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Yeah my brother-in-law need an insulin and I guess methadone from the clinic or whatever but as soon as hospice took over he went to the hospital with bad blood sugar and the lady even said it was up to 7:50 or more and they never gave him anyting then they probably gave him some morphine and moving to the hospice room and what she was dead within 6 hours just like the other person said. Pretty sure that was not a coincidence because he regularly went to the hospital like once a month but not after he signed up with hospice. He was older and had diabetes but I had just saw him dancing at his birthday party like 2 days before
I'm a different person than Prolife. I'm Prolife1. It is hard to put the info together since my mother was flooded out of her home. So, I was just presenting the other side of this euthanasia issue. Some people take the last moments of life seriously as in they want to see their children and other loved ones and settle up. My mother still thinks he just died all of a sudden. My sister is sole controller of her finances now. Mom knows that she's angry and controlling, but in order to work on getting info I need to just let her think what she wants. And the state probably won't do anything because there are so many people who are pushing for expedited death of the elderly in elder care. I'm not kidding myself about this fact. This website has opened my eyes to how many people prefer to take their family members' lives. It's really sad and ill-informed. But, I sleep great at night knowing my dad knows I would have done something had I known. I would have loved to have been with him until the end. But, this callousness is what happens to those who don't respect life. She is also pro-abortion. Euthanasia and abortion go hand in hand. People who think they should kill innocent people are dangerous across the board. And btw, I can post anywhere I darn well wish. I don't much like your tone, GardenArtist. Want to walk that back a little since this is my first post?
Prolife1, you mentioned that your sister had killed your Dad. Has she been arrested for this killing? Has the District Attorney set-forth a case, and has a Grand Jury been picked? Just curious how this case is coming along? How does your Mom feel about her daughter killing her own father [Mother's husband]?
Prolife, what have the legislators you've contacted said about the situation? Are they recommending a medmal suit?
Since you keep posting, I'm sure that you're expressing your concern by taking real action, not just posting here, but contacting law enforcement, legislators, and other people who have the authority to introduce legislation or initiate investigations.
As I would think anyone could surmise, posting on a forum is not going to initiate any change. We don't have the authority, and most of us are too busy taking care of our parents or other loved ones in the family to take up someone else's cause.
So, please share with us the results of your legal contacts, or grass roots lobbying groups you've started. I'm also especially interested in which legislators specifically have expressed concern and will be introducing legislation to address the issues.
Oh, and how is your med mal suit for wrongful death proceeding? (I'm assuming you've filed one?)
My sister had my father killed off in hospice while my mother thought he was getting better. My sister told no one what she was doing and no one got to say "goodbye." He was healthy..broke his hip. she lived out of state and didn't want to deal with him recovering since my mom wasn't very capable of caring for him. They had tons of money and insurance to get Mom help with him but good ol' sis' "took care of it." Never again.
Yes. If the patient is willing to put up with the pain, they should not be forced to take the opiates or any other pain meds.
Some people can tolerate a high level of pain and do not want to be medicated into oblivion.
Many patients are medically savvy and know what these drugs can do to breathing and to kidney and liver function.
On opiates patients often lose interest in eating and do not think to hydrate themselves properly.
No patient should ever be given pain meds, when they do not want them.
Please report this promptly to you state elder abuse organization.
These opiates are being overused. They are also being used as a form of chemical restraint.
For those who are claiming that the meds are merciful. Here is something to think about:
A neighbors son died of a Fetanyl over dose. They found him on the floor with clumps of his own hair in his hand, pulled out by the roots.
The doctor explained to the boys mother that Fetanyl can shut down respiration and that is very frightening and can cause panic. He likely pulled out his hair in a panic.
Yet, when an elderly hospice patient is given a deadly hospital cocktail for pain and it hastens death, the family is told they died peacefully. Hmmmmmm!
