March 11, 2025 • 44 mins
In this episode, we confront one of the most devastating consequences of Kodak’s industrial legacy: its impact on public health. For decades, the communities surrounding Kodak’s operations in Rochester have faced alarming health disparities—rising cancer rates, respiratory illnesses, and other chronic conditions linked to toxic pollution. Savannah unpacks the harsh reality of how environmental contamination has disproportionately affected vulnerable populations, especially children and low-income families.
But this episode is not just about the problem—it’s about the fight for solutions. How do you heal a community that has been exposed to industrial pollution for generations? What policies or healthcare interventions are needed to address these long-standing health disparities? And most importantly—how can we prevent this from happening again in other communities? If you are concerned about the intersection of health, equity, and environmental justice, this episode is essential listening.
Connect with our Environmental Justice Lab community:
Instagram: @envjusticelab
YouTube: @envjusticelab
Email: theenvironmentaljusticelab@gmail.com
Don’t forget to subscribe and rate the podcast wherever you listen! Support our work by joining the Supporters Club: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-environmental-justice-lab--5583745/support
But this episode is not just about the problem—it’s about the fight for solutions. How do you heal a community that has been exposed to industrial pollution for generations? What policies or healthcare interventions are needed to address these long-standing health disparities? And most importantly—how can we prevent this from happening again in other communities? If you are concerned about the intersection of health, equity, and environmental justice, this episode is essential listening.
Connect with our Environmental Justice Lab community:
Instagram: @envjusticelab
YouTube: @envjusticelab
Email: theenvironmentaljusticelab@gmail.com
Don’t forget to subscribe and rate the podcast wherever you listen! Support our work by joining the Supporters Club: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-environmental-justice-lab--5583745/support
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Welcome to the Environmental Justice Lab. I am your host,
doctor Leslie Joseph. Thank you so much for being with us.
And we still have our very special guests, Savannah Domitch
with us. Savannah, how are you doing.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
I'm doing good. How are you doing this fine brush day?
Speaker 1 (00:39):
I'm doing very well. And this is very brisk, so
even in South Carolina it's snowing, So it's just weird.
It's weird how cold it is everywhere I go. And
so anyway, we have been speaking with Savannah over the
last couple of months about Legacy environmental Injustice. She is
(01:02):
from Rochester. She knows all about what's going on there,
and in particular the Kodak facility and how that's impacted
life in Rochester. I think last episode we talked about
some of the health implications, some of the health issues
and the pollution specifically that comes or that came from
(01:22):
Kodak and its facilities. But on this episode, we want
to get more into the actual care for the people.
Healthcare specifically, what do people do once they are sick
from this pollution and from all the issues that Kodak
(01:44):
brings to this community. And so we're going to spend
some time on this episode talking about that with Savannah.
She knows, and she's going to help us understand more
clearly what happens once somebody gets sick in Rochester. So
Savannah kick us off, tell us some of the things
we need to know about the healthcare system in general
(02:05):
and what happens in Rochester specifically.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Definitely. So I think to start off with healthcare like
in general, I first must like put a caveat thought,
like I am not a healthcare expert by any sense.
I'm gonna try to keep things not like super super specific,
but you're more like general as well. And now we
got listeners all across the world who may or may
not be super familiar with the US healthcare system. So
in the US healthcare system, we don't have like one
(02:30):
national system. It's a bunch of like different separate insurances,
if you will. So there's mixture of public and mixture
of private. Most of the people in the US who
are ensured tends to be through like a private plan,
so that could be like for somebody's employer or then
make gus you purchasing on their own. So hundred of
(02:51):
different names. You know, you have your excell's boot Crosses,
Blue Shield. You have your SIGNA, you have your Allegiance,
you have your MVP, you have your ETNA. You could
keep on going and going and going, because there's so
so many of them. And then for the more public
health cares, we're looking at the Medicaid and then the
medicare very similar names, but they do two different things.
(03:12):
So typically Medicare is for those who are older that
may be retired, and that's kind of that you pay
into over the course of your life, and then the
Medicaid it's more for like low income families, low income
people who maybe cannot get an ensoyer employer sponsored plan
or cannot afford it. And there's also like a few
(03:33):
other people like if you have like if you were
like in the military, you can get like a Veterans
of Fair plan. Sometimes it depends on how long your
service was, what you're making. But even still, even with
all these different plans, about eight to ten percent of
the US depending on what survey you look at from
what year, is uninsured. So yes, you can still go
(03:53):
to facilities to get medical care, but you're gonna be
paying a ton of money out of pocket because usually
the insurance is helping you to afford things. And even
even still insurance can be very very stingy. Sometimes you like,
for example, say you want to get like an elective surgery,
(04:13):
they have in a to me that like you know, medically
necessary kind of thing. Big, it takes time. So my roommate,
uh last year actually was from a different country and
she was like, oh, I can just go to the
dermatology dermatologist like three days, and I'm like, now you can't.
I mean you might need you might need a three
month wait for that. Not to mentionally, you got to
(04:35):
make sure that they take whatever you know, health insurance
they're given the students here And she was like, what,
that's not how it works where I'm from, And it
was like a whole thing and hope, hopefully, you know,
she eventually got to the dermatologist. But like the dementtalogist
is also you know, a special relief service. So sometimes
your insurance would be like, well, first you need to
go to your you know, your general practitioner pridically that
(04:58):
person that you see like for your once a year
check up and be like, oh, you're doing great kind
of thing to even like get like a referral that
you might need to see somebody, so you have to
go through all these steps in hoops to kind and
get the care that you need. And then also there's
like steps and hoops at the insurance as well, and
then sometimes even still you get this gynormous bill at
the end. It's not uncommon to hear people in the
(05:19):
US having tens of thousands of dollars in medical debt
because the insurance will not cover certain policies, certain procedures.
There's things like co payments, cost sharing, deductible plans, which
is all, to be honest, up beyond me to be
explaining exactly how that works in farct off of each
planets live bit differently, But that's just kind of a
(05:40):
brief overview of the US health system and then going
more into like how it works in Rochester. From my experience,
it's more like if you do not have insurance, and
like typically you want to avoid the doctor at all costs,
almost like something's like you're dying because like it's just
a lot of cost. You understand that it's going to
be very expensive, which can be very unfortunate because sometimes
(06:03):
that you might you know, be suffering longer than you
need to be suffering, or you may not. Your body
might heal itself over time, but you shall have like
lingering complications because you really should have got maybe a
prescription for that or something. And so if you're doing
really poorly, typically you go to the emergency room first,
from what I've observed, or maybe perhaps even the urgent
(06:25):
care if you happen to have insurance. It depends on
the insurance. It's all dependent on you know where the
insurance wants to go. I can tell like you numerous
times I've been on a little portal, the little portal finder,
and you're like, I'm looking for this, Okay, here are
my options. Let me to start calling them. Are they
even taking new patients? Because sometimes they aren't taking new patients.
(06:47):
So I would say one of the struggles in Rochester
in New York is that we have a shortage of
general practitioners. I think there's probably more proper term for that,
but basically the people who are like kind of like
or like for kids, if we couldn't call it repediatricians
just assured of them. So for example, like I myself
do not have an adult doctor, I still have like
(07:07):
my childhood doctor because I can't find anybody. There's like
you're like woman if in your patients' there's too many
people now have people going around, so I can make
it really really hard to get those referrals if you
need that. And then also sometimes general partitioners can notice
things that year to year, like oh, your mode has
really grown since the last time I saw you last year.
(07:29):
Well maybe you like being like, oh, I you know,
I see it's you know day, it looks the same
to me because like over time you can't call and
notice like really small changes. And maybe maybe that's a
kid who like didn't find out that you know, your
modus cancer or something, and if you hadn't gone to
your general practitioner, you would have never have known until
it was like really really bad. It's just also ami
(07:50):
roctors are also we have a giant I would say
perhaps over sacuation of medical services, So there's tons of
buildings everywhere. I think I've previous podcast I mentioned like
an urgic care is like popping up everywhere just because
like one of our major employers is the healthcare industry.
But just because they're everywhere doesn't mean you can, you know,
(08:11):
get in there necessarily or that it is affordable to
get in there, And I think that's a big concern.
I know times we talked about, uh, there's a lot
of family and recistrantform living in poverty. Cause is a
big thing. If if unless it's like I'm seriously concerned
for my life kind of things and things very very wrong,
you're not gonna want to go because it's just you
(08:32):
know that it's gonna you know, perhaps break your budget
for that month or put you into further debt or
into new debt. So I guess that's kind of my
my my take on the Orchestra health system. I'm sure
someone who you know does billing for it or like
after like works on like the medical fear and feeds
patients as like there every single day thing would have
probably some more elaboration that they could give. But I
(08:54):
don't want to be given out wrong information either about
how how things work.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Yeah, no, that's fine, that's information I guess just for
clarification because a lot of us wouldn't know the differences.
