A black doctor who claimed she was abused because of her race while suffering from COVID-19 at a hospital in Indiana has died, according to her family.
Dr. Susan Moore died Sunday, her cousin announced on Twitter.
Moore was diagnosed with the virus on November 29 and was admitted to the hospital. But she went viral on social media with videos claiming she had to beg for a CT scan and strapsivir, an antiviral drug that can speed up the recovery from the virus.
In a Dec. 4 video posted on Facebook, Moore claimed that doctors at Indiana University Health Hospital were even trying to send her home.
“This is how black people are killed when you send them home and they do not know how to fight for themselves,” she said in the video. “I had to talk to someone, maybe the media, someone, to tell people how I’m being treated in this place.”
Moore said she had to ask a white doctor at the hospital for treatment, but was told she would likely be sent home.
“I had so much pain from my throat, my throat hurt so much,” she said in the video. “I was devastated. He made me feel like a drug addict and he knows I’m a doctor. ”
Moore said she spoke to a patient attorney “who left me missing” and asked to be moved to another hospital.
When the doctors finally performed the scan, they found new damage to the lungs – but made her wait for hours for painkillers, she charged.
“And the nurse said to me, ‘Oh, I was marching in Black Lives Matter,'” Moore said. “I said to her, ‘No, I do not believe that.’ Not a bit. Not an iota. You would not even know how you marched. Probably can’t even spell it. ‘”
“I made it, and I maintain that if I were white, I would not have to go through it,” she said. “And that man never came back and apologized.”
In a statement Wednesday, the hospital said it did not comment on specific patients or their medical history.
But, the statement said, “as an organization committed to justice and reducing racial disparities in health care, we take allegations of discrimination very seriously and investigate any allegation.”
“Treatment options are often agreed upon and reviewed by medical experts from a range of specialties, and we stand by the commitment and expertise of our caregivers and the quality of care provided to our patients each day.”