I’m removing the comments options as in the past two days I’ve recieved over 908 “comments” advertising things that will help my penis grow (I don’t have one), drugs for hair loss (I have lots of hair–in the right places) and software I don’t need.
The New York Post published the cartoon below on June 15th. The New Yorker had a magazine cover of new graduates all running around chairs with too few chairs for them to sit in once the music stops. In my mind I hear the tune of “pop goes the weasel” that was used for that game as a child. The question who is the weasel today, industry with too few jobs for Americans because of outsourcing and crowd sourcing, the for-profit college education system that encourages years spent in study for jobs in areas that do not exist, or are the students themselves blind and lazy taking a 4 year or more vacation without facing up to what the world actually holds. Who knows? But continuing to breed such discontent will no doubt bring momentum for change. The only problem is if change is undirected it will no doubt be destructive.
Have you ever swerved around one of those yellow trucks and cursed those people slowing you down? Well stop it please! Today I was out driving for my local health department and someone was putting larvicide in catch basins for our ungrateful public. People cut by the truck, almost ran us down and called us “cunt” and “bitch” in the process. I think the picture below taking at the DOT before we left says it all. The car was nearly sideswiped and the person on the street working nearly run down. I reported this to my supervisor who just sort of grins as if we are not macho enough.
Last weekend I went to Macy’s with a friend of mine. As there are pictures of me on the site, its no secret I went down the woman’s aisle but I’ll add she found the petite aisle. I happyily found a great pair of Tommy Hilfiger jeans with fabulous hand beading down the sides. I immediately fell in love with them and bought them for far too much money. I know I’ll probably loose some sleep wondering if a child in a 4th world country went blind making them. I was only in Macy’s because I had a refund to use, for merchandise only, from something my husband returned for Christmas. So much of what they usually have is well crafted fabric boxes, overlaid with another layer of a long jacket in a bright color. Yeah, that will make me look fashionable and thin! I’ll shop Torrid, over Macy’s any day.
So, I happily joined my friend in “thin-land”. She had performed the miracle I have seen many times over, buying something in ultra-tiny for a miniscule amount. In this case, a lovely evening dress marked down to $20.00. Back at the fat-land isle, the sale evening dresses started at a mere $99.00. Come on, there isn’t that much more material in them. So as gracious thin one was checking out, the clerk urged her to spend another ten dollars so she could get a large free Tommy Hilfiger tote. But it had to be more Tommy Hilfiger. She declined. But..
I whipped out my receipt and pointed to the rack of totes…”Hey, I qualify”, and the clerk tried to get me a free tote. So she can’t ring it up, so she calls her manager, another of the thin. Her manager looks at me and goes, “Well, you have to spend over $3o.oo” at her co-worker. Her co-worker assures her I did. The manager then peers over her glasses and says in a condenscending voice “It has to be Tommy Hilfiger” and looks at me doubtfully. At this point I was tempted to point out her attitude. The other clerk, a nice well rounded women, assured her that it was. So she peered over her thick glasses again and I got my tote.
However, this offer was not made to me over at “fat-land” counter. This is a clear example of both economic and social bias driven by the images that we are taught by advertisers to be “cool” and “acceptable”. I protest. I now have another big fat reason to stay out of Macy’s.
It seems that the state of medical errors in this country has not changed much and in fact the US is leading the entire world in death by medical errors.
USA leads world in medical errors
The article states: ” Based on a comparison of health care systems in six nations, the 2005 Commonwealth Fund International Health Policy Survey found that America led the rest in inefficient care and medical errors.”
And continued with ” Based on a comparison of health care systems in six nations, the 2005 Commonwealth Fund International Health Policy Survey found that America led the rest in inefficient care and medical errors.
Improper Treatment 34 Percent of the Time
Researchers interviewed patients who had a serious condition that required intense medical treatment or had been admitted to a hospital for a condition other than a routine pregnancy.
Patients in this country received the wrong medication, inaccurate or delayed test results, and improper treatment 34 percent of the time.
A third of the patients polled reported higher rates of disorganized care in their physician’s offices.
