The People's Hospital

'A fascinating and beautifully written memoir that reminds us what we have with our NHS - and what we stand to lose' Christie Watson 'A tour de force... lyrical and riveting prose' Abraham Verghese, author of Cutting for Stone How do medical staff offer care and hope to patients and families when faced with the mayhem and lottery of a broken healthcare system? The People's Hospital is the story of how Ben Taub Hospital strives to provide healthcare to Houston's most vulnerable population, against the background of the chaos of American healthcare . By telling the frequently heartbreaking stories of patients who have had to battle their desperate financial circumstances as well as life-threatening disease - from Rogelio, a twenty-something ,undocumented immigrant from Mexico recently diagnosed with fatal kidney disease, to Roxana, a Salvadoran woman who appears in ER after a life-saving surgery resulted in her developing gangrene , and many more. These are extraordinary stories in which doctors are tied up with complex moral questions about money vs healthcare, and patients manipulate their health conditions in dangerous ways in order to be eligible for lifesaving treatment that they cannot afford.