Yes, let me say that again.
The rest home,
where he was abused,
where he was subjected to sub-standard care,
where he lost all the weight,
and where he most likely contracted 3 different strains of drug resistant bacteria(although the later is hard to prove),
had already been mentioned in a class action lawsuit a least a month before Kaiser insisted on putting him there. The suit was based on substandard care due to various factors.
I want to know, just how do these people sleep at night?
And if they can what kind of people are they?
The most disturbing this is that the company that runs this chain of grim reapers is huge! They have homes all over the South-Western United States, and each one of them has issues. And after a little research I found that they are owned by a huge conglomerate based in Canada! This conglomerate has all kinds of businesses. And I wouldn't be surprised if they had their hand in the cookie jar of all sorts of health providers.
Who is looking out for our mothers and fathers? Who will be looking out for us when the time comes and we have to recover from a broken hip?
I have issue with several things that occurred in the chain of events that led up to Norm's death.
1. Because of his advanced age his care should not have
been downsized to a recovery home(euphemism for a
skilled nursing facility, which turns out wasn't all
that skilled.)
2. He should never have been put in that cast.
3. Someone at Kaiser should have made sure he saw his Dr.
every week like the Dr had ordered. The rest home and
the Kaiser administrators said it wasn't possible.
4. And he sure shouldn't have been placed in a home that
was already under suspicion for bad behavior.
These days everybody is screaming for Health care for All.
But what kind of health care are we talking about here?
The Kaiser-Permante kind?
Norms biggest sin was that he was hurting the bottom line.
Kaiser was loosing money hand over fist on him. But if they
had just spent a little money up front and given him a few more days to heal he'd be with us today and they wouldn't
have had to spend so much money on his dying. And Medicare
and Medical would have been saved a bit of money too.
As we are designing a new health care system in this country we can't forget the plight of our mothers and fathers. Yes their bills are high and they need more attention that folks in their 20's and 30's. Yes they
bodies don't heal as fast. Treatment shouldn't be cookie
cutter and put back on families that may or may not be able to take care of a critically ill person.
We need to design this new health care system in a way that it deals with individual needs on a case by case basis.
We need to design it so that companies like Kaiser can't
get away with dumping people into substandard care.
Get involved with your law makers and give them suggestions.
Get involved with local groups and talk to your neighbors.
One by one we can change the way things are done if we all just pull together.
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