Americans also spent more on medical expenses than those in the other countries, with more than half unable to see a doctor or take prescribed medicines.
The spread between the United States and countries with lower error rates was fairly wide, with a 12 percent difference between Britain, which had the lowest rate of errors, and the United States. The American rate was driven up by fairly frequent test and medication errors”
The above paragraphs are excepts of a subject treated more thorougly on those sites. In previous years our rate of death by medical error has exceeded the number of people killed by car accidents as I mentioned in a previous post.
Scarily, when doctors have gone on strike the death rate has actually
decreased. http://www.mercola.com/2004/may/26/doctors_death.htm
You would think that errors must occur when medical professionals are hard at work by themselves without an extra pair of hands or eyes to notice things are not as they should be. But even when someone is there and sees the wrong, they seldom say anything.
The following link demonstrates that when co-workers have observed medical errors in their co-workers they are reluctant to talk about them.
http://www.mercola.com/2005/feb/9/health_care_mistakes.htm
The article mentions:
“Some actions observed in the above study that co-workers and
supervisors did not address were:
Some instances health workers were reluctant to talk to their
colleagues about included matters concerning:
Competence
Broken rules
Mistakes
Teamwork
Lack of support
Disrespect and micromanagement from doctors or supervisors”
May states have put caps on malpractice awards that may be given and
those states see an influx of medical doctors.
http://www.ahrq.gov/research/tortcaps/tortcaps.htm
In some cases the only way to effect change is to legally slap the entity with a fine. But we are not going to be able to do that as often or as hard no matter how bad the situtation.
Medical errors cost the country 37 billion a year
http://www.ahrq.gov/qual/errback.htm
Complete with the rise in medical errors, this current administration
is proposing caps and cutting lawsuits against doctors for their
errors.
“The President is also proposing medical liability reforms. The costs
of medical liability insurance are driving doctors out of practice, or
are being passed on to patients and their employers in higher
insurance rates. In addition, the pressure of medical liability
lawsuits is causing more doctors to practice medicine defensively and
order more lab tests or exams than is necessary, which is driving up
health care costs even further. By enacting national medical liability
reform we will be able to address the problem of junk lawsuits against
doctors, clear our court system of unnecessary litigation, and help to
control health care inflation.”
So unless your problem is neat and observable, expect a less
compreshensive diagnosis and no recourse should your doctor kill or
maime you during his practice.
You might think that this really doesn’t matter. But let me interject with my story. Here is a list of over about the past ten years things that happend to my mother in hospitals and the various hospitals they happened in.
1995ish Westchester Medical Center Valhalla, New York. The roof is leaking. I walk in to find my mother’s bed in a pool of water, the controls for the bed and TV clipped to her nightgown, and lying in the pool of water, the power cords, plugged into the wall.
1995ish Westchester Medical Center Valhalla, New York
Nurse takes my diabetic mother’s blood sugar and tells her she does not need to take any insulin. Diabetics need insulin before a meal to keep their blood level stable.
November 2004 Westchester Medical Center
My mother entered the Westchester Medical Center in New York State for a simple test. One that used an iodine dye. She had previously known dye sensitivities. My mother had the angiogram at Westchester Medical Center and soon developed a fever and rashes on her skin. The rashes turned to blisters and daily her doctor, Dr. Cohen of the cardiac cath lab, would come in, look at the worsening skin and go “OH that looks better”. She asked for a dermatologist and the nurse told her she didn’t need one. Let’s remember she had previously known iodine dye sensitivities. Finally one came and took a skin sample which was never processed. She had an IV by this point and a friend who was also an RN noticed it was compromised and it took 24 hours to get it changed. She ended up crashing, painfully, the blisters on her legs breaking open, her kidney’s failing and was put in the burn unit where she then from the compromised IV developed septicemia.
2004 Westchester Medical Center Burn Center
They are amazed my mother is alive, so much of her skin has peeled off her body. In fact they have to take her to a shower table and peel the dead skin off her raw flesh. The table is shower table is motorized and the motor is broken so it is higher than my mother’s gurney. Two nurses cannot lift her that high and in trying slam her raw open skinnless flesh onto the higher table multiple times. I go to her room and find her bruised and crying in great pain.
