Post by Logan on Mar 13, 2016 4:12:24 GMT -6
Puerto Rico is losing people. Due to a decade-long recession, more than 50,000 residents leave the U.S. territory each year—most for jobs and new lives on the mainland. This issue is especially affecting healthcare, where it's estimated that at least one doctor leaves Puerto Rico every day.
The mass exodus of doctors is creating vacancies that are hard to fill and waiting lists for patient care. Dr. Antonio Peraza is among those doctors who recently left for the mainland. He specializes in internal medicine and for nearly 14 years, had a private practice in Bayamon, Puerto Rico.
His was a wrenching decision to close his practice and take a job offer in Miami, Florida.
"I wish you could have seen my patients. My patients, the day I told them I was going to close my office, they cried," Dr. Antonio Peraza says. "I felt like I was betraying them."
For decades, long before Obamacare, Puerto Rico has had a government-run healthcare system that provides coverage for nearly everyone on the island. It offers generous benefits, but has never been adequately funded.
Read more: www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/03/12/469974138/sos-puerto-rico-is-losing-doctors-leaving-patients-stranded
The mass exodus of doctors is creating vacancies that are hard to fill and waiting lists for patient care. Dr. Antonio Peraza is among those doctors who recently left for the mainland. He specializes in internal medicine and for nearly 14 years, had a private practice in Bayamon, Puerto Rico.
His was a wrenching decision to close his practice and take a job offer in Miami, Florida.
"I wish you could have seen my patients. My patients, the day I told them I was going to close my office, they cried," Dr. Antonio Peraza says. "I felt like I was betraying them."
For decades, long before Obamacare, Puerto Rico has had a government-run healthcare system that provides coverage for nearly everyone on the island. It offers generous benefits, but has never been adequately funded.
Read more: www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/03/12/469974138/sos-puerto-rico-is-losing-doctors-leaving-patients-stranded