You talked about going through the emergency room, talk about
going to your general practitioner, who you're saying there's fewer
and fewer of so they're harder to find. And then
you made the comment about urgent cares popping up everywhere,
(09:20):
and so could you talk more about the differences between
all those three Because if I'm if I'm a poor
person and I'm sick and I'm concerned about costs and
I don't know what to do or where to go,
I don't have a general practitioner that I kind of
always see. Would I go to the emergency room? Would
I go to the urgent care that's popping up everywhere?
(09:42):
Do I have? What do I think about what would
be the best option for me? Because I guess there's
pros and cons to both. So what would I actually do?
If I'm a Rochester native in that situation, I would.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Say, I would say, you'd probably go to the earth
care first. So we have three different emergency rooms service
Rochester General Hospital, Strong Memorial Hospital, and then High End Hospital.
And typically, like when I was saying, like Rochester, like
the Rochester General one, you only go to that emergency room,
like if you're you're pregnant or your shock. So in
(10:17):
that case, like that's just it has like a bad
reputation that emergency room, particularly the other ones have a
bit of a nice calmer reputations. So in that case,
it also depends. It's like also like what you're experiencing.
So for example, like when I broke my wrist, my
(10:37):
family first took me to like the urgent care, being like, well,
we know it's going to be cheaper. The problem is
they don't reset broken bones in the urgent care. You
have to then, you know, go to the emergency room
to get that done. So sometimes they you know, they
transition you over depending on like what kind of service
you need. But in my my general thing is more
like the urgent care because people understand that the emergency room,
(10:59):
unless you're like like having a herd attack on the floor,
you might be sitting there for six hours and that's
a waste of you know, your time. If you know,
wait patient needs to be seen and urgent care might
be okay, you might be waiting for an hour, that's
a bit better, especially if like you don't know how
bad your condition is. There's also like also like sometimes
(11:19):
urgent cares, you might have one like nearbying your neighborhood
an emergency room, you may need to get on the
bus for that. You don't want to call an ambulance
because that's really going to be expensive, or you have
to like wait for your friend as well. So it's
it's a matter of like how close something is as well.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
I would say, oh, it's interesting, Yeah, that makes sense.
And so I guess the idea of having these urgent
cares pop up is that they become more accessible to
the community. From my experience, they're not that much cheaper
than other approach is definitely not cheaper than your primary
(11:54):
care physician or your general practitioner. That kind of person
is definitely the cheapest option. And if you're so listening
and you're in America, you need to find one, you
really do, because the way our system is set up,
that's the best way to reduce those costs and to
get the care that you need on a consistent basis.
And so we're set up that way. You're right. These
(12:14):
private insurance companies, they're definitely profit driven, and so one
way of profiting is denying claims, denying certain procedures, denying
care in different instances, and so they do have a
lot of resources spent on determining if something is medically
necessary or if you have the proper referrals or a
(12:34):
proper administrative things in place to get the care you're
looking for. So there is a lot of red tape,
a lot of hoops to jump through in many cases
to really get significant care. So it's good to have
that overview of the healthcare system. It's good to understand
the kind of landscape that's in Rochester. So now let's
(12:55):
dive into Kodak and what they've done and in how
that's affected the health in the community. And so I
know a lot of people who when they can tie
their condition to a company, you want you know, restitution.
You want that injuring company to pay you for your hardship,
(13:18):
for your suffering, for your medical costs, for your loss
and pay from not working, disability, all these different things.
Is that something that's been discussed, Is that happening. Has
that happened in Rochester? Has Codect done anything in that regard?
Speaker 2 (13:38):
I would say there's a sense that beyond like the
traditional I would say, like your auditional like ohshaw, you
know your worker's compensation from the past, Know, it's really
not been done to part of the issue. Since they
want bankrupt they don't really have funds to be giving
these restitutions. If you will, because I mean they're pretty
(14:00):
much they spent it using other they spend it for
other things. I mean, if they're counting pensions as well,
they're also going to cut Like any chance that you know,
you got oh you got sick from our chemical, it's like, well,
that's too bad. The only exception that I am aware
of is for asbestos, and the reason for that is
because the money is not coming from CODEC. It is
coming from the asbestos manufacturers themselves, who way back when
(14:24):
they want bankrupt, they had all they's all different trust
funds that could pay out to pay people for you know,
metoclioma or other especialist related conditions. So in that case,
you're not actually even though you were exposed to especialist CODEC,
you're not really in a way, I would say, for
lack of a better word, suing CODEC. You are more
suing you know, these especialist companies which allowed which you know,
(14:48):
put its products into CODEC. So it's kind of like
a weird workaround. But unfortunately there's really nothing like if
you can say that, well you can't I would, or
you can't say with definitive cause hey, my kid got
you know, brain cancer from codek. You can't prove that,
which is one of the hard things about cancer in general.
(15:09):
But unfortunately, even if you're convinced, you all, they're gonna
be like, well, very sorry to hear that, but we
have nothing to give you. Because even when they established
their trust fund when they went bankrupt, it was only
for environmental things. So the clean up, you know, clean
up the river, do some you know, long term molecule
with the groundwork, groundwater. So I mean, I'm glad they
(15:34):
made the trust fund for that, but not everything. Unfortunately,
there would be a fund to pay out things for
for these employees.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Oh that's interesting. So there was nothing set aside for
people people who work there, people who live nearby, people
who go to school there, people who are exposed. There's
nothing available. There was never anything available from Kodak for
those individuals except in this very particular asbestos I guess
agreement they made it is.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Possible in the past, it was like, well if you
got like for them, they knew that, like the workers
are having higher risk of pancreatic cancer. So there's possible
documentation from like the eighties that they may have been
you know more gracious of say, like your insurance plan,
but now that they're bankrupt, there's nothing left over. Anything
(16:22):
that there may have once been, it's gone, it's been
used to other purposes.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Essentially, Oh man, goodness gracious. So huh. So we have
the system in Rochester of healthcare. We have Kodak who
has polluted and harmed people from their operations in Rochester.
There's no money available, So what's the like, what's the
(16:51):
next thing. What can we do now to help or
to at least get people to understand these connections and
advocate in a better way.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
I guess the first thing that like the advocate when
something you first got to understand it. I guess I
would suggest anybody who's interested, even like in their own
community basing its own issue is for like education, I
would argue, so understanding who's affected, how long ago, what
are the lingering effects kind of thing, and then also
like what are the effects? So just to start like
(17:27):
the advocacy work, and then like I think about like
a lot of things possible. It's like mutual aid, where
the community is essentially supporting members in its own community
when they can't you know, get money from other from
other sources often because those other sources are the ones
that are directly doing them harm. So like a good
example I think a lot of people are familiar with.
It's like the idea of like go fund me kind
(17:49):
of thing. Here's here's me, here's my plight, here's why
I need money. Would you please consider the you know,
donating their donating to me. And I think that's a
good example, but alone is not enough. It's also like
the sense of like like in personality, and it's like
you don't have like that like people like in a
way campaigning for you, Like yeah, guess you're gonna be
(18:13):
one of probably millions of different like causes on gofunding,
which are you know, the good causes, but people won't
go to know that you know, you need help, which
is what I also think like community organizations would be
like great, like different meetings. The issue unfortunate with all
community organizations is some of them, you know, they used
just prior to COVID, and then you know COVID happened,
(18:34):
you stop meeting in person, then stop getting done as
much like you just less connection as well. So we
really also see like some communities as well, they don't
know each other as well, because these community organizations, well
maybe you have like you know, you're block party maybe
once or twice a year. It's not happening anymore because
you know, COVID said, you can't get together. And then
(18:55):
once these things tend to lapse for a year or two,
it's just hard. It gets them back up and running again.
And then I guess another I would like thinking that
we could do to you know, support these people is
so I mentioned a lot of people in the US
are uninsured. Uh in general and Rochester, the uninsurment rakes
(19:16):
are about four to five percent. So it's possible that
maybe these people have been you know, denied from insurance.
They don't they don't think they qualify, but maybe they
actually do qualify. Because to get medicaid you have to
go through a bunch of hoops. You gotta like a
bunch of PaperWorks, and you gotta show up for a
(19:37):
meeting to be like I really do exist kind of thing.
And there's also going to be very hard to like
navigate exactly okay, what exactly does my plan cover? Kind
of thing. One of my responsible for so helping people
to really understand insurance, I mean, for me, I'm like,
I'm on my mother's insurance, but I don't understand it
(19:57):
all that well. All I know is you show you
go to provider on the list, You show up, you
give them a bunch of cards, You give them a card,
give them you know, your credit card at the end,
and you hope all is good. But like helping I
guess making insurance more understandable that people are kind of
like being like, I guess an interpreter because it's so
much of me. She's like, I feel like you know legalese.
