Hospital Horror Stories?

Remember, altz is in der RBS’O hent.

They were pretending to do appendectomies, and really stealing their kidneys

As the doctor was ready to surgery on my sister, he says that protocol is to mark the correct limb so that they do the right one (I told him he really should use the word “correct” in this context).

He then proceeded to mark the wrong one.

Doctor has associative identity disorder, and sometimes thinks he’s an axe murderer (and is)

I hope she/you corrected him

I called my brother in law, and we cut a deal that I wouldn’t say anything, and we’d split the malpractice money.

Joseph, what is your proof for that little piece of loshon hara?

Loshon hora? Where?

i was in a hospital somewhere (not going to say where) because i had severe nausea and thought it was serious so i got to the hospital they took a blood sample, left me there over night as i was wondering why nothing is happening with me, they said i was fine and discharged me (i was feeling better by then) so i get back to where i was staying and i get a phone call to come back, there was bacteria in my blood, so i got back there and was admitted into a room yet they didnt do anything to me medically wise (no IV, heart monitor etc) and i got discharged a few days later with a bill for $2000 and them saying that the bacteria was in the needle

Lesschumros

I’d be happy to be the source for Joseph’s statement. My only quibble is I’m not sure why suffering is in quotation marks. There is very real suffering that many elderly experience, and hospitals and halacha for that matter, sometimes “let the patient die rather than try to preserve his life.”

OBviously, the two are not always in agreement and this is where problems and mistrust arise.

But the suffering is very real, and shouldnt be minimized by quotation marks,even if you would come to a different conclusion than the hospital.

This really was one. My mom and we got up from shiva for my dad O”H 22 years ago, and the next day (she was staying at my house for a few days), she passed out with virtually undetectible blood sugar readings. We called Hatzalah, may they always be blessed), and they took her to the nearest hospital in acute insulin shock.

Her immediate need was to get a Glucose drip into her IV. My sister and I were both with her, and we noticed that liquid was pooling around her sheet on the side of the IV line. When we investigated, we saw immediately that the IV line was not connected proprerly and everything was leaking out.

We called this to the attention of the nurses, and sure enough the IV was not giving her any fluids, much less the much-needed sugar. The nurse became enraged at us for catching this glaring error, which COULD HAVE KILLED MY MOTHER at that time, and they would have blamed it on the fact that her sugar was too low when she was brought in. Once she was given the proper Glucose, she rallied within a very short time, but we were no longer allowed inside to be with her. My mom’s ROV had arrived by this time, and he made a tzimmes over our being kicked out, when our father had just died there the previous week (NOT the hospital’s fault), so they kicked the ROV out, too. There is more to the story, but it is upsetting me just thinking about this. My mom was nifteres five months later, also not as a result of anything to do with the hospital.

Oomis, that really is a hospital horror story. Unfortunately, you’re not alone in this. While there are in fact caring individuals doing their jobs in hospitals, there are far too many health care workers who don’t belong in a place where people’s lives are in their hands. I’m sure it was very upsetting to you telling us about what you and your family went through, so I’d like to thank you for sharing.

joe,

i was out of the country so they billled me, i was a bachur at the time so my father paid it

joe,

i’m not going to go into details of which country

and my father isn’t the type of person to dispute bills, he doesn’t like to get into machlokesim

“while they may be wrong it is not generally coming from a bad place”

It is in fact coming from a hideous place of darkness and evil.

While you may to some extent be don l caf zchus and partially view the hospital consciousness as being a mere field of wheat being blown by the winds of the environment and the political correctness accepted as the current avodah zara, still the place this ultimately derives from is the same place that all evil, all isms, all avoda zara has ever come from. From turning ones back to Hashem, to be free to indulge in whatever you wish, to satisfy any lust. All disguised of course behind the license of a statue or of humanism or whatever you call it. Then there is no Ribono Shel Olam CvS, no sanctity of life. Every decision being made only by what feels good and will still leave me in the respect of my local and wider society.

It bothers them to see someone that is much like themselves suffering, so let them die instead. Then we don’t have to worry about our own suffering. Works well. Conscience is clear. Problem solved. Why not? There is no Ribono Shel Olam, CvS.

Maybe this is not always in their conscious thoughts, but It is their true motivation, and certainly the underlying rationale of this degenerate, basically atheistic, pseudo-love society.

Feivel is a doctor.

But these are people who have been brought up to believe in a different set of values and have never even heard of yours.

Feivel

i would like you to consider this

I have debeated all sorts of kooks on this site and in real life attributing such ranges of views from open orthodoxy to neturei karta on the Torah. I have never been so shaken as to the state of our chinuch sytem and that a person can have such a twisted view attributed to the Torah. This is a very sad day for me

“I chose my words with great care.

Not their conscious motivation.

The PLACE this

ULTIMATELY…..

DERIVES FROM….”

