Corporate Healthcare nightmare

[pickledpepperRN]

Tip of the iceberg:

http://www.calnurse.org/cna/watch/tenet/tenarch.html

http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2003/June/03_civ_386.htm

http://www.laweekly.com/ink/03/08/news-ireland.php

http://tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/6991/view/print

http://www.calnurse.org/cna/patient/

The following are excerpts from letters received from patients, their families, and Registered Nurses, in response to CNA's Patient Watch advertisements and similar campaigns.

These ads have appeared in many places, including the

New York Times, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Sacramento Bee, San Jose Mercury News, and other newspapers and magazines across the country and in Canada.

"My grandfather survived brain surgery but died three months later, from the effects of malnutrition, dehydration and an infected bedsore. All of this could have been prevented if a registered nurse was at his side. He was a dignified elderly gentleman, a loving husband and the strong center of a family...In the hospital he had become just another dollar sign who was being manipulated to meet the greed of hospital revenue."

My wife entered ----- hospital recently and received very poor service. Every time she called for a registered nurse, she got a "nursing assistant" or "patient care assistant" instead. It took 30 to 45 minutes to actually see a registered nurse.

Our baby died after we were pushed out of the hospital too soon by ------ Health care. The coroner's report said our baby died of meningitis or streptococcus B, and would have lived if we had spent just 6-10 more hours in the hospital.

Our child was born with a cleft palate that was not detected. She was then misdiagnosed as developmentally disabled. While we were in the hospital, we rarely saw an RN. When we went home, the baby was not feeding properly. The hospital where she was born was unresponsive and of no help to us. We finally took her to ---- Hospital in -----, where she was found to be dehydrated and had to be put on an IV.

"I provide HIV antibody testing and counseling services. One of the clients I counseled required HIV antibody testing because she had cared for a relative who died of HIV disease and had given the relative several injections, during which she had sustained needle sticks. This client had no previous medical training or experience prior to caring for the ill relative. She told me she was awkward and nervous while giving the injections, and that was why she had sustained the needle sticks."

A 27 year-year-old man from Central California was given a heart transplant, and was discharged from the hospital after only 4 days because his HMO wouldn't pay for additional hospitalization. Nor would the HMO pay for the bandages needed to treat the man's infected surgical wound. The patient died.

A four-year-old girl ran a high fever following a five hour hospital stay for a tonsillectomy (considered an outpatient operation by HMOs). Her mother took the girl to her HMO pediatrician, who didn't take the girl's temperature, didn't examine her throat, and didn't refer the girl back to the surgeon-- a routine procedure for post operative problems. The girl died of a hemmorhage at the surgical site.

When a 23-year-old diabetic asked her California HMO why it wouldn't cover the cost of blood sugar testing supplies, the company's chief executive told a newspaper reporter that the company provides all benefits required by the state. He suggested that the patient "try to get a law passed requiring the kind of coverage she wants."

A former HMO medical reviewer is still haunted by decisions she made to deny care to patients. She was quoted in a special report published in U.S. News & World Report: "If there was any way at all to claim that something requested was experimental or nonstandard, we took it. We looked for ways not to cover treatment" she said.

Late last year a three-member arbitration panel awarded over $1 million to the family of a 34 year-year-old schoolteacher who died of breast cancer. A California HMO was the defendant. Testimony given during arbitration hearings showed that the HMO tried to "influence or intimidate" the woman's oncologist and his superior with "argumentative" phone calls. In the opinion of the panel, "(the) HMO's actions, which were designed and intended to interfere with an existing doctor/patient relationship, constitute extreme and outrageous behavior, exceeding all bounds usually tolerated in a civilized society."

[Hellllllo Nurse, BSN, RN]

Awful.

[pickledpepperRN]

Hospitals and HMOs are cutting care to make record profits.

Patients are paying the price.

Just ask any registered nurse who provides direct care. We're the health professionals patients call on most. And we see dangerous changes that can put patients at risk at a time when patients in hospitals are more critically ill than ever.

Untested, experimental work redesign schemes are reducing the standard of care and cutting skilled care givers by up to 50%. But with staff cuts of just 8%, mortality rates can jump as much as 400%.

Dangerous short staffing leads to death and

injuries due to omissions and accidents.

Registered nurses and other skilled health care professionals are being removed from directly caring for patients. Unlicensed staff, often with no clinical background or experience, are being forced to make decisions about patients health.

Nurses and other health care professionals are threatened with termination when they speak out on behalf of patients.Doctors are prevented from making necessary referrals and giving patients information on treatment options.

What's wrong with this picture?

Health care is the number one profit industry in the country. When hospital corporations talk about "patient focused care" and "cost containment," what they really mean is higher profits and cut-rate care.

[pickledpepperRN]

http://www.redding.com/top_stories/local/20031001toplo018.shtml

Redding doctors will take the Fifth in civil trial

Self-incrimination feared in ongoing RMC investigation

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http://www.thestreet.com/stocks/melissadavid/10116568.html

Whistleblowers Piping Up at Tenet

. Referred to by some hospital insiders as "Twelve Jokes," the facility is accused of employing the same business practices that have come back to haunt some of Tenet's star hospitals in California. Specifically, the hospital is suspected of performing unnecessary surgeries like those alleged at Tenet's Redding Medical Center and Western Medical Center. It is also accused of bribing physicians for patient referrals, an alleged practice that has already triggered several indictments at Tenet's Alvarado Medical Center in San Diego and government probes of at least six other southern California hospitals in the Tenet chain.

Tenet didn't respond to requests for comment.

In a letter fielded by the FBI early this month -- and now in other agency hands as well -- a whistleblower accused Twelve Oaks of abuses that, some say, are fundamental to Tenet's business model.

"The Federal Bureau of Investigation needs to extend its probe into the illegal activities of Tenet "

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[oramar]

I wonder why the cost of lawsuits does not cancel out all the gains(financial) the suits get from poor staffing.

[TigRN]

It is awful. My husband had an appy a couple of years ago... knowing the state of health care from an RN perspective I made sure I was with him pretty much 24 hours a day. I slept in the room and provided pretty much all of his care. If I hadn't he probably wouldn't have gotton what he needed. I had him deep breathing and coughing the day after surgery [he didn't like me much for that one ] - I had to ask for towels -they didn't bring him any. The nurse would come to hang meds and not tell you what they were for.... I kept making him ask.

I haven't had an issue with my HMO [yet] but I have several family members that have. It's scary. I actually had more issues with a PPO 16 years ago when I had my first child. He was an emergency C-section and they wanted me discharged after 3 days regardless. My doctor them "fine, he would discharge me and he would also give me the name and number of an excellent attorney" -- they backed off very quickly... :roll

[Geeg]

It's just the tip of the iceberg.