(20:18):
And also I would also challenge like people out there
who are writing these plans, please make it accessible to
like your common person who does not like do everything
in the healthcare industry. I understand you probably can't change
the actual language of the documents for you know, legal reasons,
but at least like an though like you know, general audience,
(20:39):
not any audience is truly general, but like in the experience,
like a general audience that anybody can understand what you're
trying to get at, what the what they can do
because as they because we have to have community members
trying to interpret this, and some of those community members
they're really like well meaning but they could be like
people like me, where it's just like I mean, well,
but I'm going to try my best to interpret this
(20:59):
and if it's wrong, oops kind of thing, and that
that can be a you know, a thousand dollars mistake
because I interpreted something incorrectly, And then I could I
could keep on going. I think I could talk about
how like it takes forever to get a hold of
somebody and sharing sometimes or it's like that's not my department,
let me transfer you, and it's like ten minutes later,
(21:20):
that's also not my apartment, let me transfer you. And
it's like by the end, you're like one hour later,
you'reself fed up. You just want to be like just
be done with it. Or you know, of course, like
the ROBO's like I don't understand you. Can you please repeat,
and it's like, yeah, please, just operator operators, you know,
But that's been me. Sometimes it's like please let me
(21:41):
talk to a human. But I think there's there's there's
a lot of different things that people can do. But
I think the first thing is also just being aware
of people in your community who is who is suffering,
because I think a lot of times suffering can sometimes
be hidden and in many ways people are indeed suffering,
and there is a limit about like how much you
should be willing to ask, especially like if you maybe
(22:03):
do not know someone is personally, but like I would
like you know, your co workers, even your neighbors, Like
some of them may not want to talk about it,
if a lot of them may be like, yeah, this
is something that's really important to me because it's impacting
my life in a big way. And therefore, if you're
willing to try to, you know, help me, even if
it's like maybe like, oh, I have my treatments on
(22:23):
this day, I can't make dinner in the evenings. Maybe
it's a simple as something as simple as that. It
doesn't need to be, you know, trying to help people
see this really hard insurance policy. I guess it's like
what the person needs as well as what you are
able to give as well.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Yeah, yeah, So is any of that happening in Rochester
that you're aware of? Are there things or these groups
or activities or things like that raising awareness helping people
with insurance navigating a system. Is that happening?
Speaker 2 (22:52):
I would say yes, but not to the extent that
it needs to be happening. So for example, sometimes it's
like sources that I know about are like they typically
deal with like refugees, so they have those services to
help the refugees understand, which is very important to't get
me wrong. But like also like people who maybe have
lived in Machester their whole life also need to be
(23:14):
aware of how these services work. But since these organizations
are specifically catering to refugees, they feel like, hey, I'm
not welcome to get my advice from here. There are
also some like legal advice clinics as well, some of
which are freer than you know, others some costs associated
with them, And I would say there is also like
(23:35):
support groups as well for people who are who you know,
are you know, have uh, you know, physical illnesses as well.
Like I was looking at the like the hospital paid
and it's like, oh, this group is like like you know,
young adults living with this, older adults living with this,
people get in general with this. So these some of
these groups do exist, but like I think there's also
(23:57):
a sense where it's like always like oh, you know
people with this and their caregivers, Well, I'm not a caregiver,
so they're not going to want to hear from me
kind of thing, but perhaps some of them they would
like to hear, you know, some support from the community
as well. And I think the hospitals could probably do
a better job also getting like awareness and out about
(24:19):
these groups. Besides, you know, onlike they're dedicated like oh
today is national think we had a cancer Days you know,
highlight out group, but like highlighting these groups more regularly
as well. But I will also like I may not
be the target audience for their advertising as well. So
maybe that's why I just like never ever see it,
or maybe I never ever see it because there really
isn't any so it's it's hard to tell because you know,
(24:43):
my my demographic as well.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
So yeah, no that makes sense. I mean, obviously you
wouldn't be as now then, but you are a member
of the public, and so the idea of seeing and
being aware of these things would be what the goal
would be for a lot of these organizations to at
least share the information just in case you're interested in
engaging the service, you know where to go or who
to talk to, and so that would be important. So
(25:10):
in a lot of places, the way that the communities
kind of function and operate. What they experience often drives
what's available to them. Right, So if you have a
certain industry, you have supporting, you know, facilities and services
that support the industry and blah blah blah. Think about
it on the reverse, if we know that Kodak was here,
(25:34):
that these health issues are correlated to exposure to chemicals
from Kodak, do we have or not we does Rochester
have like the kind of healthcare system, you know, health centered?
I think there's a medical school there, doctors specialists who
(25:56):
understand the impacts the health impacts of these exposures, and
are they able to provide the kind of services and
the kind of support two people who have those illnesses
because we know that it's more prevalent because of the exposure,
Like is that available as well? Is that part of
(26:17):
the system in Rochester?
Speaker 2 (26:19):
M hm? So I guess I think there's like two
different questions in there. So, Like one is like do
we have like the facilities to like treat a variety
and conditions? And I would say yes, there's a tony
of different centers. Is a fund for everything? Probably not?
But I feel like there's also like you know, people
constantly funding you know, we got like you know, the
(26:40):
cancer center. We have like the you know, the center
for like people were pregnancy. We have like different like
we have like an eye institute, we have like a
skin institute. We have a bunch of different things because
we do actually have two different like large medical employers,
so the University of Rochester Medical System and then the
Rochester Regional House since Center that both kind of operate
(27:02):
out of the Rochester metric Podican area, and a lot
of people often from like the outlying like more like
rural areas will often like come in for those specialty
treatments because they're president in Rochester, which I think is
great that we even have you know, this spec like
the you know, the specialized people and the equipment and
the centers to be offering this. But the problem is
(27:25):
also there's a lack of connection between like actually like
we say in the environmental health essentially all the pollute
into all the chemicals in the air, the history the
legacy pollution, and then actually like the medical diagnosis. So
I actually thought it was really interesting. So I was
at a breakfast kind of like a lunch and learn
(27:46):
was more like a breakfast and learn if you will,
and one of the guys from the environment of Protectric
Agency was talking about how there was a major like
environmental incident, like the chemicals were spilled, there was containing
about the water being contamined. Farmers were all like, can
my cows drink the water? They're we need to like
evacuate all my cows pastor because if my pastor contain
(28:08):
made all the airborne cantam. Next, and so the EPA went, well,
if people are so concern about their health, their animals health,
they should go talk to their doctor. So people went, Okay,
I don't know what to do. Let me go talk
to my doctor. And then the problem is the doctor went,
I don't know because they had never really had enough
training in this because unfortunately, unless you're like environmental health
(28:30):
and like safety specialists, which is his own unique degree
while you're studying in university, you're not really trained that
much on environmental health. Besides maybe that like secondhand smoke,
can you know, cause lung issues in children? Beyond that,
that's pretty much all the I feel like, all the
environmental health you know, awareness that people get, which is
really unfortunate because a lot of people, when they have
(28:53):
times of crisis, if they trust their doctor. They're gonna
they're gonna see the nugets something who they trust, someone
who you know, know, I trust them, they should know
what they're talking about. If they do give me an answer,
and then what actually happens, people are very maybe not disappointed,
but more like let down in the sense that, oh,
the person who I trust, who usually know what's going on,
(29:15):
doesn't know either. And I think also you can see
that in like medical school curriculums as well. We're so
focused on teaching people how to you know, properly, you know,
treat patients, talk to patients, how to use the system,
how to maybe do the surgery, do the procedures that
sometimes we neglect to realize the cause of this could
(29:37):
very well be, you know, something in the environment, and
sometimes it just isn't a lot of collaborations between disciplines
like go to like the allergies ages might be like, oh, well,
you you have a you have a grass allergy, for example,
and then that can help you to get something about yourself. Well,
then that thing it has in oh there tends to
be a lot of arsenic in the air or something
(29:58):
that could cause that could also be causing a health issue.
But so there's this lack of connection besides like the
regular like I would say, like this seasonal seasonal like
environments and then the actual like you know, we're coming
from the factories as well. And it's it's unfortunate because
I think a lot of cancers do have environmental gresths
like we've seen of Kovac, where like you know, the
(30:20):
methanine chloride even like things like the dioxide are causing
these like visual, really bad physical elements in people. But
it's more like the sense of oh, you're just one
of the very unlucky few who got it, or you know,
maybe you oh, you just don't live in a good neighborhood.
