Where Health Care Won't Go
A tuberculosis crisis in the Black Belt

http://harpers.org/archive/2017/06/where-health-care-wont-go/
Publisher:  Harper's Magazine
Year Published:  2017
Resource Type:  Article

A look at the outbreak of tubercolosis in Alabama, where a significant proportion of the population lacks proper health care. While State reaction was swift the lack of attention to some communities persists, as do the conditions for outbreaks to reoccur.

Abstract: 
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Excerpt:

Shane Lee, Marion's town doctor for the past quarter-century, pulled his taupe pickup truck into the parking lot. His clinic was kitty-corner to the health department, and he was having trouble finding a spot. It was Lee who had discovered the community's first severe case of TB, a little more than a year earlier. In October 2014, a nurse practitioner tore into his office with a fresh medical mask over her mouth, frantically waving an X-ray film. The mask, a tight-fitting turquoise respirator, was unusual. And then he looked at the radiography, which showed that the patient's lungs were nearly completely whited out. It was the worst case of tuberculosis that he had ever seen.