Hi Darlene, sorry to hear about your grandmother’s passing. I am trying to wrap my head around what alleged behavior you’ve assigned that nurse. Nursing & Drug Administration is very important to every nurse out there. To entertain the thought that a nurse was circumventing physician orders and decided to (arbitrarily) administer more of the Hospice cocktail to your GM sounds like you are implying the nurse was simply giving bolus doses of the meds. That nurse wouldn’t know your GM was feisty or so 3 months ago & can only see an elderly woman that has reached her end of life. A good nurse must/will assess the patient’s pain, etc, evaluate what’s already been given & any acquired relief from the meds first before administering any more. The decision to administrate the Hospice cocktail medication formula is not determined until the nurse performs an accurate assessment & data review - like intake, BP, output & uses nursing judgement for managing a Hospice. Again my condolences to you & your family.
My FIL, in his last days, "rallied" 3 times....it got to be so hard--we'd zip to the hospital and he'd be barely breathing, basically in a coma. Then, an hour later, he's awake and demanding strawberry pie!
The final day was just like the others--we raced to the hospital, kind of expecting the same outcome---and his dr asked if we would allow him to give him some morphine as he was choking to death and in terrible pain. OF course the kids said yes to that--within 20 minutes he passed.
Did that dr kill him? Absolutely not. Just gave him a peaceful passing.
I'm honestly sure you thought she was much worse than they thought she was. If you can't handle unreasonable and demanding and nuts and shouty and b*tchy and bitey and pinchy old ladies, you DON'T work in an ALF!
The notes ought to have been properly completed. Yes, they should. I wish I had a dollar for every time I've ever said that...
There will almost certainly be other records (stock, supplies, a room inventory, something) you can use to verify what she was given, if it's still troubling you. But I'll bet you anything the nurse was just in too much of a hurry.
Nurses and care aides do, sadly, lose it from time to time. They may shout, they may be rude, they may leave the room abruptly, they may even slap or roughly handle patients; and although it is never okay once you've been through the trenches you're not so quick to judge.
But I can't imagine a nurse will think "right, you..." and actually overdose a patient just to avoid tending her. The kind of very disturbed people who might do that poison their patients with insulin and get caught pretty promptly.
I do believe her end was near. I’m under no delusion that it wasn’t. And I’m glad she went peacefully. My only concern is that she was a very difficult patient and tested the staff daily. It concerns me that she went from one extreme to the next after the cocktail. And the fact that the nurse left no notes and had left for the day by the time we got there. Nurses are Angels. I praise them for their very tough job. But sometimes I think some maybe in the geriatric section might loose their composure and help things along to possibly relieve their stressful situation hence a bigger cocktail than necessary.
Darlene2266, you are asking if the nurse broke the law and essentially killed your grandmother. Anything is possible, I suppose, but doesn't it seem more likely that your GM's remarkable "recovery" was the oddity in this scenario, not her death. She had one last rally and then the decline that started in January continued to its logical end?
There are other posters here with the nursing and medical qualifications to give you the exact figures; but even as a lay person I know that to drop somebody's respiration by THAT much you would have to give them gigantic amounts of morphine. Massive. And it's a controlled substance, you couldn't just say oops I miscounted.
I'm so sorry for your loss, and for your grandmother's passing, but the sad reality is that by the sound of it her heart gave out. Her pulse slowed and became erratic, her circulation petered out (hence the low O2 sats), and she passed quickly and peacefully away.