It's a lot of like particulate matter, and it would
(30:40):
just extend to that least like bad air quality in general,
not realizing what exactly is in that air quality that
could be maybe contributing to or in framing your symptoms
as well.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
Interesting, that is interesting and that's something to think about too.
I mean, we do need doctors and health professionals who
understand these connections, and particularly if you live in a
place where this kind of pollution, these kinds of issues
are more prevalent you would want to be able to
go to your doctor and say, hey, I live by
(31:15):
the plant downtown or I work at this facility. And
I noticed me and my coworkers have the same types
of issues. What should we do? How should we think
about getting support and help versus just kind of being
lumped in with everyone else and not having a very specific,
(31:37):
targeted plan for helping with my healthcare issue that was
precipitated by this environmental situation that I'm in versus just
it being hereditary, genetic, or just having you know, just
being unfortunate in that regard. And so I completely agree
with that. And so with all that being said, and
(32:01):
with all that we know, now, what do you think
we should do? Like I'm listening, I heard what you said.
I understand now the situation in Rochester. I'm looking around
in my neighborhood and my community. Maybe there's something going
on there or maybe not. But I'm concerned about what
you're saying. What what can I do as a listener
(32:24):
to help or to be a part of the solution.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
M So I say earlier, the first thing to do
is to to be part of the solution, you first
must understand the problem. Otherwise you're not going to be
have the right solution to the actual problem. You're going
to even have a different even the relevant problem. So
actually education first comes first, which is can be kind
(32:49):
of challenging. But if you think about, like one, we
have the internet at great things down there, or even
just like since you live in your community, you know
people who know people who know things oftentimes, so start
networking as well, and it could be very you know
powerful when people get together as well. And another thing
(33:10):
that you could do I know I mentioned earlier go
fundme is it did not fix the systemic issue of
really overpriced healthcare, hard to reach healthcare. But I think
it would be we'remissed to recognize that what we're trying
to you know, fix the overall system, perhaps that we're
leaving all these people behind in the meantime. I to
(33:34):
go fund me is a band aid, but we don't
want also, you know, people to be no in a sense,
you know, be bleeding out what we're trying to like
fix the whole person. We also want to like maybe
poke themselves on something because also the system is not
going to like fix itself in a year most likely,
and people are going to need help and care in
the meantime, So I would say, like, maybe maybe you
(33:57):
know somebody who you know is not to go fund me,
maybe you can help somebody who needs it if it
ever go for me, or at least inform them about other,
you know, mutual aid support apings that they could engage
in from making national healthcare better. Unless you're like a
healthcare like official executive, a policy maker, a member of
the government, I mean, you can write as many posts
(34:20):
as you want. You can, you know, pressure people in
a sense that you know it has to change, but
it's hard because chances are you're probably not the one
actually writing the policy. So I'm like, so something about
like how else could you, you know, raise awareness about
like what you want to see. I know some organizations
(34:42):
are very very big on like we need to call
your member of Congress, we need to write your letter
of Congress. We might try get show birth the office too,
like on a lobby date or something, and I think
that that could definitely be helpful. But I think there's
also cases where it's like their mind is made up
because of X, Y and Z, or they just they
just don't want to hear you. They'll be nice and
(35:02):
talk to you, but it's like they have, you know,
the party line to keep in tow with. I'm also
perhaps maybe a little uh negative, not optimistic about like
always talking individually to a member of Congress. But there
is such a thing. It's play the co will out there.
But I would also say if we don't need to
(35:24):
just throw off the entire system either. I remember hearing
that like people, and like other countries who have national
health care, they also find things to complain about their
system as well. So it's not like national health care
it's going to solve everything. It will lead to different
challenges as well. So not just being like, oh, we
should do this one thing, get national health care and
(35:46):
then all in all of our issues will be fixed.
Now we gotta recognize it's a caveat too. There are
pros and cons to both systems, and if we only
recognize the pros in one system, we're going to be
in a very very in place when we have to
actually be cognizant of the cons. I think also it
(36:07):
could be a matter of Unfortunately many times in the
US we don't get to choose what health insurance plan
we're on. So maybe there is a way that we
can maybe have more elections and different plans for people
on different cost structures. Even these things like I'm not
(36:27):
sure why you know, some even with some procedures cost
so much. It seems very very expensive. So maybe we
need to have more transparent billing as well, a lot
of times when it comes to billing, you see it, Okay,
I have a two equals this. Now I gotta go
figure out what the heck a two is where they
even properly build, because sometimes you are not properly build
and it's up to you to figure that one out.
(36:50):
So having more transparent building as well and being more
upfront about the cost, I would argue as well, because
like for example, like my father went to like an
outpatient facility, but the probably it was still a today
with the hospital, so he got charged both for the
practice and then the hospital fee. So he got double shot,
and he was very very unhappy because you're paying for
(37:11):
one service twice and it's never sometime it's very hard
to even find out that hey, they actually do this
until you actually start, like you know, calling people looking
at reviews, and then that just takes time. You know,
we're very short on time in our lives, especially like
if you're not you're not doing well and you may
not have time to be doing this. So I think
I talked to another you know, transparent billing can also
(37:32):
be a big key. There's just there's just so much
I think that that could be, you know, be fixed.
But he also recognized that, like there are people out
there who I'm sure like I know we talked about
like what we mentioned personally, like the ten point plan.
I don't have a ten point plan on how to
fix this. Probably somebody does, but it also needs to
be a will to do that ten point plan, both
(37:53):
on the side of one of the insurers, the doctors,
the public, the government, and trying to engage all those
stakeholders and get them to be enthusiastic about the same
things to be very very difficult, especially when we have
different agendas and they're making they're making money. I'm sure
you probably have things as well that you would like
(38:14):
to see changed. Do you have anything in particular.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
I mean, I'm not a fan of our current system whatsoever.
I mean, I think if there was a way to
at the very least reduce the prop the profit motive,
I think we would be able to focus more on
the healthcare aspects versus the trying to make money aspects
of it. Like like, you am not an expert either
(38:38):
in health care policy health care analysis. Obviously, people have
different views of what would be a good structure for
health care system, you know, the national versus the private,
some combination of the two. Obviously, the biggest change we've
had recent years is Obamacare coming in and kind of
(39:00):
reshaping what is available because I do think people like options,
like the opportunity to choose what they believe is the
best approach. So, I mean, most of us get our
insurance from our employers, and so whatever that employer is,
whatever their plan is, is kind of what you're going
(39:21):
to get from them. You know, if you have an
option of choosing a cheaper plan or plan that would
best fit your situation. People love choices, and so I
mean that might be another thing to think about. I
think what you said earlier is really important though, the
idea that as you advocate and talk about what you
(39:41):
believe is best. You know, even if you think certain
things are band aids, things like gofundmes, things like local
community actions, don't forsake those trying to go after the
big you know, national global shift and leaving your fellow
people believe out. Like you said earlier, I think it's
(40:02):
great to think, Okay, community first, we're here, Let's support
each other the best way we know how, and then
we'll continue to push people towards what we think is better.
But we're not going to abandon or neglect the people
who are currently suffering right now. As we do that,
(40:22):
We're going to do both, and if we have to choose,
we're going to help the people that are right around
us get better, because that's the whole point of the
system in the first place, is to improve the lives
of other people, and so I think that should be
front center. I know a lot of people, a lot
of activists who would tell me, hey, we're not even
thinking about the government. They're not going to help us,
(40:44):
they're not coming to help us. We look out for
each other. I don't take that approach, but I understand it,
and so I think some combination of the two would
be the best way forward. I don't know, Hopefully we'll
figure out something. And in the meantime, you graduate, get
(41:04):
yourself a good job with good health care benefits, so
you and your family can be supported and taken care
of as well. That's the system that we currently have,
and so make sure you do that. Savannah and anybody
else listening. Oh man, this was good. This was a
very good conversation. We're up on our time. But as always,
(41:25):
is there anything else, Savannah, that you want us to
know or think about or consider as we close out
this episode.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
I think I would just you know, rehash the earlier
points that we both touched on, like care for the community, advocate,
educate yourself, and maybe you can be a part of
that bigger change both in one like that, you know,
the national level, even the state level or your local level.
I think oftentimes we downplay about how much impact we
(41:55):
can possibly have. And if you can even talk to
people in your regular life, I'm sure that they would,
you know, love to tell you that how much you know,
how much that you mean to them, how much you
have done for them that has really, you know, touched
them in their lives. And I think if you can
we continue to do that, especially in the realm of
health care, maybe things will not improved, but every every
(42:17):
day of a person's life, every person's life matters, and
it's important to keep that in mind and scope as
we attempt to, you know, make the healthcare system more
equitable and accessible and affordable and overall a better a
better system, if you will. So I hope, I hope
(42:38):
I can encourage people to look look out for your coworkers,
your friends or colleagues, you know, the person that busts
up who've never met before, because we're all in this.
