Six days ago, I received an urgent call from my sister, seriously concerned about our father's health. She described his condition, and I advised her to take him to the ER immediately. She did. While he was there, the local hospice nurses called the ER physician and instructed him to cease treatment and return my father home.
A few hours later, Dad had a respiratory arrest and needed an endotracheal tube and a ventilator. By that time, I had, as the Medical Power of Attorney, fired the hospice agency.
Tomorrow, we will transfer Dad to a long term care facility for a couple of weeks of physical therapy. He won't be, as the doctor described it, "narcotized" to the point of fatal overdose. He will be safe from hospice nurses who routinely canceled appointments with Dad's doctors and ordered controlled drugs without calling either Dad's physician or me. He will regain his strength and muscle tone. He will do this because the local hospice nurses will not be adjusting his medications without approval from his POA (me) or his physician.
Had they had their way, I would be burying my dad. Instead, I am working to return him home to his wife of 52 years safely.
In the time frame above, I drove from Colorado to Iowa to attend to my dad. I left my wife, a mere two days post-op from abdominal surgery, to deal with this complication of hospice malpractice. I was separated from my wife on Christmas, and we each spent our first Christmas Eve alone because of the negligence of the Trinity Regional Medical Center hospice nurses, not to mention their homicidal negligence in my father's care.
I am relieved that Dad seems to be better every day that he is not receiving massive overdoses of pain meds as prescribed by these homicidally incompetent nurses. I am equally determined to see to it that every regulatory and legislative agency I can contact shares my outrage. There will be consequences. I hope careers are ruined. I will be spending considerable time, energy and talent to make it so.
Stay tuned.
