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Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Open Access to Publicly-Funded Research: Let Them Eat Cake?

In response to this post entitled Open Access to Publicly-Funded Research: Let Them Eat Cake? I posted the following:

I had the experience of not being able to see my husband's charts while he was in the hospital with stage four kidney cancer. Everything is on a computer and inaccessible to patients. I went down to medical records. I asked to see the chart, and they told me it would be twenty-one days and cost seventy-three cents per page. Twenty-one days is a very long time in stage four kidney cancer. I had to have them xerox my medical power of attorney request before they would even begin the process.

Because of a very bad transfer paperwork snafu I got a copy of the chart on 4-23-09 without having to pay for it. For individuals like me who don't have very much money the requirement to spend seventy-three cents per page is a hardship when the chart is very long. I would have probably had to pay over $100 to see my husband's chart.

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