We're all in you know, you're all in your community together.
And I guess that's that's what I would end on.
Speaker 1 (42:56):
Perhaps, No, that's great, that's fantastic. Completely agree that we're
all in this together. We all want the same things.
We want health, we want safety, security, we want to
live lives that allow us to be our full selves.
And so I completely agree. And we're going to end
(43:17):
on that positive note because I know that's going to
encourage a lot of people to go out and do
some amazing things. So with that being said, I want
to thank Savannah. I want to thank all of you
for listening to this episode. Savannah, thank you so much
for being with us. She's going to be here for
the next one too, so stay tuned for that. So, Savannah,
(43:38):
thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
For being here. Of course, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (43:41):
Yes, and thank you for listening to the Environmental Justice Lab.
Where we are for the people and for the planet.
We'll see you next time.
Welcome to the Environmental Justice Lab. I am your host,
doctor Leslie Joseph. Thank you so much for being with us.
And we still have our very special guests, Savannah Domitch
with us. Savannah, how are you doing.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
I'm doing good. How are you doing this fine brush day?
Speaker 1 (00:39):
I'm doing very well. And this is very brisk, so
even in South Carolina it's snowing, So it's just weird.
It's weird how cold it is everywhere I go. And
so anyway, we have been speaking with Savannah over the
last couple of months about Legacy environmental Injustice. She is
(01:02):
from Rochester. She knows all about what's going on there,
and in particular the Kodak facility and how that's impacted
life in Rochester. I think last episode we talked about
some of the health implications, some of the health issues
and the pollution specifically that comes or that came from
(01:22):
Kodak and its facilities. But on this episode, we want
to get more into the actual care for the people.
Healthcare specifically, what do people do once they are sick
from this pollution and from all the issues that Kodak
(01:44):
brings to this community. And so we're going to spend
some time on this episode talking about that with Savannah.
She knows, and she's going to help us understand more
clearly what happens once somebody gets sick in Rochester. So
Savannah kick us off, tell us some of the things
we need to know about the healthcare system in general
(02:05):
and what happens in Rochester specifically.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Definitely. So I think to start off with healthcare like
in general, I first must like put a caveat thought,
like I am not a healthcare expert by any sense.
I'm gonna try to keep things not like super super specific,
but you're more like general as well. And now we
got listeners all across the world who may or may
not be super familiar with the US healthcare system. So
in the US healthcare system, we don't have like one
(02:30):
national system. It's a bunch of like different separate insurances,
if you will. So there's mixture of public and mixture
of private. Most of the people in the US who
are ensured tends to be through like a private plan,
so that could be like for somebody's employer or then
make gus you purchasing on their own. So hundred of
(02:51):
different names. You know, you have your excell's boot Crosses,
Blue Shield. You have your SIGNA, you have your Allegiance,
you have your MVP, you have your ETNA. You could
keep on going and going and going, because there's so
so many of them. And then for the more public
health cares, we're looking at the Medicaid and then the
medicare very similar names, but they do two different things.
(03:12):
So typically Medicare is for those who are older that
may be retired, and that's kind of that you pay
into over the course of your life, and then the
Medicaid it's more for like low income families, low income
people who maybe cannot get an ensoyer employer sponsored plan
or cannot afford it. And there's also like a few
(03:33):
other people like if you have like if you were
like in the military, you can get like a Veterans
of Fair plan. Sometimes it depends on how long your
service was, what you're making. But even still, even with
all these different plans, about eight to ten percent of
the US depending on what survey you look at from
what year, is uninsured. So yes, you can still go
(03:53):
to facilities to get medical care, but you're gonna be
paying a ton of money out of pocket because usually
the insurance is helping you to afford things. And even
even still insurance can be very very stingy. Sometimes you like,
for example, say you want to get like an elective surgery,
(04:13):
they have in a to me that like you know, medically
necessary kind of thing. Big, it takes time. So my roommate,
uh last year actually was from a different country and
she was like, oh, I can just go to the
dermatology dermatologist like three days, and I'm like, now you can't.
I mean you might need you might need a three
month wait for that. Not to mentionally, you got to
(04:35):
make sure that they take whatever you know, health insurance
they're given the students here And she was like, what,
that's not how it works where I'm from, And it
was like a whole thing and hope, hopefully, you know,
she eventually got to the dermatologist. But like the dementtalogist
is also you know, a special relief service. So sometimes
your insurance would be like, well, first you need to
go to your you know, your general practitioner pridically that
(04:58):
person that you see like for your once a year
check up and be like, oh, you're doing great kind
of thing to even like get like a referral that
you might need to see somebody, so you have to
go through all these steps in hoops to kind and
get the care that you need. And then also there's
like steps and hoops at the insurance as well, and
then sometimes even still you get this gynormous bill at
the end. It's not uncommon to hear people in the
(05:19):
US having tens of thousands of dollars in medical debt
because the insurance will not cover certain policies, certain procedures.
There's things like co payments, cost sharing, deductible plans, which
is all, to be honest, up beyond me to be
explaining exactly how that works in farct off of each
planets live bit differently, But that's just kind of a
(05:40):
brief overview of the US health system and then going
more into like how it works in Rochester. From my experience,
it's more like if you do not have insurance, and
like typically you want to avoid the doctor at all costs,
almost like something's like you're dying because like it's just
a lot of cost. You understand that it's going to
be very expensive, which can be very unfortunate because sometimes
(06:03):
that you might you know, be suffering longer than you
need to be suffering, or you may not. Your body
might heal itself over time, but you shall have like
lingering complications because you really should have got maybe a
prescription for that or something. And so if you're doing
really poorly, typically you go to the emergency room first,
from what I've observed, or maybe perhaps even the urgent
(06:25):
care if you happen to have insurance. It depends on
the insurance. It's all dependent on you know where the
insurance wants to go. I can tell like you numerous
times I've been on a little portal, the little portal finder,
and you're like, I'm looking for this, Okay, here are
my options. Let me to start calling them. Are they
even taking new patients? Because sometimes they aren't taking new patients.
(06:47):
So I would say one of the struggles in Rochester
in New York is that we have a shortage of
general practitioners. I think there's probably more proper term for that,
but basically the people who are like kind of like
or like for kids, if we couldn't call it repediatricians
just assured of them. So for example, like I myself
do not have an adult doctor, I still have like
(07:07):
my childhood doctor because I can't find anybody. There's like
you're like woman if in your patients' there's too many
people now have people going around, so I can make
it really really hard to get those referrals if you
need that. And then also sometimes general partitioners can notice
things that year to year, like oh, your mode has
really grown since the last time I saw you last year.
(07:29):
Well maybe you like being like, oh, I you know,
I see it's you know day, it looks the same
to me because like over time you can't call and
notice like really small changes. And maybe maybe that's a
kid who like didn't find out that you know, your
modus cancer or something, and if you hadn't gone to
your general practitioner, you would have never have known until
it was like really really bad. It's just also ami
(07:50):
roctors are also we have a giant I would say
perhaps over sacuation of medical services, So there's tons of
buildings everywhere. I think I've previous podcast I mentioned like
an urgic care is like popping up everywhere just because
like one of our major employers is the healthcare industry.
But just because they're everywhere doesn't mean you can, you know,
(08:11):
get in there necessarily or that it is affordable to
get in there, And I think that's a big concern.
I know times we talked about, uh, there's a lot
of family and recistrantform living in poverty. Cause is a
big thing. If if unless it's like I'm seriously concerned
for my life kind of things and things very very wrong,
you're not gonna want to go because it's just you
(08:32):
know that it's gonna you know, perhaps break your budget
for that month or put you into further debt or
into new debt. So I guess that's kind of my
my my take on the Orchestra health system. I'm sure
someone who you know does billing for it or like
after like works on like the medical fear and feeds
patients as like there every single day thing would have
probably some more elaboration that they could give. But I
(08:54):
don't want to be given out wrong information either about
how how things work.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Yeah, no, that's fine, that's information I guess just for
clarification because a lot of us wouldn't know the differences.
You talked about going through the emergency room, talk about
going to your general practitioner, who you're saying there's fewer
and fewer of so they're harder to find. And then
you made the comment about urgent cares popping up everywhere,
(09:20):
and so could you talk more about the differences between
all those three Because if I'm if I'm a poor
person and I'm sick and I'm concerned about costs and
I don't know what to do or where to go,
I don't have a general practitioner that I kind of
always see. Would I go to the emergency room? Would
I go to the urgent care that's popping up everywhere?
(09:42):
Do I have? What do I think about what would
be the best option for me? Because I guess there's
pros and cons to both. So what would I actually do?
