My dad is in the hospital.

[ejpoeta]

He has been to the hospital several times of late. He is having many issues with his health. He has diabetes, heart problems, prostate cancer... He can go to the VA and does frequently because it does not cost him anything. But he sacrifices in treatment, because they continually misdiagnose things and miss things altogether. They go through doctors like dirty underwear around there. Then he ends up in the ER at our local hospital. where the doctors ask him wouldn't he rather go to the VA.

We went to the hospital last night and sat in the waiting room for at least two hours with the understanding that we would be able to talk to the doctor. We wanted to find out what was going on with our dad and about what will happen when he is released from the hospital. So we sat there for two hours. My sister went several times to ask the nurse when the doctor would be there. Finally, a doctor came over to talk to us. HE did not know anything about my dad's case. It seemed as if they just grabbed any doctor and sent him over to shut us up and get us out of there. He was telling us he couldn't give specifics because of the rules... but my two sisters had proxy. they didn't know anything because they had tests to do. tests they had already done. he didn't tell us anything and basically wasted our time.

What the hell!! I imagine what kind of care my father would be receiving were he rich. Every time I hear of some politician going to the hospital I wonder if they are getting the run around from the hospital. And I am SOOO infuriated!!!

But we don't need any healthcare reform!! We don't need universal healthcare so that hospitals aren't trying to get rid of patients like my dad. He has insurance, but it costs him $500 every time he goes to the ER. probably more on top of that.

I am hating our local hospital more and more and wish I didn't ahve to go there to have my baby. But my doctor only goes to that hospital. It's not just that hospital, I know. It's the whole system. And I just feel the inequality of treatment of someone like my dad, who worked his ass off for his whole life. paid his taxes. paid his dues. and at 74 gets the bum rush. it's so nice that the hospital is concerned about how much this is costing my dad. JUST HELP HIM!!! fucking help him and quit fucking worrying about the damned money.

OK. I will stop now. Please forgive the rant. I am very pissed off right now and could just cry.

[patrice]

1. Solidarity ejpoeta!

Been there, seen that!

Be polite, but HANG! TOUGH! with the system, be pro-active to the n-th degree but also seek counsel, like a good Medical Social Worker.

And, I know I don't have to tell you this, but I do so because of personal experience: Love your Dad, while you can, with every fiber of your being.

:grouphug:

[babylonsister]

2. So he was finally admitted.

Hospitals suck any which way you look at them, especially because usually someone you love is hurting and is in there, and that's emotional. I think I'd blame the crappy system, not any individual. We can hope that will change.

And 'only' two hours? You were lucky.

I hope your dad is getting the care he deserves.

[ejpoeta]

5. i do not blame the nurses or the doctors per se. they are doing the best they can

within a given situation. my dad was admitted the other night after my sisters sat in the ER waiting with him for hours before he was finally admitted. he usually is admitted and then released in a couple of days. He was pretty bad when my sister in law went to his house and he had been taking too much of his medicine and not eating. So he hasn't been allowed to be alone since. We want to get something in place for him after he is released in a nursing home or something. at least temporarily until he can get around without falling and such. he is sick, and his girlfriend has just had spots removed from her lungs (again) and is undergoing chemo presently. she is at her sisters for now, but the thought of the two of them alone in that house is frightening. they can't hardly take care of themselves much less the other one.

Oh, I love my dad. and I know that seeing him so frail and like he might not be around much longer really scares the crap out of me. I remember a few years ago looking at him and seeing he was 'old'. But this is different. there is a difference between 'old' and 'frail'. I remember my mom like that... shortly before she died. And he is hallucinating which is concerning as well. I think my biggest fear is that my dad losing his independence (driving a car, living on his own) will cause him to just give up. Sometimes I get the feeling that he wants to let go and go be with my mom. My sister assures me he keeps saying he wants to live to be 100 so he can be on the smuckers jar. But I've seen it on his face. And I've heard him just out of the blue talk about my mom, who's been gone almost 25 years now.

When it's his time to go, I just don't know how I will react. Granted, I'm not 12 anymore, like I was when my mom died. But I fear how I will handle it. And I just want him to be treated with dignity and care while he is here. by doctors and hospitals.... I want them to treat him the way they would treat their own family member in the hospital. and a good many of the nurses there do. I just don't want anyone trying to push him out the door before he should be released. and I want them to be focusing on his health, and not the cost.

