Gas prices confine sick people

Sick Americans who travel far or frequently to get medical treatment are skipping or delaying appointments, leaving support groups and applying for grants to defray high gasoline prices.

People who visit the doctor multiple times each week or month, such as cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy and people needing dialysis, have been hardest hit.


At the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, some skin cancer patients are delaying appointments because they can’t afford gasoline, patient service representative Nicole Vliet says.

“It could be just a follow-up appointment, or it could affect their treatment,” she says. “I really started to notice it in April when prices started to go up.”

USA Today