If I'm a Rochester native in that situation, I would.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
Say, I would say, you'd probably go to the earth
care first. So we have three different emergency rooms service
Rochester General Hospital, Strong Memorial Hospital, and then High End Hospital.
And typically, like when I was saying, like Rochester, like
the Rochester General one, you only go to that emergency room,
like if you're you're pregnant or your shock. So in
(10:17):
that case, like that's just it has like a bad
reputation that emergency room, particularly the other ones have a
bit of a nice calmer reputations. So in that case,
it also depends. It's like also like what you're experiencing.
So for example, like when I broke my wrist, my
(10:37):
family first took me to like the urgent care, being like, well,
we know it's going to be cheaper. The problem is
they don't reset broken bones in the urgent care. You
have to then, you know, go to the emergency room
to get that done. So sometimes they you know, they
transition you over depending on like what kind of service
you need. But in my my general thing is more
like the urgent care because people understand that the emergency room,
(10:59):
unless you're like like having a herd attack on the floor,
you might be sitting there for six hours and that's
a waste of you know, your time. If you know,
wait patient needs to be seen and urgent care might
be okay, you might be waiting for an hour, that's
a bit better, especially if like you don't know how
bad your condition is. There's also like also like sometimes
(11:19):
urgent cares, you might have one like nearbying your neighborhood
an emergency room, you may need to get on the
bus for that. You don't want to call an ambulance
because that's really going to be expensive, or you have
to like wait for your friend as well. So it's
it's a matter of like how close something is as well.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
I would say, oh, it's interesting, Yeah, that makes sense.
And so I guess the idea of having these urgent
cares pop up is that they become more accessible to
the community. From my experience, they're not that much cheaper
than other approach is definitely not cheaper than your primary
(11:54):
care physician or your general practitioner. That kind of person
is definitely the cheapest option. And if you're so listening
and you're in America, you need to find one, you
really do, because the way our system is set up,
that's the best way to reduce those costs and to
get the care that you need on a consistent basis.
And so we're set up that way. You're right. These
(12:14):
private insurance companies, they're definitely profit driven, and so one
way of profiting is denying claims, denying certain procedures, denying
care in different instances, and so they do have a
lot of resources spent on determining if something is medically
necessary or if you have the proper referrals or a
(12:34):
proper administrative things in place to get the care you're
looking for. So there is a lot of red tape,
a lot of hoops to jump through in many cases
to really get significant care. So it's good to have
that overview of the healthcare system. It's good to understand
the kind of landscape that's in Rochester. So now let's
(12:55):
dive into Kodak and what they've done and in how
that's affected the health in the community. And so I
know a lot of people who when they can tie
their condition to a company, you want you know, restitution.
You want that injuring company to pay you for your hardship,
(13:18):
for your suffering, for your medical costs, for your loss
and pay from not working, disability, all these different things.
Is that something that's been discussed, Is that happening. Has
that happened in Rochester? Has Codect done anything in that regard?
Speaker 2 (13:38):
I would say there's a sense that beyond like the
traditional I would say, like your auditional like ohshaw, you
know your worker's compensation from the past, Know, it's really
not been done to part of the issue. Since they
want bankrupt they don't really have funds to be giving
these restitutions. If you will, because I mean they're pretty
(14:00):
much they spent it using other they spend it for
other things. I mean, if they're counting pensions as well,
they're also going to cut Like any chance that you know,
you got oh you got sick from our chemical, it's like, well,
that's too bad. The only exception that I am aware
of is for asbestos, and the reason for that is
because the money is not coming from CODEC. It is
coming from the asbestos manufacturers themselves, who way back when
(14:24):
they want bankrupt, they had all they's all different trust
funds that could pay out to pay people for you know,
metoclioma or other especialist related conditions. So in that case,
you're not actually even though you were exposed to especialist CODEC,
you're not really in a way, I would say, for
lack of a better word, suing CODEC. You are more
suing you know, these especialist companies which allowed which you know,
(14:48):
put its products into CODEC. So it's kind of like
a weird workaround. But unfortunately there's really nothing like if
you can say that, well you can't I would, or
you can't say with definitive cause hey, my kid got
you know, brain cancer from codek. You can't prove that,
which is one of the hard things about cancer in general.
(15:09):
But unfortunately, even if you're convinced, you all, they're gonna
be like, well, very sorry to hear that, but we
have nothing to give you. Because even when they established
their trust fund when they went bankrupt, it was only
for environmental things. So the clean up, you know, clean
up the river, do some you know, long term molecule
with the groundwork, groundwater. So I mean, I'm glad they
(15:34):
made the trust fund for that, but not everything. Unfortunately,
there would be a fund to pay out things for
for these employees.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Oh that's interesting. So there was nothing set aside for
people people who work there, people who live nearby, people
who go to school there, people who are exposed. There's
nothing available. There was never anything available from Kodak for
those individuals except in this very particular asbestos I guess
agreement they made it is.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Possible in the past, it was like, well if you
got like for them, they knew that, like the workers
are having higher risk of pancreatic cancer. So there's possible
documentation from like the eighties that they may have been
you know more gracious of say, like your insurance plan,
but now that they're bankrupt, there's nothing left over. Anything
(16:22):
that there may have once been, it's gone, it's been
used to other purposes.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Essentially, Oh man, goodness gracious. So huh. So we have
the system in Rochester of healthcare. We have Kodak who
has polluted and harmed people from their operations in Rochester.
There's no money available, So what's the like, what's the
(16:51):
next thing. What can we do now to help or
to at least get people to understand these connections and
advocate in a better way.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
I guess the first thing that like the advocate when
something you first got to understand it. I guess I
would suggest anybody who's interested, even like in their own
community basing its own issue is for like education, I
would argue, so understanding who's affected, how long ago, what
are the lingering effects kind of thing, and then also
like what are the effects? So just to start like
(17:27):
the advocacy work, and then like I think about like
a lot of things possible. It's like mutual aid, where
the community is essentially supporting members in its own community
when they can't you know, get money from other from
other sources often because those other sources are the ones
that are directly doing them harm. So like a good
example I think a lot of people are familiar with.
It's like the idea of like go fund me kind
(17:49):
of thing. Here's here's me, here's my plight, here's why
I need money. Would you please consider the you know,
donating their donating to me. And I think that's a
good example, but alone is not enough. It's also like
the sense of like like in personality, and it's like
you don't have like that like people like in a
way campaigning for you, Like yeah, guess you're gonna be
(18:13):
one of probably millions of different like causes on gofunding,
which are you know, the good causes, but people won't
go to know that you know, you need help, which
is what I also think like community organizations would be
like great, like different meetings. The issue unfortunate with all
community organizations is some of them, you know, they used
just prior to COVID, and then you know COVID happened,
(18:34):
you stop meeting in person, then stop getting done as
much like you just less connection as well. So we
really also see like some communities as well, they don't
know each other as well, because these community organizations, well
maybe you have like you know, you're block party maybe
once or twice a year. It's not happening anymore because
you know, COVID said, you can't get together. And then
(18:55):
once these things tend to lapse for a year or two,
it's just hard. It gets them back up and running again.
And then I guess another I would like thinking that
we could do to you know, support these people is
so I mentioned a lot of people in the US
are uninsured. Uh in general and Rochester, the uninsurment rakes
(19:16):
are about four to five percent. So it's possible that
maybe these people have been you know, denied from insurance.
They don't they don't think they qualify, but maybe they
actually do qualify. Because to get medicaid you have to
go through a bunch of hoops. You gotta like a
bunch of PaperWorks, and you gotta show up for a
(19:37):
meeting to be like I really do exist kind of thing.
And there's also going to be very hard to like
navigate exactly okay, what exactly does my plan cover? Kind
of thing. One of my responsible for so helping people
to really understand insurance, I mean, for me, I'm like,
I'm on my mother's insurance, but I don't understand it
(19:57):
all that well. All I know is you show you
go to provider on the list, You show up, you
give them a bunch of cards, You give them a card,
give them you know, your credit card at the end,
and you hope all is good. But like helping I
guess making insurance more understandable that people are kind of
like being like, I guess an interpreter because it's so
much of me. She's like, I feel like you know legalese.