2004 Westchester Medical Center Valhalla, New York
It’s Christmas Eve. Everyone is snuggled in their beds. Except my mother. This is post the peeling of the skin, multiple drug-resistant bacterial infections, etc detailed earlier. They sat her up in a chair. She cannot walk by herself and is a heavy woman with back problems and in a few hours is groaning in pain. She cannot get back to bed. Finally one nurse tries to get her into bed by herself and drops her on the floor. She can’t lift her up by herself so my mother lies on the floor for about an hour while she finds an orderly to help her.
2005 Westchester Medical Center-yes she is still here. Screaming in pain as she now has Clostridium dificile in her gut. I fight daily to get the pain management team to come in and address her pain or sedate her so she does not know she has it. They are afraid it will affect her breathing, do a minimal amount, and daily my mother begs me to kill her so she won’t feel anymore pain.
2005 Columbia Preysbaterian Post Quadrple bypass. My mother is told to get out of bed by the X ray tech and stand against the wall. She says she can’t. He gets her out of bed, pushes her against the wall for a standing X-ray, and as she told him she would, falls on the fall, on top of her surgical wound (which was reopend and re-sewn shut after the initial surgery. This causes great pain for a long period of time. The wound is disturbed during the pulling of her up from the floor. The bones no longer meet properly. The hospital files this under..shit happens. Later in her attempts at recovery, she develops a major infection of the wound and chest. This requires a second surgery. It is after this surgery that she developes chronic care myopathy and never comes off the venilator, is on dialysis and has a feeding tube permantly installed in her stomach surgically. I wonder if her wound had initally not been disturbed with this fall if she might not have gotten this infection.
Later in the year, back again at St. Luke’s Hospital, in Newburgh, New York, mother is transported from her nursing home, still on a ventilator, with a fever and infection. She is given an antibiotic to which she has an allergy. On her wrist she wears a medic alert bracelet that lists it as an allergy. She was also in that hospital two weeks previously and her charts also listed this as something that she is allergic to and that when she has an allergic reaction, it is extremely severe. I really think she might have had a chance at survival if they hadn’t made error after error after error to further insult her already weak body.
And I simply do not have the energy to list all the other little things that happend. For instance she was in a nursing home in August, it was over 85 degrees in her room. They took away her fan because they claimed it was a safety issue. In order to recieve medicare and medicaid coverage the highest temperature a room can be in the summer is 80 degrees.
Go to the others posts on Death, and Death and Dying and you will see more gory details.
But the undercurrent behind this, is, if this is what happened to one person, all of this, what is happening overall? I wanted to prevent someone else from goign through this.
So I complained to the New York State Department of Health. I gave them all the details. Even though the hospital investigation bureau is only one floor beneath me, and I work for a county health department, they would not meet with me face to face but only talk via the telephone or fax. I had faith that they would do something to prevent this from happening again. SIX MONTHS after filing my initial complaint they wrote to me to say they could find nothing was done wrong at all and that they could not even tell me the details of the investigations because of HIPPA rulings. I was my mother’s health care proxy and had her power of attorney and yet they would tell me nothing.
OK so I decide to go to a lawyer. I need my mothers medical records. It takes me three months to get them calling the hospital every single day. Here is the catch. A municipal hospital, such as Westchester Medical Center must be sued within three months of the patients release. It took me three months alone to get my records! And I do wonder about the political ramifications of Westchester Medical Center being government affiliated and the New York Department of State’s failure to find any wrong doing here, and the length of time it took them to get back to me.
