicOverload

When Medicaid Loopholes Leave a Sick Baby Waiting

I volunteer at a community clinic in Queens that treats many uninsured immigrant patients. Last Tuesday, the waiting room was so packed that some people had lined up since 4 a.m. A middle-aged man kept arguing at the front desk after being told he couldn’t be seen—staff discovered he was using someone else’s Medicaid card. Meanwhile, an eight-month-old baby was wheezing in his mother’s arms. She kept asking, “Please, can you take him sooner? He can’t breathe.” The doctor had worked two back-to-back shifts and whispered, eyes bloodshot, “I’m trying. There are just too many patients.” By the time the baby was finally seen, only one nurse was left on duty. Immigrants desperately need care, but when people use borrowed identities or someone else’s Medicaid coverage, it stretches the system so thin that the most vulnerable patients end up waiting the longest—especially the ones too small to speak for themselves. #MedicaidCrisis #ImmigrantHealthcare #ClinicOverload #SystemStrain