(20:18):
And also I would also challenge like people out there
who are writing these plans, please make it accessible to
like your common person who does not like do everything
in the healthcare industry. I understand you probably can't change
the actual language of the documents for you know, legal reasons,
but at least like an though like you know, general audience,
(20:39):
not any audience is truly general, but like in the experience,
like a general audience that anybody can understand what you're
trying to get at, what the what they can do
because as they because we have to have community members
trying to interpret this, and some of those community members
they're really like well meaning but they could be like
people like me, where it's just like I mean, well,
but I'm going to try my best to interpret this
(20:59):
and if it's wrong, oops kind of thing, and that
that can be a you know, a thousand dollars mistake
because I interpreted something incorrectly, And then I could I
could keep on going. I think I could talk about
how like it takes forever to get a hold of
somebody and sharing sometimes or it's like that's not my department,
let me transfer you, and it's like ten minutes later,
(21:20):
that's also not my apartment, let me transfer you. And
it's like by the end, you're like one hour later,
you'reself fed up. You just want to be like just
be done with it. Or you know, of course, like
the ROBO's like I don't understand you. Can you please repeat,
and it's like, yeah, please, just operator operators, you know,
But that's been me. Sometimes it's like please let me
(21:41):
talk to a human. But I think there's there's there's
a lot of different things that people can do. But
I think the first thing is also just being aware
of people in your community who is who is suffering,
because I think a lot of times suffering can sometimes
be hidden and in many ways people are indeed suffering,
and there is a limit about like how much you
should be willing to ask, especially like if you maybe
(22:03):
do not know someone is personally, but like I would
like you know, your co workers, even your neighbors, Like
some of them may not want to talk about it,
if a lot of them may be like, yeah, this
is something that's really important to me because it's impacting
my life in a big way. And therefore, if you're
willing to try to, you know, help me, even if
it's like maybe like, oh, I have my treatments on
(22:23):
this day, I can't make dinner in the evenings. Maybe
it's a simple as something as simple as that. It
doesn't need to be, you know, trying to help people
see this really hard insurance policy. I guess it's like
what the person needs as well as what you are
able to give as well.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Yeah, yeah, So is any of that happening in Rochester
that you're aware of? Are there things or these groups
or activities or things like that raising awareness helping people
with insurance navigating a system. Is that happening?
Speaker 2 (22:52):
I would say yes, but not to the extent that
it needs to be happening. So for example, sometimes it's
like sources that I know about are like they typically
deal with like refugees, so they have those services to
help the refugees understand, which is very important to't get
me wrong. But like also like people who maybe have
lived in Machester their whole life also need to be
(23:14):
aware of how these services work. But since these organizations
are specifically catering to refugees, they feel like, hey, I'm
not welcome to get my advice from here. There are
also some like legal advice clinics as well, some of
which are freer than you know, others some costs associated
with them, And I would say there is also like
(23:35):
support groups as well for people who are who you know,
are you know, have uh, you know, physical illnesses as well.
Like I was looking at the like the hospital paid
and it's like, oh, this group is like like you know,
young adults living with this, older adults living with this,
people get in general with this. So these some of
these groups do exist, but like I think there's also
(23:57):
a sense where it's like always like oh, you know
people with this and their caregivers, Well, I'm not a caregiver,
so they're not going to want to hear from me
kind of thing, but perhaps some of them they would
like to hear, you know, some support from the community
as well. And I think the hospitals could probably do
a better job also getting like awareness and out about
(24:19):
these groups. Besides, you know, onlike they're dedicated like oh
today is national think we had a cancer Days you know,
highlight out group, but like highlighting these groups more regularly
as well. But I will also like I may not
be the target audience for their advertising as well. So
maybe that's why I just like never ever see it,
or maybe I never ever see it because there really
isn't any so it's it's hard to tell because you know,
(24:43):
my my demographic as well.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
So yeah, no that makes sense. I mean, obviously you
wouldn't be as now then, but you are a member
of the public, and so the idea of seeing and
being aware of these things would be what the goal
would be for a lot of these organizations to at
least share the information just in case you're interested in
engaging the service, you know where to go or who
to talk to, and so that would be important. So
(25:10):
in a lot of places, the way that the communities
kind of function and operate. What they experience often drives
what's available to them. Right, So if you have a
certain industry, you have supporting, you know, facilities and services
that support the industry and blah blah blah. Think about
it on the reverse, if we know that Kodak was here,
(25:34):
that these health issues are correlated to exposure to chemicals
from Kodak, do we have or not we does Rochester
have like the kind of healthcare system, you know, health centered?
I think there's a medical school there, doctors specialists who
(25:56):
understand the impacts the health impacts of these exposures, and
are they able to provide the kind of services and
the kind of support two people who have those illnesses
because we know that it's more prevalent because of the exposure,
Like is that available as well? Is that part of
(26:17):
the system in Rochester?
Speaker 2 (26:19):
M hm? So I guess I think there's like two
different questions in there. So, Like one is like do
we have like the facilities to like treat a variety
and conditions? And I would say yes, there's a tony
of different centers. Is a fund for everything? Probably not?
But I feel like there's also like you know, people
constantly funding you know, we got like you know, the
(26:40):
cancer center. We have like the you know, the center
for like people were pregnancy. We have like different like
we have like an eye institute, we have like a
skin institute. We have a bunch of different things because
we do actually have two different like large medical employers,
so the University of Rochester Medical System and then the
Rochester Regional House since Center that both kind of operate
(27:02):
out of the Rochester metric Podican area, and a lot
of people often from like the outlying like more like
rural areas will often like come in for those specialty
treatments because they're president in Rochester, which I think is
great that we even have you know, this spec like
the you know, the specialized people and the equipment and
the centers to be offering this. But the problem is
(27:25):
also there's a lack of connection between like actually like
we say in the environmental health essentially all the pollute
into all the chemicals in the air, the history the
legacy pollution, and then actually like the medical diagnosis. So
I actually thought it was really interesting. So I was
at a breakfast kind of like a lunch and learn
(27:46):
was more like a breakfast and learn if you will,
and one of the guys from the environment of Protectric
Agency was talking about how there was a major like
environmental incident, like the chemicals were spilled, there was containing
about the water being contamined. Farmers were all like, can
my cows drink the water? They're we need to like
evacuate all my cows pastor because if my pastor contain
(28:08):
made all the airborne cantam. Next, and so the EPA went, well,
if people are so concern about their health, their animals health,
they should go talk to their doctor. So people went, Okay,
I don't know what to do. Let me go talk
to my doctor. And then the problem is the doctor went,
I don't know because they had never really had enough
training in this because unfortunately, unless you're like environmental health
(28:30):
and like safety specialists, which is his own unique degree
while you're studying in university, you're not really trained that
much on environmental health. Besides maybe that like secondhand smoke,
can you know, cause lung issues in children? Beyond that,
that's pretty much all the I feel like, all the
environmental health you know, awareness that people get, which is
really unfortunate because a lot of people, when they have
(28:53):
times of crisis, if they trust their doctor. They're gonna
they're gonna see the nugets something who they trust, someone
who you know, know, I trust them, they should know
what they're talking about. If they do give me an answer,
and then what actually happens, people are very maybe not disappointed,
but more like let down in the sense that, oh,
the person who I trust, who usually know what's going on,
(29:15):
doesn't know either. And I think also you can see
that in like medical school curriculums as well. We're so
focused on teaching people how to you know, properly, you know,
treat patients, talk to patients, how to use the system,
how to maybe do the surgery, do the procedures that
sometimes we neglect to realize the cause of this could
(29:37):
very well be, you know, something in the environment, and
sometimes it just isn't a lot of collaborations between disciplines
like go to like the allergies ages might be like, oh, well,
you you have a you have a grass allergy, for example,
and then that can help you to get something about yourself. Well,
then that thing it has in oh there tends to
be a lot of arsenic in the air or something
(29:58):
that could cause that could also be causing a health issue.
But so there's this lack of connection besides like the
regular like I would say, like this seasonal seasonal like
environments and then the actual like you know, we're coming
from the factories as well. And it's it's unfortunate because
I think a lot of cancers do have environmental gresths
like we've seen of Kovac, where like you know, the
(30:20):
methanine chloride even like things like the dioxide are causing
these like visual, really bad physical elements in people. But
it's more like the sense of oh, you're just one
of the very unlucky few who got it, or you know,
maybe you oh, you just don't live in a good neighborhood.
It's a lot of like particulate matter, and it would
(30:40):
just extend to that least like bad air quality in general,
not realizing what exactly is in that air quality that
could be maybe contributing to or in framing your symptoms
as well.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
Interesting, that is interesting and that's something to think about too.
I mean, we do need doctors and health professionals who
understand these connections, and particularly if you live in a
place where this kind of pollution, these kinds of issues
are more prevalent you would want to be able to
go to your doctor and say, hey, I live by
(31:15):
the plant downtown or I work at this facility. And
I noticed me and my coworkers have the same types
of issues. What should we do? How should we think
about getting support and help versus just kind of being
lumped in with everyone else and not having a very specific,
(31:37):
targeted plan for helping with my healthcare issue that was
precipitated by this environmental situation that I'm in versus just
it being hereditary, genetic, or just having you know, just
being unfortunate in that regard. And so I completely agree
with that. And so with all that being said, and
(32:01):
with all that we know, now, what do you think
we should do? Like I'm listening, I heard what you said.
