EUREKA!

Tonight I watched a most disturbing segment of 60 Minutes. It was about how the recession was causing the ONLY public hospital in Nevada to shut down its outpatient chemo clinic, along with their prenatal clinic, their high risk OB department, outpatient dialysis and outpatient mammography. The interviews with several patients and the impact of this decision, delivered in a 'dear patient, we regret to inform you...' letter, are heartbreaking. These were people who'd worked their whole lives, got sick, lost their insurance, and depended on the public hospital for treatment.

The interview with the hospital administrator, who found her budget cut $21 million literally overnight, was also very tough. That additional loss was on top of a budget already $51 million in the red, for a grand total of $72 million. She was between a rock and a hard place.

Nick Spiritos, the women's clinic doctor, took things into his own hands.

He took a storeroom in his private office and spent $100,000 turning it into a chemo clinic for ovarian and uterine cancers.

"And you told them they can come here to your clinic and receive free medical care?" Pelley asked.

"Correct," Spiritos replied. "We've asked those who can pay, pay. If they can pay $5 a month, they pay $5 a month. If they can pay $20 a month. We're asking them to do what they can. And those who can do nothing, that's our job to take care of them."

Spiritos expects 10 percent of his patients won't be able to pay, so he and his partners will cover them. They've put collection boxes out at convenient stores around town. Other private clinics are also providing free care. And charities, including the Susan G. Komen Foundation, are stretching to help the desperate.

$72,000,000. Where could that kind of money come from?

The answer came to me immediately following the show, when the blockbuster movie for the week was announced. Fast and Furious shattered expectations, pulling in $72.5 million this week at the box office. How ironic.