The scholars and others here are too smart and tenacious for me. They are filled with logical sevorahs. I don’t intend to engage in debate with them. I certainly will not prevail.

I already said what I needed to say.

Thank you

Wow ubiquitin, what an out-of-proportion response! You may disagree with him with every fiber of your being but attack mode over this? Seems a bit out of character for you. And both you and Sam seem, by your answers, to have totally missed the forest for the tree or two you misread.

I don’t get the impression you understood what he was saying but I do believe you would disagree with what I understood to be his point as well. I am just very surprised, with all your medical experience, that you disagree so strongly. As someone who is in the medical field, has worked in hospitals (rehab as well as acute) and has watched several family members die I can’t say I disagree with a single point of his. He was not speaking of the thoughts going thru each doctors mind, I believe he was talking about the source of the attitude and direction of healthcare.

One very telling lesson I learned was from some secular and non Jewish patients who told me they or their loved one would NEVER want to be on life support or disabled. They swore up and down they would rather be left to die as they firmly believe the garbage society has taught, that your life is only worth something if you are productive. Well oddly enough, when these very same people show up post stroke or debilitating disease/incident and can no longer take care of themselves and need tremendous care, they beg for life. They change their minds about being a DNR. They try to convince their family that they really DO want to remain alive no matter what condition they are in. Unfortunately their family sometimes writes off these requests as senility.

One of my favorite comments from a loving, caring, wonderful ICU nurse was, “Are you sure you want us to transfuse your father? There are so many young people who could put this blood to better use” (he was O-).

syag

I am hesitant to get in a debate on this because in practice I dont disagree. I agree with every word that Joseph said (definitely a rarity.)

My only addition was to consider where they were coming from which makes it easier to interact, and more importantly get them to understand where we are coming from and thereby make it more likely for them to accommodate.

There is a lot of mistrust, in our community against the medical establishment, which is not helpful.

We can disagree with them vehemently and still understand where they are coming from.

the majority of Doctors and nurses dedicate themselves to their patients. And genuinely want to do what they feel is best. Again, this doesnt mean what they feel is best is the right thing, It often conflicts with our values. However I assure you it does not come from any darkness or evil.

Regarding your “very telling lesson,” I have never seen that. i have often seen the reverse, a person signs a DNR or doesnt want to be intubated, and a family member demands otherwise. (On more than one occasion a family member said this was to continue collecting social security checks)

You describe “garbage society has taught, that your life is only worth something if you are productive” I feel funny “arguing,” since i do not disagree, but even in our society it is often presented this way. Granted, we define “productive” differently than they do. But at almost Jewish Medical ethics shiur Ive heard, the MAIN reason for keeping people alive in any state is that Every moment is chance to do mitzvahs. You cant fault the medical establishment for not valuing that as we do. And more often than not in the cases that raise these issues the patient can no longer do mitzvas since he is comatose. Granted every moment of life is precious, but it is hard to explain why. (Of course we have a fallback – because the Torah says so, which is more than fine for me).

Health resources are limited. Rationing is inevitable. The only question is how rationing is to be determined: by finances? By the government? By insurance companies? by perceived usefulness? To us it is easy: by the Torah, but obviously this wont guide hospitals. Consider a situation where a person is on dialysis at a cost of $1,000 a day. For whatever reason insurance wont cover. The patient is in a coma not expected to wake up ever. With dialysis he can live in this state until a complication develops potentially years. Should the family sell their car to keep him in that state? Their house? their clothes? This is a very uncomfortable question, but it is a very real one and it is important to acknowledge that different conclusions are not inherently “evil”

I dont want to use your father and that tactless nurse as an example. But consider a comatose patient who a unit of blood will help live another day vs. a 20 year old accident victim who the unit could help live another 50 years. There is one unit who should get it? There is no shame in acknowledging that this is a hard question. The torah might guide us one way (as to what that is poskim struggle with this, it isnt easy). But for a non-Torah person that doesn’t make a different conclusion “evil”

DY

that is evil. Though that is rarely if ever the case.

More often than not, the conflicts are raised either due to suffering of the patient, whether physical or psychological. OR by a “waste” of resources, which yes ends up pitting the value of one life vs another, though not in as dramatic a fashion as in my case, but for society as a whole in a very real way. Make no mistake about it. 30% of medicare costs are spent on the last year of life. That is a lot of money. We may feel that is money well spent. But it is not EVIL to feel if we spend that money elsewhere, say curing cancer, we as a society would be better off.

To be crystal clear, I am not making that argument, I am just saying that that isn’t evil.