But OK I get to a lawyer. The first lawyer Greg Bagen, who thought I had a case against Westchester Medical Center, if the filing date had not past, declined to take the case for that reason. I could still sue the medical doctor involved, The slimy sarcastic Dr. Cohen of the Cardiac Cath lab, who by the way, joked the entire way though my mother’s procedure making sarcastic comments on to his staff on how they would be doing twice the work and twice the patients with half the staff due to Medical Center Budget cuts…
So I go to the second lawyer. First I go back to Greg Bagen’s office to get my mother’s records. They give me a box that seems light and assure me it is everything I gave them. It turns out in the several months they were reviewing the records a second important filing date had passed and if we filed we might be able to make some sort of appeal to still get a case in…but I really had a better case against the first lawyer for letting these dates past. The second lawyer also thought the records were incomplete. OK…so I decide I can’t sue. I don’t want to sue because I want money, I want the hospital to straighten up and fly right.
Last week (this is months and months after I went to the second lawyer who partially based on the medical records didn’t take the case) I get a letter from Greg Bagen that is he declining the case but he still has my mother’s medical records. I call them up and told them of my previous visit and that they told me I had all the records then…..
The secretary refused to deal with it and said she would take a message and yes there was a big box of my mother’s medical records there….
I never got a call back or an explaination.
One of the reasons the second lawyer didn’t take the case was explained to me by the fact that it cost him $30,000 to prepare and file for a case. If the case could not promise a $300,000 return, because of the tight regulation on medical malpractice lawyers, he could not take the case. In fact it pretty much had to be an almost guarenteed case for him, otherwise he couldn’t stay in practice. And additionally to that many states are putting caps on the amount of awards that can be given.
So am I mad? Yes I am. Very. And I haven’t quit yet. I want to know who regulates the regulators, who let’s Westchester Medical Center take 3 months to get medical records to you when that is your filing deadline, I want to know why the New York State Department of Health takes 6 months to find NOTHING. I want to know if the reason they found nothing was because Westchester Medical Center was a government enterprise and they are a government entity. Can a regulator regulate itself? I want to know why hospital administrators only try to make things go away and not try to effect change. I want to know why St. Luke’s Hospital, when my mother was recieving medical treatment and her medical doctor stated it was necessary that she remain in a hospital was able to cancel her medicare payments and put her on private pay at three times the rate when I would not let her go to a subactute ventilator/dialysis facility so far away the family could not be with her and one that would also be detrimental to her health and treatment. All of these things seem to be at best unethical and I cannot imagine do not violate laws of fraud and more.
Hospitals are money making enterprises. The almightly dollar is first and avoiding liability is second. They love boutique enterprizes like joint surgery clinics that are cash cows and hate having do things that actually serve the community and are dependent on medicare payments.
The lowest degree of error and death by medical malpractice is in Great Britain at the moment. A country with socialized medicine. Perhaps its time to kill the medical cash cow.
My link on MSN expired regarding workplace behavior so I’ve decide to update that post as a public service. Workplace harrassment has resulted in fines in the millions of dollars. So when you are just “having a little fun” no matter how many friends you have or how long you have been there, when that fun comes with million dollar price tags, it is likely you will be asked to seek employment elsewhere. I found a nice defination on wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_harassment
Sexual harassment is harassment of a sexual nature, typically in the workplace or other setting where raising objections or refusing may have negative consequences. In American employment law, it is defined as any unwelcome sexual advance or conduct on the job, having the effect of making the workplace intimidating or hostile.
Most individuals are saavy enough today to know that they shouldn’t make catcalls at co-workers, try to cop a feel or other such blatent activities. What many do not realize is that if you attempt in an organized fashion to make that person uncomfortable in the work place, try to intimidate them, it falls under this law. This can be a bit tricky.
I found an interesting test online and the link is below. As these links tend to expire, I cut and pasted two of the example questions below.
http://www.workrelationships.com/site/quiz/
1. Yuri Anders and Elsa Engle are new employees who have just come to the United States from Sweden. Already, Yuri is famous for his “Swedish” jokes, some of which are slightly off-color. Elsa tries to be a good sport, but she quickly tires of Yuri making fun of her native country. When she hints around for Yuri to knock it off, he tells her, “Hey, lighten up. I’m making fun of myself. If I’m a Swede and don’t mind Swedish jokes, neither should you.” Yuri’s behavior is:
a. illegal
b. inappropriate
c. okay, since he making fun of his own cultural background
d. effective, since he is showing his new colleagues that he has a sense of humor
1. B. Inappropriate workplace behavior. More than one person has gotten into trouble thinking he or she could tell a racial or gender-based joke as long as it was targeted toward his or her own race or gender. The fact that homesick Elsa is also sick of Yuri’s jokes should be a strong incentive for Yuri to reconsider his humor strategy; if he doesn’t, his behavior could cross the line from inappropriate to illegal.
