evilness

Most of you know that my dad has been in the hospital. I already have misgivings about insurance companies, but new evidence takes the cake. The reason my father went into the hospital is because he has an arrhythmia. This causes his blood pressure to drop and that is a BAD thing. Usually when this happens they do a procedure to get his heart back in a regular rhythm and all is good in the world. Instead they found another condition that means the sac (yes I said sac..giggle and get over it) has calcium deposits on it. This could be caused by a virus or by exposure to beryllium..but that us a rant for another day. They later discovered that the calcium had adhered itself to his heart, so it like his heart is in a glass jar. He has to have the surgery to get the calcium deposits off before they can do the ablation to fix his heart rate. My dad was supposed to have surgery Friday, but some idiot forgot to take him off one of his blood thinners, so he now has to wait. Toledo Hospital released him until the new surgery date late Thursday night. We took him home, and I drove back to Indy Friday. I go to Bobby’s for some karaoke, and I arrive home at around 4 a.m. That is when my sister calls to tell me that my dad has collapsed again and now they are Life Flighting him to St Vincents. Life Flight is our helicopter EMT unit. You only get life flighted if it a LIFE OR DEATH situation. Now here is the rub. My mom asked that he be taken to Toledo Hospital, but the EMT refused. He insisted that he be sent to St. V’s. However, St V’s is not on my parents’ insurance plan. They transported him there and even in the ER the doctors and nurses assured my mom and sister that because this was a life or death situation, they would keep dad without an issue. The ER doctor did not transfer him to Toledo Hospital, and as soon as they had him stabilized they told him they had to discharge him. Once he was stabilized it was no longer an emergency situation and they could not keep him. Here is my issue: He was stable when they discharged him on Thursday night. He did not do anything that would have been a risk, but it happened again. They can’t do the ablation to fix the problem until after the surgery, but because they “can’t guarantee” this will happen again, they won’t keep him. Just “take him home and make sure he behaves himself.” Behaves himself? He was behaving himself when the first time happened. He was REALLY behaving himself when the second time happened, and he was LIFE FLIGHTED IN. Um FYI they don’t just Life Flight people for paper cuts. It is conceivable that my father would have died on this weekend if he had not been flown to St. V’s. Rather than keep him in the hospital, or at least transfer him to Toledo Hospital, they have sent him home under the hope it won’t happen again before his surgery. I’m sorry, that is just negligent. Yes, lets send a man with a history of heart problems, who cannot have the treatment to fix his arrhythmia home after he has had 2 attacks (one that really could have been fatal) home to “chance it.” If anything happens to my father between now and the day of his surgery, there will be hell to pay. Actually, it probably a good thing I wasn’t there at the time, or I would have probably would have verbally eviscerated the person…I had a hard enough time not getting pissy about them not taking him off all his blood thinners. This would have put me over the edge. I’m not all about going all socialist with our health care system. I’m really not. I just think it is an outrage that a place that is supposed to keep people safe and do what is in the best interest of the patient could do something this abusurd.