[babylonsister]

8. Awww...

here's a hug, ejpoeta. :hug:

I still have my dad, and he's not sick (yet), but is going blind, so I can relate a bit. He tells me weekly which of his friends have died, and a bit of his heart dies with them. Growing old isn't for sissies. I hope you take solace in the fact he's still here, and let him know just how much you love him. But somehow, I think he knows.

[Yunomi]

15. When my father was in the hospital

for two weeks, his doctor prescribed 21 days in rehab upon release. Dad went to the local 'nursing home', which is actually a pretty nice place. He received physical therapy twice a day, regular meals, and there was always someone to watch or assist him. Medicare paid for all of it, as long as the doc prescribed it. If needed, he could have continued another 21 days. It made all the difference in him getting strong enough to get around, and mom getting some rest from caring for him 24/7. Talk to your dad's doctor, it's a great program.

[willing dwarf]

3. My deep sympathies to you and your dad

My father in law is a farmer in Ireland who is in generally good health but he has a major problem which National Health has no help for. He has needed hip replacement for several years. Unfortunately, being a poor farmer, he hasn't wanted to take time away from the farm to go through the surgery and rehab. Now suddenly, his hips are both gone so bad that he can't walk. The pain is so intense, he's been forced to give up the farming altogether.

A trip to the doctor has given him pain medication, and put him on a TWO YEAR Waiting List. He'll get his hips replaced if he can wait two years or if his family can come up with 15,000 euro for each hip. That's more than $35,000 USD.

It's heart breaking because no one has the money and there are no other options. He can do nothing now but wait for the day to end and get on to the next day.

If anyone tells me that national health is a good idea, I say it's got to be made better than the stark example offered by countries like Ireland. I'm not sure how any of this will change so long as the profit motive is the main motive, but then I don't see much chance of some other motivator, do you?

[ejpoeta]

6. No system is perfect. And it sounds extreme to make the guy wait two years.

But I think that a good system could be developed by looking at the various models and looking at what works and what doesn't. It sounds like Ireland could stand to reform their system. I hope your father in law can get some relief. good luck.

as for profit as a motive, the problem with a profit motive is that the companies make money by denying care. The focus should be on prevention instead of the way it is now. Your father in law couldn't afford the time away to take care of his problems, so he waited and then both hips were gone. Were he able to take care of the problem before it became so severe, maybe he would have been able to continue working, which is all he wanted to do in the first place.... he wants to work. It's a shame the system in ireland didn't have something that would have allowed him to take care of the one hip. Like some form of disability which he could draw off until he got back to his full capacity. Then he would be paying into the system again once he was working again. Seems that would make more sense than the guy now being incapable of working. sounds insane.

[willing dwarf]

12. Well the fear factor is a negative incentive to treatment for lots of people

Early in January, before the inauguration, I heard a speaker on the topic of public health suggest that the new national health care system should use postive incentives to get people to act on their own behalf for health checks. -- Giving cash incentives to get a mamogram or a pap smear or a colonoscopy. They reckoned that it would save everyone more money than it cost if people had an incentive which would make them follow through.

I work for a community health organization which offers a free health clinic. What we see is that people who have health insurance are as likely to be dis-inclined to health checks and health treatments as those without health insurance. What we have seen is that the relationship, feeling comfortable, feeling recognized as a person makes a huge difference in a person taking charge of their own health. The relationship is a real incentive.

It's the one way I think we can work round the "money is God" approach to everything which our society has degraded into.

[Warpy]

4. Part of the reason for turfing him off to the VA is continuity of care

because they think his docs at the VA know him and they don't. Your dad has Medicare, so they're not worried about payment. All the money in the world wouldn't make it suck any less because VIP wards have faced the same cost cutting every other unit has.

The VA is grotesquely underfunded and is run mostly with interns and residents as physicians. I have worked in that system and patients can count on seeing a new doc there every three months. Every new doc has a bigger and bigger folder to plow through every time he meets a patient there. Some things do get missed. It's not a good system as it is now.

The amazing thing is that most of the patients who go there do get better.

As for the doc who came to talk to you, he didn't know your dad any better than anybody else did, but he did know the type of tests to be run. It takes forever and three days to get results back from many of them, so he was telling you what he knew, which wasn't much at that point.

Our health care system is broken. Cost cutting has everyone who works in it stretched to the breaking point and patients are suffering because of it. Sad to say, your two hour wait was not unusual.

