Imagine a world where your child’s survival depended on daily medical care and supplies. Imagine a world where the health of your child rested on the shoulders of countless specialists and therapists. Imagine a world where your child’s entire well-being is entrenched within a hospital system; one that you visit multiple times a week like a perfectly timed dance. Imagine one day, your world is turned upside down and you are informed that hospital will no longer provide care to your child due to the nuanced bureaucracy of health insurance. 

For hundreds of South Jersey families of medically complex children, we now no longer have to imagine. This is our new nightmare. 

Alfred I. duPont left a lasting legacy to Nemours leaving them the bulk of his estate, and the request that it provides charitable and quality health care “for the care and treatment of crippled children.” Nemours decision to disrupt the established care of hundreds of medically complex kids directly goes against Mr. duPont’s goal in reducing human suffering. 

Nemours has pledged a campaign called Supporting Children's Health Everywhere. Regardless of background, complexity of care, or socioeconomic status, Nemours understands the importance of all children receiving upstanding medical care. Discontinuing the care of established patients based on profit, directly goes against their own mission. 

The decision for Nemours to no longer remain in network with New Jersey Medicaid, means that the South New Jersey families who live mere miles from their hospital, and their NJ satellite offices, will now have to drive 2+ hours to North Jersey to a hospital equipped in the care of medically complex children. A team of all new specialists will have to be established, and with astronomical wait times, that could take months. Daily therapies and specialty appointments will turn into hours of driving. The toll this will take on caregivers, their families, and the patients will be devastating.

Most importantly, NJ children will suffer. While Nemours has said they are committed to their continuation of care to New Jerseys Children, their actions are leaving established New Jersey patients out to dry without an appropriate solution. 

While we understand that a large bulk of the responsibility lies within the NJ Medicaid budget, for the sake and well-being of our most medically complex kids, we implore Nemours to consider continuation of care/ grandfathering established patients into their network while we wait for NJ legislators to do the right thing and provide fair reimbursement rates. 

The lives of our children depend on it.