10. Andrea works on the factory line at company X. Andrea considers herself to be pretty tough; she’s been around the block a few times and is confident that she can speak up and take care of herself. However, several of her coworkers are from a country that values respecting authority. It bothers her that her line manager often takes advantage of their quiet demeanor, teases them in a sexual manner, and says things to intentionally embarrass them when he is stressed. She doesn’t know what to do, though, since he doesn’t do those things to her. What is happening to Andrea could be considered:
a. none if her business
b. third party sexual harassment
c. a stressful work situation that impacts Andrea’s work performance
d. the inevitable consequences of a tough boss
e. b and c
10. E. Third party sexual harassment and a stressful work situation for Andrea. The courts have clearly found that, if the sexual behavior directed towards other employees begins to adversely impact someone else’s work, then this could be an example of third party sexual harassment. At the very least, this situation is inappropriate, stressful for Andrea, and likely to lower all of the employees’ job motivation.
At this point you shrug and say sexual harassment doesn’t happen that much. Its only whiney….b___tchs. Well most college students today report that they have been sexually harassed.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11005342/
“Common types of physical harassment include being touched, grabbed or
pinched in a sexual way, or intentionally brushing up against someone
in a sexual way, the study found.
Flashes of frontal or rear nudity, calling someone gay, lesbian or a
homophobic name or spreading sexual rumors about someone also were
reported as sexual harassment in the survey.”
You still shrug and go, at the end of the day where is the harm?
A British study reported on workplace stress and health.
“A previous study using the same dataset by co-authors Michael Marmot,
M.D., and Eric Brunner, M.D., found that workers who feel that they
are treated justly on the job have a significantly lower risk for
coronary artery disease than their fellow employees who feel they
can’t get a break.”
But enough is enough..can’t I say anything anymore? http://www.unoriginal.co.uk/cartoons34.html
Above is a link to a cartoon where a woman is standing in front of a desk of a male supervisor stating, “All the other women are suing you for sexual harassment. As you haven’t harassed me, I’m suing you for discrimination.”
My thoughts on the matter is a lot has to do with intent. If you comment to a man or a woman once in a while, “Gee you really look nice in those pants or dress”, and you mean it as a sincere complement I think it will be taken a lot differently than if you smack your lips daily, leer and say, wowie, you just look good enough to eat or spread rumors on a person’s sexual orientation. There is a difference and most people know where the line is.
I’ve been thinking quite a bit recently about evolution. Especially about de-evolution, what happens when you don’t use something like eyes and you lose them. The starfish is an example of that. But lately I have been observing a rise in the number of people who fail to use their brains and thus they have been losing them. This is giving rise to an entire new species. The Homo iman assholeous. Not only have I noticed the rise of the species Homo iman assholeous, but it has apparently been around enough to diversify into various subspecies. My… the assholes among us. Just from casual day to day observation, one of the most common subspecies of Homo iman assholeous is subsp. imgonnarunthisplacesomedaysoyoubetternotpissmeoff variant godcomplex. Now if your face is turning red, your blood pressure is rising, and you think I’m calling YOU an asshole then you probably are and example of Homo iman assholeous subsp. imgonnarunthisplacesomedaysoyoubetternotpissmeoff variant godcomplex you need to click here XXX.
Ah, dear readers, back with you again. That last link usually makes subspeciesimgonnarunthisplacesomedaysoyoubetternotpissmeoff variant godcomplex head explode as they can’t bear anyone who might not worship them. Usually swimming a few feet behind imgonnarunthisplacesomedaysoyoubetternotpissmeoff variant godcomplex is subspecies imgonnaeatyourshitsowhenyourunthisplaceyoullpromoteme. They are a very sad and hopeless species so we will not spend anytime on them here at all.
