Robin Cook - Fatal Cure

"Have you learned anything from this experience?" Bradley asked.

David and Angela said yes simultaneously. Angela spoke first: "I've learned that as health care is changed, doctors and patients better know all the rules of any supposed cost-cutting plan so they can make appropriate decisions. Patients are too vulnerable."

"I've learned," David said, "that it is dangerous to allow financial and business people and their bureaucrats to interfere in the doctor-patient relationship."

"Sounds to me as if you two doctors are against health-care reform," Bradley said.

"Quite the contrary," Angela said. "We think health-care reform is desperately needed."

"We think it's needed," David said. "But we're worried. We just don't want it to be a fatal cure like that old joke about the operation being a success but the patient dying. The old system favored over-utilization through economic incentives. For example, rewarding a surgeon according to how frequently he operated. The more appendixes or tonsils he removed, the more money he made. We don't want to see the pendulum swing in the opposite direction by using economic incentives to under-utilize. In many health plans, doctors are being rewarded with bonuses not to hospitalize or not to treat in some specific way."

"It should be the patient's needs that determine the level and type of treatment," Angela said.

"Exactly," David said.

"Cut," Bradley said.

The cameramen straightened up from their equipment and stretched.

"That was terrific," Bradley said. "That's plenty of material and. the perfect place to stop. It was a great wrap. My job would be a lot easier if everyone I interviewed were as articulate as you folks."

"That's sweet of you to say," Angela said.

"Let me ask you guys if you think the entire executive committee was involved," Bradley said.

"Probably most of them," David said. "All had something to gain from the hospital if it thrived and a lot to lose if it shut down. The board members' involvement wasn't as altruistic as most people would like to think, particularly Dr. Cantor, the chief of staff. His Imaging Center would have folded if the hospital went under."

"Damn!" Bradley said after he'd skimmed his notes. "I forgot to ask about Sam Flemming and Tom Baringer." He called out to the cameramen he wanted to do a little more.

David and Angela were puzzled. These names were not familiar to them.

As soon as the cameramen gave him the cue that the tape was rolling, Ed Bradley turned to David and Angela and asked them about the two men. Both said they could not place the names.

"These were two people who died in Bartlet Community Hospital with the exact same symptom complex as David's patients," Bradley said. "They were patients of Dr. Portland."

"Then we wouldn't know anything about them," David said. "They would have expired before we started working at the hospital; Dr. Portland killed himself shortly before we moved to town."

"What I wanted to ask," Bradley said, "is whether you believe that these two people could have died from radiation sickness as you allege your patients did."

"I suppose if the symptoms were the same in type, degree, and time frame, then I would say yes," David said.

"That's interesting," Bradley said. "Neither one of these two people had terminal illnesses or any medical problem other than the acute problem they'd been admitted with. But both had taken out multimillion-dollar insurance policies with the hospital as the sole beneficiary."

"No wonder Dr. Portland was depressed," Angela said.

"Would either of you care to comment?" Ed Bradley asked.

"If they had been irradiated, then the motive was even more directly economic than it was in the other cases," David said. "And it would certainly make our case that much more convincing."

"If the bodies were exhumed," Bradley asked, "could it be determined unequivocally whether or not they had died of radiation?"

"I don't believe so," Angela said. "The best anyone could say would be that the remains were consistent with radiation exposure."

"One last question," Bradley said. "Are you happy now?"

"I don't think we've dared ask ourselves that question yet," David said. "We're certainly happier than we were several months ago, and we're glad we're working. We're also thankful that Nikki has been doing so well."

"After what we've been through it will take some time to put it all behind us," Angela said.

"I think we're happy," Nikki said, speaking up. "I'm going to have a brother. We're going to have a baby."

Bradley raised his eyebrows. "Is that true?" he asked.

"God willing," David said.

Angela just smiled.