I'm sorry your dad is having to confront the system now.

[leftchick]

7. I feel for you

And I hope your Father gets well. I had a horrible experience when my Mother was hospitalized last year. The nurses were pathetic. Her doctor, luckily I loved and trusted. She went in for an appendectomy and almost died from that. Then she developed a pulmonary embolism that took more than three hours before the nurses addressed it and called her Doctor. This was in the middle of the night and no one bothered to call the children We found out when she told us the next day! Two days later I walk in at 10:00 in the morning and she is struggling for breath. I called in several nurses repeatedly and they treated her with breathing treatments, x-rays and assorted procedures never calling her doctor to come in.

Finally after running from her room to the nurses station about five times someone finally paged her Doctor. In retrospect I wish I had called 911 when they first brushed me off.

I was holding her hand and she just kept telling me to take care of my father over and over. I knew she was dying. I saw it clearly and felt so fucking helpless. Her doctor called for her to be admitted to the ICU stat! The team came in, I went out in the hall and my siblings had arrived after my frantic calls. I knew she was almost dead and was so freaked out.

Then like an angel I saw her Doctor running down the Hall and he was pissed. He went in the room made sure she was hooked up to everything and had the team rush her to ICU. He took a few seconds to walk over to us and explain he believe she was having congestive heart failure and may not survive.

The next three hours were torture but the good news is she made it. In spite of the ignorance and lack of compassion from the nursing staff. Luckily in the ICU there were wonderful people there. It was like a whole new hospital and very strange to witness the contrast.

I totally agree, even with my mother completely insured she was treated like crap and I have already seen her die in front of my eyes. :cry:


...sorry this turned out so long. I guess I needed to vent.

[ejpoeta]

10. i am so sorry you had to go through that. it's the worst feeling to feel

helpless to help a loved one!! It is only made worse when the ones who are supposed to help aren't. At least you were there for your mom. I never got to say goodbye to my mom. She died in the hospital on machines. I always wonder which is worse.... a long illness where you watch someone waste away like what happened to my mom, where you know it's coming but you still feel blindsided.... or something quick where someone has an accident or something. Sometimes I think it is watching someone waste away. I remember helping my mom go to the bathroom and she was just skin hanging off of her bones.

There is a picture of her and my dad taken two weeks before my mom died... the day my sister got married in 86. She looks like a ghost. And I remember sitting at the table watching that picture being taken and for the first time realizing that someday that picture would be all that I have left of her and she would be gone. That was the first time I had ever thought about my mom being gone. And now I look at pictures of my mom and I get this hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach and wonder if that woman ever really existed or if I just imagined her. I still cry. And I still miss her. And I wonder what she would say about my kids. and my parenting. And it's been over 20 years!!

[leftchick]

11. I am crying for you

:hug:

:cry:

there really are no words, it all sucks.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

9. I'm sorry about your dad, ejpoeta - you know, after living in Europe for year....

... I found out that European universal medical care (which is automatic, and one doesn't have to pay private insurances for it), is FAR better than what we have here. I visited the ER several times there with someone and each time they were admitted immediately. Each time they were treated properly. In the same local neighborhood hospital.

Here, almost all health care is a disaster. Even when paid out of pocket. I don't know why.

There are so many lies told about socialized health care. Even right wingers that know better lie about it. It's as if they need to defend right wing lies no matter what. Right wingers take from us any possibility of having good health care.

Oh and I wish your dad health and that he receive healing.

:pals:

[Name removed]

13. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Ilsa]

14. I am really sorry about your dad and how he is treated by our healthcare

system. It makes no sense whatsoever to me.

On a separate note, have you considered using a midwife at a birthing center? If you have had a typical pregnancy, and if it is still early gestationally, perhaps a midwife could help you. She would help with everything from nutrition in pregnancy to breastfeeding and follow-up care. She would refer you back into the medicalized system if she found anything wrong. Midwives do all the same blood tests, etc. They have wonderful outcomes. Of course, it may not be something your body can handle if you've had any complications or are high risk for some reason. I'm an RN, and I've seen some wonderfully happy moms that have used a midwife.

Good luck to both you and your dad. I hope everything turns out okay. My 82 yo father is dealing with Parkinsons, and he doesn't have a VA hospital nearby. We have to go local.

[applegrove]

16. Vibes for your dad.

[PassingFair]

17. www.standwithdrdean.com

www.standwithdrdean.com