The loudest subspecies of Homo iman assholeous is subspecies ifartwithmymouth. They can be found bouncing loudly farting foul odors from their mouths. As they haven’t really used their brains in years, they think they are making cutting-edge observations, but sadly, its only farts.
The next two groups travel together in schools and have a mutualistic relationship feeding off each other. The two are Homo iman assholeous subspecies stalkeritis and subspecies gossipitis. Subspecies stalkeritis can be seen oogling (and occasionally going through papers on a co-workers desk) peering over shoulders to try and figure out e-mail passwords and trolling any sites that might mention their co-workers. They quickly carry this information to Homo iman assholeous subspecies gossipitis. There have been some hybrids created between subspecies gossipitis and subspecies ifartwithmymouth. This has resulted in subspecies imreallyabigshitus. This subspecies is really a mystery as no one has ever seen Homo iman assholeous subspecies imreallyabigshitus do or say anything at all. Someone coined the term “parade species” as they go heither and yon and yon and hither but again, never do anything at all. I have observed this species at several different organizations.
I could go on and on about this new species Homo iman assholeous and all of its subspecies and variants, such as subspecies princessyougottalikeme, welcomesmackolous who has to give out a smack for every nice comment they make, unfunnyjokarious variant offensivitis and more. But I am not alone in noticing the assholes among us.
For instance there is the ever popular http://www.peopleareassholes.com/ On this site assholes are listed by name. I’m thinking of listing them by picture.
The next site is even more angry at the assholes among us and actually wish them death http://www.gettingit.com/static/internetforassholes_death.html
Wikipedia has and extensive listing describing what an asshole is. Some of you should read this carefully and if you fit- seek redemption http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asshole
There may even have been a dangerous shift out of the Species Homo iman assholeous to squirrels. It may be the squirrels attraction to nuts. http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/bos/71409270.html
And the number of assholes just seems to keep multiplying http://www.thehumorarchives.com/humor/0001233.html
There are those who think most of our current politicians in America and abroard are assholes. For a slideshow with music click here http://filmstripinternational.com/ Warning this site will be better appreciated by socialists, liberals, communists and democrats than republicans.
And sometimes it takes quite a bit of skill to be an asshole. Try this on if you are feeling like a playful asshole http://www.pagat.com/climbing/asshole.html
So are you an asshole? Are you going to continue to be an asshole or are you going to evolve and join the human race? There is hope for all, after all I do believe in evolution.
Kid Break Your Brain was not recieved neutrally. It was loved. It was hated. People laughed belly laughs and people rolled their eyes.
So as a public service www.kidsbreakyourbrain.com was launched.
Visit us soon for an important public service announcement and items to help spread the word that KIDS BREAK YOUR BRAIN!!!!
Finally, a friend was getting married. I had something to look forward to. I went to the wedding and the old disco favorite was playing, “We are family”. All the gals got up and danced. My first mistake was letting the other woman lead. I happily did disco moves I hadn’t done since 1980. I spun out, I spun in, I spun out and out and out and over.
So now, a few weeks after re-starting my exercise program…I’m not having a good year…I have a cracked bone in my foot and a badly sprained ankle. So what is a girl to do?
Well as I got tired of sitting, I ordered a tape on Noodle Aqua Aerobics. In the pool last night I announced to my husband that we could do it together. He broke up laughing and said, you’ll do it, I’ll laugh my a** off! I promptly bopped him over the head with my noodle. I also ordered a series of Pilates tapes. I’ve done Pilates before and was really impressed at how well it worked. Its also rather difficult. But as I can do “mat pilates” laying on my back, its a way I can keep from degenerating into Jabba the Hut.
I can’t wait until my husband opens his birthday presents to find among the fun stuff a specialty Pilates tape for bad backs. Hee Hee.
So any other broken winged aqua aerobics fans out there? What about Pilates fans?
