It must be true - look at all the rich people coming here for care! (Is the actual argument I see…)
Yeah. If he was being handed over to a nursing home or hospice care or something, that might make sense. If he was waiting for someone to get him from one of those groups, but wandered away in what must have been a delirious state and the people finally showed up (or not) and everyone just shrugged their shoulders and forgot about him that would make sense (but be totally awful). But none of those things seem to be what happened, and it doesn’t make sense. (Unless the medical staff thought he was being handed off to some other carer, and the administrative staff just dumped him, instead.)
They had to take him back to the same hospital to get the deposit back on the catheter. /s
Seriously, I’m not making light of this. All of us who live here know how fucked up our medical system is (I can’t really call it a “healthcare” system).
This whole story is so sad and wrong, but it’s like the cherry on top of a shit sundae that, when found dumped on the curb and unresponsive, the responders brought him back to the people who…what? Hoped no one would notice him there until it was too late?
I guess he’s lucky they didn’t dump him on a commuter train in PA. (No offense to our PA happy mutants.)
meh, he’ll have plenty of money after the pro-bono lawsuit. There’s an opportunity here for a quick-thinking lawyer to make a couple of years worth of wages in a few weeks of actual work.
Their ER was closest, because he didn’t get far before collapsing.
But seriously, it’s not the ER staff that did this. Eventually, it’s going to be a problem that he’s at the same hospital, but his best chance of care, in all likelihood, is at the closest ER. ER staff are programmed to take care of anybody who walks, wheels, or flies in their door.
ACLU comes to mind. His civil liberties were definitely violated.
None taken, but I’m in a Philly suburb and there are 5 different hospitals within a 20-minute drive from my house. That’s without going into the city. So we’re spoiled for choice in my area, because when an ambulance arrives they ask where you want to go.
Hospital and all involved in this “discharge” should be charged with attempted murder. This is premeditated - sepsis is hard enough to manage in a hospital and throwing him out all but guarantees poor outcomes.
As a nurse I would love to see everyone involved get the legal beatdown they deserve. I’m wondering if the sepsis is a direct result of a CAUTI (catheter associated urinary tract infection) or a central line infection and neither would surprise me give the level of care this fellow human received.
Maybe, but maybe not. If they try to charge it as a new admission but it is apparent that it’s complications within 30 days of the prior admission, that’s Medicare fraud. At best it will be denied, at “worst” (for the hospital, at least) it will be considered outright fraud.
In August, Buckhead-based Piedmont Healthcare announced it signed an asset purchase agreement with LifePoint Health, an investor-owned healthcare company based in Brentwood, Tennessee
It’s not the “healthcare system” per se but reckless regulated Capitalism that’s killing America. The amount of “private equity firms” cornering the market on healthcare, real estate, grocery stores, media, veterinarians, etc. is fruckin’ insane. Where is the Sherman antitrust act?
In most cases, third parties cannot sue on behalf of an injured party because they do not have standing. However, there sure are organizations that can help him or his family sue if they want to, and they have every reason to want to.
Out here in the Bay Area it will really depend on where you are. I got to visit the ER today (yay crossing the picket line…). I’m with Kaiser for insurance so I went to the closest Kaiser hospital with an ED about 15 minutes away, there’s a Sutter ER a little further away and a county run one a bit further than that.
In terms of trauma centers options are more limited (not every county out here has a level 1 center in large part because NIMBYs don’t like helipads). But even in terms of more general care… the wealthier parts of San Francisco have a variety of hospitals to choose from while the southeastern part of the city pretty much just has SF General. Sutter took over St. Luke’s on the outskirts of the Mission and transitioned it to a more profitable specialist oriented location, unsure if they still provide emergency services.
I can say for sure that you’ve got little choice here during an emergency. When I had to have someone hospitalized a few years back SFFD flat out said that unless I could find that person’s proof of insurance they would be taken to SF General (despite the patient having insurance and a prior relationship with doctors at UCSF). SF General is great for trauma, great for HIV care, but for this sort of stuff the standard of care paled compared to UC.
Kaiser (and hopefully some other hospitals will get punished) in Los Angeles got busted about fifteen years ago for bouncing undesirable patients out on the streets of Skid Row. What happened in Georgia is unconscionable but not unheard of in this country.
I think Americans need to recognize that class struggle is their main battlefield. Race, gender, and many other socio-political issues are just red herrings to divide and conquer.
You’ve got that backwards, friend. The class struggle exists because of race and the sociopolitical issues. First thing to understand about America is that, at the end of the day, it’s always about racism. It’s the root of everything there in a way that is hard for people who haven’t lived there to understand. Any problem not ultimately about racism is about corporate corruption of government, the other guiding principle of America. The only entities who’s rights are truly protected are cis het white men and corporations.
Furthermore, saying “it’s really about class” is a common dog whistle derail attempt by white supremacists, so be careful about making that argument here where people know better. I’m not accusing you of doing that, just saying it is a thing people do.
Wealth inequality is the symptom, not the disease.
Most EMS systems are required to transport unstable patients to the nearest hospital. This is one of those “no one could foresee something this horrible.” And that is true. I am struggling with it now.
