Ripercorrendo la drammatica storia di JaMarcus Crews, un uomo di colore dell’Alabama malato di diabete e affetto da insufficienza renale, un articolo di ProPublica discute le disparità razziali nel sistema sanitario statunitense e in particolare nel settore dei trapianti.

Last winter, JaMarcus Crews forced his feet, however numb, to walk a paved public track in the town of Centreville, Alabama, until his calves cramped and sweat bloomed across his T-shirt. He knew the route well, from Library Street to Hospital Drive. He’d walked it as a kid, when he was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes and determined to shed weight. With freckled cheeks and soft eyes, JaMarcus was built big: 6-foot-1, wide shoulders, a round torso on skinny legs. Now, at the age of 36, he was back again. The diabetes had destroyed his kidneys, and he was trying to slim down so that he could get a transplant.

On Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 in the afternoon, JaMarcus attended a clinic in Tuscaloosa operated by DaVita, one of two for-profit giants in American dialysis. About 20 patients lined the room as clear plastic tubes, coursing with blood, snaked from each person’s arm or neck into a machine. The dialyzers cleaned the waste from their bodies, which their kidneys could no longer do. When it was over, and all anyone wanted was sleep, JaMarcus drove to the wide parking lot at Target to wait for his cashier’s shift. He missed working at the bank, but a nine-to-five was no longer possible.

Foto di Jose Antonio Cisneros, MD,PhD da Pixabay