Today I found out how a deer feels in the headlights of an oncoming car, frozen, seeing a ton of unthinking machinery advance with the purpose of its destruction in mind. Continuing on the delightful theme of my mother’s illness, having progressed to a ventilator and a dialysis machine I discovered an entire new level of how hospitals practice insurance rather than medicine.
First I received a call from the nursing home where we were holding a room by paying for it privately to the tune of $700 a day. They cheerfully informed me that they did dialysis OR ventilator but not both. I found on another blog a note written by a respiratory therapist saying the reason many dialysis centers did not take on ventilator patients was a liability issue. I called the nursing home and offered to sign a wavier of liability. In turn they countered that they could not release a nurse from the vent unit to travel with my mother. I countered with I’d hire a nurse from a visiting or other private nursing service for that purpose and pay out of pocket. They called the dialysis center who refused to have my mother enter as a patient as they did not do dialysis on ventilator patients. They want patients who are only sick enough to pay well but not too sick to cause any liability.
Then the hospital called and told me that they had a room for me in a place that does ventilator and dialysis. It was NYC or the Catskills. Neither are near and neither could be visited regularly. I forbid them to move my mother who has multiple other problems aside from the vent and the dialysis …but apparently is just stable enough to get her tossed out.
Next I get a call that since I refused the first available bed open all medicare benefits were now discontinued. So I started an appeal to medicare and my mother’s secondary insurance. Well the secondary insurance turned down the appeal within 30 minutes.
In a nursing home, my mother has to pay privately until she spends down her account for medicaid. So it can be the same with the hospital. So she is staying. Perhaps, indefinately. There is a gap to provide many services to our elderly and I think it is time that we just stand up and protest, that medicine is there to make our loved ones better, to help the entire family cope at a terrible time.
Sometimes when a deer is caught in the headlights the car smashes into them and makes a bloody mess. But once in a while, a driver will turn off his lights and the deer will leap gratefully away. To solve this, that is all I need, a blink of cooperation.
I really have to credit my friend Stef at work for pointing this out to me. But first, which statistic do you think is higher? Death by auto accident, you know bad weather, too much to drink, mechanical failure, bad driving, falling asleep at the wheel and at least a dozen more factors or death by sober medical practictioner with years of schooling and preparation for his trade. BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ (rude noise buzzer). Yep, the medical establishment kills more people than car accidents. Try this link on for size http://www.centerjd.org/private/mythbuster/MB_medical_malpractice.htm
Amazing isn’t it?
I still like to go back to the idea that a lot of this could be prevented if there was better data management. For instance, going back to my experiences as my mother’s health care proxy, when she was last admitted to St. Luke’s in Newburgh not only would they not give me any information because they didn’t have records in the ER (see HIPAA rant) but they gave her an antibiotic she has a known allergy to. Not only was this information with the transfer records from the nursing home, but on a special medical bracelet I had made for her that had more extensive medical information than usual. But I guess you need to hire people who can read for that to be useful.
One argument might be that perhaps the problem is too big. That there isn’t a way to handle this. But wouldn’t it be simple if each person carried with them, on their keychain perhaps, a little button of information????? It could carry basic medical information, when and why you were last hospitalized, any allergies and other important life saving data. I’m dreaming right?
No I’m not. Try this link out for size. http://www.maxim-ic.com/products/ibutton/ibuttons/index.cfm
I’m sure there are a dozen variants of this small data system. Even most people carry with them on vacation tiny data cards that can record hundreds of photographs in a square inch. The technology is out there in many forms.
And just think if there was “write only” for hospital records. No information vanishing, no mistakes being deleted at the first hint of a law suit. Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Geeeeee why didn’t I think of that. Paper records are so easy to mis-manage. Perhaps that is why our medical system is lagging so far behind in data management.