I understand now the situation in Rochester. I'm looking around
in my neighborhood and my community. Maybe there's something going
on there or maybe not. But I'm concerned about what
you're saying. What what can I do as a listener
(32:24):
to help or to be a part of the solution.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
M So I say earlier, the first thing to do
is to to be part of the solution, you first
must understand the problem. Otherwise you're not going to be
have the right solution to the actual problem. You're going
to even have a different even the relevant problem. So
actually education first comes first, which is can be kind
(32:49):
of challenging. But if you think about, like one, we
have the internet at great things down there, or even
just like since you live in your community, you know
people who know people who know things oftentimes, so start
networking as well, and it could be very you know
powerful when people get together as well. And another thing
(33:10):
that you could do I know I mentioned earlier go
fundme is it did not fix the systemic issue of
really overpriced healthcare, hard to reach healthcare. But I think
it would be we'remissed to recognize that what we're trying
to you know, fix the overall system, perhaps that we're
leaving all these people behind in the meantime. I to
(33:34):
go fund me is a band aid, but we don't
want also, you know, people to be no in a sense,
you know, be bleeding out what we're trying to like
fix the whole person. We also want to like maybe
poke themselves on something because also the system is not
going to like fix itself in a year most likely,
and people are going to need help and care in
the meantime, So I would say, like, maybe maybe you
(33:57):
know somebody who you know is not to go fund me,
maybe you can help somebody who needs it if it
ever go for me, or at least inform them about other,
you know, mutual aid support apings that they could engage
in from making national healthcare better. Unless you're like a
healthcare like official executive, a policy maker, a member of
the government, I mean, you can write as many posts
(34:20):
as you want. You can, you know, pressure people in
a sense that you know it has to change, but
it's hard because chances are you're probably not the one
actually writing the policy. So I'm like, so something about
like how else could you, you know, raise awareness about
like what you want to see. I know some organizations
(34:42):
are very very big on like we need to call
your member of Congress, we need to write your letter
of Congress. We might try get show birth the office too,
like on a lobby date or something, and I think
that that could definitely be helpful. But I think there's
also cases where it's like their mind is made up
because of X, Y and Z, or they just they
just don't want to hear you. They'll be nice and
(35:02):
talk to you, but it's like they have, you know,
the party line to keep in tow with. I'm also
perhaps maybe a little uh negative, not optimistic about like
always talking individually to a member of Congress. But there
is such a thing. It's play the co will out there.
But I would also say if we don't need to
(35:24):
just throw off the entire system either. I remember hearing
that like people, and like other countries who have national
health care, they also find things to complain about their
system as well. So it's not like national health care
it's going to solve everything. It will lead to different
challenges as well. So not just being like, oh, we
should do this one thing, get national health care and
(35:46):
then all in all of our issues will be fixed.
Now we gotta recognize it's a caveat too. There are
pros and cons to both systems, and if we only
recognize the pros in one system, we're going to be
in a very very in place when we have to
actually be cognizant of the cons. I think also it
(36:07):
could be a matter of Unfortunately many times in the
US we don't get to choose what health insurance plan
we're on. So maybe there is a way that we
can maybe have more elections and different plans for people
on different cost structures. Even these things like I'm not
(36:27):
sure why you know, some even with some procedures cost
so much. It seems very very expensive. So maybe we
need to have more transparent billing as well, a lot
of times when it comes to billing, you see it, Okay,
I have a two equals this. Now I gotta go
figure out what the heck a two is where they
even properly build, because sometimes you are not properly build
and it's up to you to figure that one out.
(36:50):
So having more transparent building as well and being more
upfront about the cost, I would argue as well, because
like for example, like my father went to like an
outpatient facility, but the probably it was still a today
with the hospital, so he got charged both for the
practice and then the hospital fee. So he got double shot,
and he was very very unhappy because you're paying for
(37:11):
one service twice and it's never sometime it's very hard
to even find out that hey, they actually do this
until you actually start, like you know, calling people looking
at reviews, and then that just takes time. You know,
we're very short on time in our lives, especially like
if you're not you're not doing well and you may
not have time to be doing this. So I think
I talked to another you know, transparent billing can also
(37:32):
be a big key. There's just there's just so much
I think that that could be, you know, be fixed.
But he also recognized that, like there are people out
there who I'm sure like I know we talked about
like what we mentioned personally, like the ten point plan.
I don't have a ten point plan on how to
fix this. Probably somebody does, but it also needs to
be a will to do that ten point plan, both
(37:53):
on the side of one of the insurers, the doctors,
the public, the government, and trying to engage all those
stakeholders and get them to be enthusiastic about the same
things to be very very difficult, especially when we have
different agendas and they're making they're making money. I'm sure
you probably have things as well that you would like
(38:14):
to see changed. Do you have anything in particular.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
I mean, I'm not a fan of our current system whatsoever.
I mean, I think if there was a way to
at the very least reduce the prop the profit motive,
I think we would be able to focus more on
the healthcare aspects versus the trying to make money aspects
of it. Like like, you am not an expert either
(38:38):
in health care policy health care analysis. Obviously, people have
different views of what would be a good structure for
health care system, you know, the national versus the private,
some combination of the two. Obviously, the biggest change we've
had recent years is Obamacare coming in and kind of
(39:00):
reshaping what is available because I do think people like options,
like the opportunity to choose what they believe is the
best approach. So, I mean, most of us get our
insurance from our employers, and so whatever that employer is,
whatever their plan is, is kind of what you're going
(39:21):
to get from them. You know, if you have an
option of choosing a cheaper plan or plan that would
best fit your situation. People love choices, and so I
mean that might be another thing to think about. I
think what you said earlier is really important though, the
idea that as you advocate and talk about what you
(39:41):
believe is best. You know, even if you think certain
things are band aids, things like gofundmes, things like local
community actions, don't forsake those trying to go after the
big you know, national global shift and leaving your fellow
people believe out. Like you said earlier, I think it's
(40:02):
great to think, Okay, community first, we're here, Let's support
each other the best way we know how, and then
we'll continue to push people towards what we think is better.
But we're not going to abandon or neglect the people
who are currently suffering right now. As we do that,
(40:22):
We're going to do both, and if we have to choose,
we're going to help the people that are right around
us get better, because that's the whole point of the
system in the first place, is to improve the lives
of other people, and so I think that should be
front center. I know a lot of people, a lot
of activists who would tell me, hey, we're not even
thinking about the government. They're not going to help us,
(40:44):
they're not coming to help us. We look out for
each other. I don't take that approach, but I understand it,
and so I think some combination of the two would
be the best way forward. I don't know, Hopefully we'll
figure out something. And in the meantime, you graduate, get
(41:04):
yourself a good job with good health care benefits, so
you and your family can be supported and taken care
of as well. That's the system that we currently have,
and so make sure you do that. Savannah and anybody
else listening. Oh man, this was good. This was a
very good conversation. We're up on our time. But as always,
(41:25):
is there anything else, Savannah, that you want us to
know or think about or consider as we close out
this episode.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
I think I would just you know, rehash the earlier
points that we both touched on, like care for the community, advocate,
educate yourself, and maybe you can be a part of
that bigger change both in one like that, you know,
the national level, even the state level or your local level.
I think oftentimes we downplay about how much impact we
(41:55):
can possibly have. And if you can even talk to
people in your regular life, I'm sure that they would,
you know, love to tell you that how much you know,
how much that you mean to them, how much you
have done for them that has really, you know, touched
them in their lives. And I think if you can
we continue to do that, especially in the realm of
health care, maybe things will not improved, but every every
(42:17):
day of a person's life, every person's life matters, and
it's important to keep that in mind and scope as
we attempt to, you know, make the healthcare system more
equitable and accessible and affordable and overall a better a
better system, if you will. So I hope, I hope
(42:38):
I can encourage people to look look out for your coworkers,
your friends or colleagues, you know, the person that busts
up who've never met before, because we're all in this.
We're all in you know, you're all in your community together.
And I guess that's that's what I would end on.
Speaker 1 (42:56):
Perhaps, No, that's great, that's fantastic. Completely agree that we're
all in this together. We all want the same things.
We want health, we want safety, security, we want to
live lives that allow us to be our full selves.
And so I completely agree. And we're going to end
(43:17):
on that positive note because I know that's going to
encourage a lot of people to go out and do
some amazing things. So with that being said, I want
to thank Savannah. I want to thank all of you
for listening to this episode. Savannah, thank you so much
for being with us. She's going to be here for
the next one too, so stay tuned for that. So, Savannah,
(43:38):
thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
For being here. Of course, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (43:41):
Yes, and thank you for listening to the Environmental Justice Lab.
Where we are for the people and for the planet.
We'll see you next time.
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