These are very uncomfortable thoughts for most people, and probably never occur to people who fill their “heart and mind with the Torah leaving room for NOTHING ELSE.” (and needless to say we need people like that) But there is no shame in accepting that these issues are very real and very difficult, even with the Torah to guide us, let alone without ch”v.

ubiquitin – You have many fine points. I think I agree with almost everything except that it isn’t coming from a place of evil. But putting that aside for a moment, in this post you are arguing a separate point. I agree with you that how you present things to goyim or secular Jews in the workplace will make a very big difference and will yield better results. I did not get the impression Feivel was speaking to secular Jews or goyim. I think he was specific about who he was speaking to and why. And if you knew him, you would realize how silly some of your personal comments toward him really are.

But I digress (common for me). Regardless of the intent of the health care providers, and regardless of the way you present the facts, it is important to always remember the Torah view that we value every second of life and what we need to do to preserve it. It isn’t just two contrasting themes. Our way vs. their way. The Torah way is the right way, and the goyim may mean well, but where do you think this new way of thinking came from? This was NOT the norm years ago.

This new idea of killing off old people and feeling it is valid is pretty recent and something had to have set this horrible idea into motion. And it wasn’t kindness and concern that did it. It is a newer phenomenon in the American system to let old people die, to aid the terminally ill in assisted suicide, to abort fetus’ that may have abnormalities. You cannot argue that life is no longer valued to the degree it was even decades ago and it is certainly considered more optional sometimes. There had to have been some major underlying something that changed the view of mankind to demote the worth of the infirm.

I do whole heartily disagree with you about my dad’s situation as well because it IS super common, and your reasoning was off. If they were under the gun like that and had to make a decision I would agree that there need be criteria for that, but this was more like, “I would like to deprive your father of life right now, so that I can leave the blood in the fridge on the chance an O- patient MAY show up”. The ability to deprive someone of life for a MAYBE, and think it is a wise choice, is a whole new level for our system. No nurse twenty years ago would have ever had a thought like that cross her mind. You saved whomever was in front of you. And if you are frum, then you need to also believe that if Hashem wants the other patient to live, blood will show up for him too. That KNOWLEDGE should fill your head with room for nothing more! 🙂

And mind you it isn’t life potential that decides as they will give a well paying drunk a new liver before a medicaid young healthy father. When money starts influencing ones choices (and it must on some level because you yourself brought it in. Good points but money based none the less) then we have reached a new low. And where does “low” eminate from? That is the bottom, bottom line we as Jews need to remember as we start to defend the “valid points” of the healthcare views.

As an answer to your non question, I certainly would have given all my clothes, cars, food and home to keep my sisters or parents alive, even to sit near them while they lay comatose. Wouldn’t you?

Your points were good ones. Sorry my thoughts are not quite so organized

Ubiquitin and Sam, it’s not as if society doesn’t spend money on other things. It’s a false dilemma, and it’s not infinite vs. infinite. It’s become finite vs. finite.

I also wish to add my voice in protest to the way Feivel was addressed. He deserves much more respect than that, and his words deserve more consideration as well.

DY: I certainly don’t think I was disrespectful. Maybe ubiquitin was but I don’t think so either. When you make a strong statement, expect a strong response.

thank you for responding. I am guessing that we are at an impasse at this point because we seem to be arguing separate things. You say it is hard to have a normal attitude toward people coming from dark and evil places. You are correct. But we are not talking about PEOPLE (for lack of ability to underscore) coming from dark and evil places. We are talking about the underlying concepts that those people have integrated into their development. If society puts value on materialism, the people who grow up that way and make their decisions based on that belief are not evil, but the concept at it’s spiritual core is evil and emanates from that.

If the concept is foriegn to you, you will not choose it. Hashem is the one who brings these concepts into the world. Why are the choices what they are? You are thinking about the cognitive side to all of this, but I am talking about the the spark of reality that puts the choices on the table.

In the above examples it would look like this: A nurse denies a pint of blood to an old dying man because it would be wasteful. This nurse, many years ago, would have been regretful and pained to make such a decision. The believing Jew that I was referencing will make that decision because the medical ethics book says so but will be believing full well that if Hashem wants that man to live, he will live without it. That is SEPARATE from the ethical decision, that is the core belief driving the attitude. This nurses and doctors now are NOT pained by these choices because they believe them to be right. What has changed? Has money really altered the value of life as you say? Or has it just changed the need for the different decisions? You are confusing DOING what is CORRECT, and the ultimate right and wrong that allows people to make choices. Why don’t we just shoot them thru the head? Becuase that is not even an option in our day. When the day comes that it will be (figuratively) it will become “right”. It may be “right” in the medical world, but it is not “right” in Torah. And only Gd can allow that shift. It didn’t happen because of science. The situation of over crowding came from science, the way we have chosen to deal with it did not.

I am sorry I cannot explain myself better because I would honestly love to hear what you think of that which I was trying to say as opposed to that which you hear.

I cannot leave without one parting thing, tho, that I am actually shocked to have heard you say. You say noone is killing anyone? Absolutely false. Nobody argues that people ar being killed, the arguement is on whether or not it is justified.