Gary Fowler had been experiencing shortness of breath, a cough, and fever before he died in a blue recliner chair at his Grosse Pointe Woods house in Michigan in early April.
The 56- year-old’s family states he was turned away from three Detroit-area medical facilities weeks before he succumbed to what was likely the unique virus on April 7.
( Source: Facebook)
” My father passed at home, and no one tried to assist him,” his stepson, Keith Gambrell, told the Detroit Free Press.
Gambrell, a 33- year-old Detroit resident, said his daddy was turned away from Beaumont Hospital in Grosse Pointe, Detroit Receiving Healthcare facility and Detroit’s Henry Ford Health center even after he described his symptoms and informed health authorities that his own daddy had evaluated favorable for virus.
According to Gambrell, Fowler started showing symptoms in late March after he visited his daddy, David Fowler, who at time was thought to have the influenza. It was only after the 76- year-old was found unresponsive on a restroom floor and was subsequently placed on a ventilator– after being confessed to Henry Ford Medical Facility in Detroit– that the household knew he had the infection.
The diagnosis left Gambrell questioning his stepfather’s health. He then tried to verify his worries, taking Fowler to three different healthcare facilities, however was denied a test each time.
” I honestly think it was since my daddy was black,” he told “CBS This Morning.” “They didn’t truthfully take his symptoms serious enough to provide him a test.”
Following Fowler’s death, Beaumont Medical facility said, “We are doing all we can to assess, triage and care for clients based on the info we understand at the time,” according to the Detriot Free Press.
Several of Gambrell’s family members have also revealed signs of the infection. David Fowler passed away in a health center bed simply hours before his son Gary passed away. The member of the family are now awaiting their test results in the house. However it would not have been done without Gambrell cousin state Rep. Karen Whitsett, who stated she thinks her family would not have actually been tested if she were not a state legislator.
” Which sickens me to have to use that title to be able to have to get my family tested,” she told “CBS Morning news.”
During a Facebook Live interview Thursday, April 16, Joneigh Khaldun, the primary medical executive for the Michigan Department of Health and Human being Services, stated Blacks make up a third of all cases associated with the virus. However, they just represent 14 percent of the state’s population.
Hear more of Fowler’s story in the video listed below.
