My Friend Jim

[Guest guest]

My writng this seemed to help me cope with recent events. I may not have everything perfect, but I got it out. Just something I wanted to share and to warn others about. Jim found out too late where he had placed himself. These are actual events - none of it is fiction.

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Yesterday, July 9 2005, I lost a good friend.

It's just dawning on me that I'll never hear his voice again nor see his face except in pictures and I'll never see him grin and say "Hi Skippy" when he would meet. We didn't stay in touch a lot, but we called each other on occasion to see how 'we' were doing. Some friends call that a check-in. Almost a comfort call. He was that older brother I never had that you'd only see on occasion.

Jim had his 75th birthday on June 23rd. At that point he was fighting for life in a local hospital.

What took his life is a bit foggy, but I have my own opinions.

You see, he had joined an HMO called SCAN and had chosen High Desert Medical Group as his provider group. His primary care provider told him in January 2005 that he was fine and his shortness of breath and heartburn were just due to GERDS. In my opinion his primary care physician couldn't diagnose a hangnail with a magnifying glass and an example picture. If the Physicican's Assistant hadn't requested an X-Ray they would never have known why he had the heartburn. When his primary care provider saw the X-Ray he exploded demanding to know who had authorized it! You can bet the P.A. got ridden on the carpet for such a feat. The X-Ray showed he had a very large gallstone. This was his heartburn problem they told him. They also had him on oxygen at home at 2 lpm.

He was told he'd be fine after the outpatient procedure to remove the stone. It seems that someone forgot to pass needed information to the surgeon prior to the procedure causing Jim to have a heart attack while in surgery. They didn't know he had a heart attack for nearly a week! They kept him in the hospital in coronary care for quite a while. They told him he could go home and he did.

He was home just a couple of days and had to go back to the Emergency Room. He was having trouble breathing this time. This caused him to be put in another hospital, again attended by his PCP and other MD's of his group. If it hadn't been for a real outside the group physician called in, they would never have figured out what was wrong. Not only had he had a couple more heart attacks but it turned out he had some type of fibrosis in his lungs. Where that came from is pretty well unknown as he only started having trouble breathing this past December (2004).

He was told repeatedly to go home by visiting MD's from his group. They told him he was fine, get up and walk out. This was repeated multiple times daily! It got so bad that he and his wife complained to the State of California. The group was going to 'evict' him from the hospital! The State of California overrode that. I would think that was the Calfornia Insurance Board but I'm unsure.

Up until the State had been called, the group wanted to send him to Los Angeles for rehabilitation. That was all he needed they told him. After he and his wife had contacted the State, rehab was no longer an option. He was dismissed from the hospital as doing fine and sent home.

Twelve hours later they had to call 911 as he couldn't breathe well. They took him to the other hospital and he wound up in Coronary Care. Now they told him he also had kidney failure.

That was when the group sent in their "Terminator" doctor. There was no longer a choice he was told. He had to leave the hospital and go home for hospice care as he was now terminal.

They said he had heart, respiratory and kidney problems. He was told he had no chance at life.

When the hospice people appeared they put him on 2 lpm of oxygen. In the hospital he was on 5 lpm! The hospice emergency personnel the family called wouldn't authorize anything beyond 4 lpm. There seemed to be a lack of profiency here also, but perhaps they don't care as you are going to die soon anyway.

They were told they needed his discharge papers from the hospital as it would show what he had to have. When the family started trying to find the discharge papers from the hospital they were nowhere to be found! They went to the discharging hospital to get copies. They couldn't find them either. No one recalled getting them either.

It turns out that SCAN dropped him as soon as the terminal diagnosis was given by his group's "Terminator" doctor. His only chance for care was now with his hospice.

Jim didn't live two weeks at home on hospice care.

I may not have covered every event, this is what I recall.

I have questions. Was he really terminal all the time and this was just his time to go or was it caused by lack of competent medical care by his group? Were they so worried they'd have to pay a bill they wanted rid of him? Would the rehab have fixed him?

We'll never know I fear. I've been told by friends of friends of friends that this is common with HMO groups in this area (Antelope Valley). I'm sure his records will all disappear at the hospitals. I found out that a couple of the directors of the group are on the boards of the two hospitals. Convenient I'd say.

When malpractice attorneys were asked about taking his case (before he was dead), the answer came back that since there was a low dollar limit on malpractice cases it wasn't worth taking unless there were special circumstances. Given his age they declined the case.

At one time I was a patient of that group with another HMO. They weren't very competent then either. Funny thing is they always win the "Best" award in the local newspaper. I have to wonder how much they pay for that little award because from what I've seen and heard they sure don't seem to deserve it.

Without the lawyers to corral them, the doctors seemingly have free reign. Human life has come to mean nothing. How can they be what appears to be serial killers and not even be prosecuted?

What ever happened to the Hippocratic Oath they took? I had always heard it started with "First, do no harm." THAT'S NOT EVEN IN THE OATH! There are several versions of this oath on the net. I do notice it keeps getting shorter. Look at three of them here: http://www.geocities.com/everwild7/noharm.html

With doctors such as Jim had it makes you wonder why Kevorkian was jailed.

Health Care. Be afraid, be VERY afraid.

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