"Hospitals Find Asthma Hot Spots More Profitable To Neglect Than Fix"

"BALTIMORE — Keyonta Parnell has had asthma most of his young life, but it wasn’t until his family moved to the 140-year-old house here on Lemmon Street two years ago that he became one of the health-care system’s frequent customers.

“I call 911 so much since I’ve been living here, they know my name,” said the 9-year-old’s mother, Darlene Summerville, who calls the emergency medical system her “best friend.”

Summerville and her family live in the worst asthma hot spot in Baltimore: Zip code 21223, where decrepit houses, rodents and bugs trigger the disease and where few community doctors work to prevent asthma emergencies."

Jay Hancock and Rachel Bluth of Kaiser Health News, and Daniel Trielli of Capital News Service, report December 4, 2017.