An update as of August. Everybody blogs. Even doctors blog. Doctors even blog about their medical errors. Take a look from the other side. http://redstatemoron.typepad.com/red_state_moron/2005/08/medical_narciss.html
If you want to read a little on how medical establishments might prevent MRSA try this http://www.consumersunion.org/campaigns/learn_more/000861indiv.html
http://www.centerjd.org/private/mythbuster/MB_medical_malpractice.htm”>
As I was driving in today, sliding on the ice, my windshield encrusted with salt and my window wash frozen I wondered why are people so angry today. Road rage, drive by shootings, and workers going postal. All of which never seemed to occur in the past. Yesterday, I called to make some complaints to the hospital about their information mismanagement. People called me back, in essence to make me go away. To smooth things over. I was told, regarding the fact they would not give me information in the emergency room over the phone, not only was it HIPPA, but they did not have the information down there on who was next of kin etc. As my mother was only there two weeks ago, all this should be available information. According to them, it was not the fault of the ER. Unfortunately this was left as a message so I could not point out it was their information mismanagement, that caused the problem. A short trip to the computer database should have solved the problem. What computer database? I’m sure they have one for billing! Recently, I canceled my Sprint Cell phone contract. They charged me a $150 dollar early cancellation fee. They didn’t tell me upon cancellation there would be such a fee. I would not have cancelled the policy if I had realized it was not completely over. I spoke with a supervisor. WELL! Their computer records reflect I was told and it was all my fault. So I wrote a complaint letter to the FCC. The FCC sent me a form letter saying I need to complain to my “local state regulatory authority for cell phones”. If I knew what my local state regulatory agency for cell phones was I would have complained to them. Frustration mounts.
Today, instead of solving problems, people are placated and told to go away. And then they encounter the same problem again and again. Whether it is mail sent to the wrong address, outrageous fees, bad service or just rudeness, the mentality of the day is “make it go away” not solve the problem. A funny note on this I still get mail for a dead woman at my home, and they’ve told us only she has the authority to stop this mail-how funny is that? I was angry yesterday as I went around in circles and waited for response and finally received “now now its all OK and its not our fault we are just totally inept” platitudes.
I think we’ve forgotten our pride and now we scrabble to hold jobs that don’t pay the bills as we’ve outsourced so much for cheaper labor. People don’t care about their jobs, they just want to get through the abuse of the day. Their infrastructure is such that they can’t solve problems, so complaints pointing out these problems are just made to go away. But this just stirs the pot of those wronged. And the world becomes angrier and angrier. And the problems remain the same.
I wonder if Hallmark has a sentiment for this. A big frowning clown on the outside of the card with a “Sorry your complaint was ignored today” on the inside.
Health Care Administrator Attempts to Comfort and Smile
My next project will be to write to every congressman, legistlator and politician that I can. My mother, after a long ongoing illness is in the hospital again. I am her health care proxy and next of kin. I call, ” Can you tell me why she has been admitted?”
” No HIPPA.”
“But you saw me just a week ago.”
“We can’t release information over the phone.”
“My health care proxy is in her file”
“That didn’t come with her from the nursing home”
“But…”
“HIPPA”
HIPPO Turds.
I had just gone over my mother’s file with the nursing supervisor that afternoon. All sorts of medical details. I had to yell and scream at her to get an update (this afternoon she knew I was the health care proxy). My mother had a fever of 101.1 F. Wow. I could see them being reluctant to tell me my mother had picked up a sexually transmitted disease while in the nursing home, but just a fever??? Her case has been long and complicated and I have used up all my sick leave, family medical emergency leave and so forth. So there is a point where you need to start managing things from the phone. You need to know - is this a crisis or not.
This morning I tried to get was she stable, critical etc out of them. No go. I could understand if they didn’t want to release so many mg/L of some metabolite, but stable vs critical…? Come ON! I called the hospital administrator’s office and left a voice mail. It’s hours later and no answer. I called the covering physician. No answer. I left a message for her. No call back. My mom has been ill for over a year and a half and I have taken all sorts of time off to be with her. But I now have to manage my time and really only take time off for major crisises.
My generation has been labeled the service generation, the first generation to be caught between taking care of children and elderly parents who are living longer than ever before. Medical advances allow them to live longer and with more complicated medical problems (read costly) than in the past. This may not be a good thing, for although life may be extended, the quality is diminished and it is at great emotional and financial cost to the family.
Ack…I need a vacation……….whineeeeeeeeeee.