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-- Why is US Healthcare so Expensive?
Why is US Healthcare so Expensive?
Want an example? Well, here's one...an insane mother coupled with a court system that thinks they know more about medicine and medical outcomes than doctors at over 40 hospitals. Utterly amazing.
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| Appeals court keeps infant on life support Thursday, February 17, 2005 Posted: 9:32 AM EST (1432 GMT) HOUSTON, Texas (AP) -- A mother fighting to keep a hospital from removing her infant son from the ventilator that has kept him alive since birth has won another temporary restraining order. The 1st Court of Appeals reinstated the order keeping 4-month-old Sun Hudson on life support Wednesday, just hours after a probate court judge lifted the order. A hearing was set for Tuesday. The dispute centers on the legal standard over hospital care in Texas. Under state law, a hospital must continue care if there is a reasonable probability that another hospital will admit the patient. Texas Children's Hospital officials have said no treatment can save Sun, and they want to remove him from life support. Hospital lawyers said state officials have contacted almost 40 facilities and none have been willing to care for the infant. But the boy's mother, Wanda Hudson, believes her son will recover. Her attorney argued there is a reasonable chance another hospital would take the child. Sun suffers from thanatophoric dysplasia, a genetic condition characterized by extremely short limbs, a narrow chest, small ribs and underdeveloped lungs. Infants usually are stillborn or die shortly after birth from respiratory failure. There have been rare documented cases of survivors, however. "He is slowly suffocating to death because his lungs lack the capability to support his body," the hospital said. Hudson hasn't seen her son in more than a month, but says she believes she communicates with him telepathically. "Sun is going to live forever," she said. "As long as the Sun is in the sky he will live. I don't believe in death." |
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| Hudson hasn't seen her son in more than a month, but says she believes she communicates with him telepathically. "Sun is going to live forever," she said. "As long as the Sun is in the sky he will live. I don't believe in death." |
Yup, I think she kind of lost it with the last comment!
This is what happens when emotions and pure objectivity get mixed up. I do feel sympathy for this woman and the pain she is most certainly going through, but I wonder at what point she will capitulate and trust the numerous qualified medical opinions above her money grubbing lawyer's. If the total cost burden fell on this woman's shoulders, and if she could indeed bear the majority if not all of the burden, then I'd say more power to her. However, I doubt this is the case.
Another interesting quote by the mother and then a statement by the hospital.
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| Hudson said she named her baby "Sun" after the sun the sky. "The sun that shines in the sky has come down in a flesh and blood body just like yours and mine. And Sun is the creator of Sun's body. Sun came down here, looking the way he did, for a reason, so man cannot get the glory," Hudson said. Texas Children's Hospital released the following statement: "A team of physicians comprised of neonatology and bioethics specialists at Texas Children's Hospital determined that it would be unethical to continue with care that is futile and prolongs Sun's suffering. In order to arrive at the best possible resolution for all parties, Texas Children's encouraged court involvement, and recommended that Ms. Hudson obtain legal representation. The hospital agreed to pay Ms. Hudson's reasonable attorney's fees in an effort to ensure that her and her son's interests have been adequately represented. Texas Children's has made extraordinary efforts to provide the best possible care for Sun, as we do for all patients, and we are deeply saddened that no treatment can save him." |
[tactless bad joke]
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| "The sun that shines in the sky has come down in a flesh and blood body just like yours and mine. And Sun is the creator of Sun's body." |
That story above reminds me of a story about Buddha who came across a young woman with a her dead child in her arms. Apparently, the child was still-born and the young woman refused to accept it and for weeks carried the child, which was starting to decay.
So Buddha asked her to get some mustard seeds from the first house that did not have any experience with someone's death. She went from house to house, but everywhere she went, someone had experienced someone's death in one form or another. Finallly, it dawned on her that death was something everyone experienced and that she was not the only one, that she was not alone in her pain. She then buried the child.
That was off topic, but here's a story i ran across yesterday about a woman who refused to leave her hospital bed even though she's fine. Wouldn't it be cheaper for the hospital to rent her an apartment and provide live-in care? Crasy stuff.
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| Woman Overstays Hospital Stay by a Year By BRIAN SKOLOFF Associated Press Writer February 17, 2005, 7:59 AM EST More than a year after Sarah Nome was deemed healthy and given her discharge papers, the 82-year-old woman stubbornly refuses to leave her hospital bed. Nome admits there is no reason she should be racking up unpaid medical bills -- which have now topped $1 million -- but says she has nowhere else to turn. Now Kaiser Permanente's San Rafael Medical Center in California is suing her for the cost of her stay and trying to show her the door. "The thing is, I have no medical problem. I've been here more than a year, never had any medication, never had any treatment, never had a fever, have a perfect heart, blood pressure is like a teenager," Nome said in a telephone interview from the hospital north of San Francisco. "It isn't that I'm not ready to go. I just have nowhere to go." Exasperated hospital officials persuaded a judge to approve her eviction. But because Nome is bedridden and cannot walk, they have no intention of wheeling her onto the street. Instead, they hope the ruling encourages her to pack her bags. "We're really not interested in her money," Kaiser attorney Stanley Watson said. "We just want her cooperation." Nome's troubles began, her daughter Jane Sands says, in 2002 when she broke both her legs while living alone. After several operations, Nome could no longer care for herself and was admitted to the first of several nursing homes. The most recent one, Nome claims, sent her to the hospital against her will. Hospital officials say she was admitted for a weeklong psychiatric evaluation, was deemed to be in good mental health, was then ordered released. But because she is suing the nursing homes where she lived before she was hospitalized, Nome and her daughter claim she has no choice but to stay put. Nome is suing the last home she lived in, Greenbrae Care Center, for sending her to the hospital. Watson said hospital officials have tried to find a suitable home for Nome, but Nome and her daughter insist on staying in Marin County, where Nome has spent her entire life. That puts Kaiser in a difficult position, given Nome's bedridden state. "If a patient were ambulatory, you could simply discharge them and say, `Have a nice day,'" Watson said. "But I can assure you that we don't plan on having the sheriff come in and physically remove her and put her on the street." Greenbrae will not take Nome back because she is suing the nursing home, said Bob Peirce, chief operating officer of Ocadian Hospitals and Care Centers, which runs the center. "She's suing us, and we obviously feel very strongly that she has no case," Peirce said. Anthony Wright, executive director of the health care advocacy group Health Access California, said Nome's situation highlights a larger, nationwide problem. "This issue is becoming more and more contentious because ... we don't have a long-term care policy in this country, so there is no set way that we take care of seniors who need ongoing care," he said. Meanwhile, Nome remains in her hospital gown. She said the doctors and nurses "couldn't be finer," but she has missed the news since her television and newspaper privileges were taken away. "I think Bush might still be president," she quipped. She passes the time by reading in bed and gazing out the window. |
Thats f*'ed up
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| "Sun is going to live forever," she said. "As long as the Sun is in the sky he will live. I don't believe in death." |
US healthcare is not 'so expensive' because of things like this. its expensive because the American federal government and policymakers refuse to put in place the kind of mechanisms that would make it as affordable as it is in, well, pretty much every other developed country in the world.
It's easy for us to criticise from a distance, but I'd rather live in a country where the ultimate decision as to when a patient lives and when he or she dies is made by the family of the patient, rather than the hospital.
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