And can I say how personally fond I am of bellicose, assertive, cranky elderly ladies who poke people with a stick if they don't jump high enough? Your grandmother was a character in her ALF for five years. I expect they miss her *terribly.*
My Grandmother lived in assisted living for 5 years. In January she started to decline in health. They rushed her to the hospital, intabated her, for low O2 sats, and monitored her. She recovered to everyone’s surprise but was definitely changed, not her normal cranky self. She no longer cared. She didn’t talk about her pain, she didn’t complain about anything, basically very slow and lethargic. It got to a point where she just stopped everything. Here’s my concern. I know the staff have a difficult job. They are under staffed to take care of so many elderly and end of life patients. My grandma was a difficult person. Nobody did anything right. She got nurses fired, in trouble, written up. With that said, when she came back from her near death experience she seemed very medicated. Did the nurses finally have enough? We’re they disappointed that she made it back? We’re they going to helper along this time and keep her more quiet with meds and the family won’t know better? So my mom and her siblings got all the funeral arrangements together thinking this is it. She was so medicated that she wasn’t eating or drinking. Well my aunt stayed with her all Day this one day and the staff didn’t give her any meds that day, by the end of that day she had awoke, was thirsty and hungry and came out of her fog. My question is.. Did the staff over medicate her to keep her quiet or possibly give a little extra to help her over the edge? But was disappointed when family came in and thwarted there plan? She literally came back to life after she ate and drank. When your that medicated you can eat or drink so what happened? Fast forward to yesterday, she is back to her old self, cranky, eating, drinking, wanting to go out of her room, get her hair done, visit with people, talk on the phone, get up and go to the restroom, talking about the good old days, you get the picture right, well apparently she got int it with a nurse and was screaming and carrying on about noontime and they gave her two meds. Antivan and Morphine. Now at this time she had a pretty deep cough and was on O2 to help her breathe. Within an hour of administrating this combo of meds, her O2 sats dropped to the 50’s so they placed her on a higher dose of O2 and called us. We got there around 3:30 maybe and they had called a hospice nurse to check her and they basically said she was actively dying. She did die at 4:23. We saw it happen. We were told that the nurse who gave the meds was not there and she did not leave any nursing notes as to what happened. I was surprised as was the hospice nurse about that. My question is, is it just possible that the nurse had had enough of her screaming at her and possibly gave her maybe too much, concidering her bad cough and already compromised breathing? She was alert, had eaten breakfast, gotten up to use the restroom, maybe got mad at something, demanded her pain meds and the nurse maybe gave her too much?
I'm going to try and keep my story short.... My mother, Diva, has had Alzheimer's for close to 10 years now. She is in the last stages and has "beat the odds" more than once. She has been with hospice for over a year and can no longer speak, walk, use the bathroom on her own, she is so stiff she can not put her legs down, and her arms hurt as well as her neck will hyper-extend for hours at a time. She will speak to the spirit world (those from her family that have passed already). She has to be bathed, fed, given her drinks, turned, changed, pretty much everything but assist in her breathing. Here's my issue.. Hospice has started her on 0.25 morphine, every three hours or as needed. When she receives the morphine, she is more relaxed, but OH MY GOODNESS, she looks like she is truly dying. Now, 0.25 is not very much! I feel like I am hurting her... I don't know what to do. She also has Haldol, and Ativan ordered. The hospice nurse has told me to give them to her together, but I have not as of yet. This is the hardest thing I have ever had to do. I thought caring for my dad and watching him die was hard, not as hard as this. Yes, she lives with my husband and I.
Prolife, You are obviously confused. I have never diagnosed anyone. That's a doctor's job. As others have done, I have speculated on physical problems but I have never given a diagnosis.
I have never prescribed medication for anyone. Again, that takes a doctor order to do that. Along with others, I have given an opinion on certain medications and how they have worked for me, my mother or my patients. That is NOT prescribing, nor is it giving advise. It is my opinion only. I do not charge for any opinion, therefore I am not practicing medicine without a license.
I HAVE medically treated hundreds of patients over 39 years, WITH a doctor's order. By law, I am allowed to do that. That's why we have licenses, so we can implement the doctor's orders.
IF you had bothered to read my posts, I have described my experiences and actions. No one IN THEIR RIGHT MIND would suggest that I did otherwise.
I'm actually sorry for you. You are not happy unless you're stirring up p**p.
Make all the accusations you want. Your credibility is non-existent. Go troll someplace else. I'm tired of your ridiculous rants here.
Prolife is a TROLL who has infested many threads on this forum in order to manipulate people's emotions for the purpose of (in his/her mind) furthering his/her personal political agenda.
If Prolife were truly interested in doing something about this issue, he/she would be busy lobbying legislators and other decision-makers, and wouldn't have the time to post repetitively in a single forum.
Prolife is a big faker who goes around making up new accounts (sockpuppets) on AgingCare.com just to troll us all with more obviously fake "testimonies."
Prolife is clearly only interested in provoking reactions and disrupting conversations, and is probably enjoying him/herself very much.
Prolife is obviously a very sad and lonely person with nothing better to do than troll caregivers online.
I urge everyone to remember this when you decide whether or not to engage.
********************
Please feel free to copy and paste this message wherever/whenever you see Prolife posting, so as to warn others who may get sucked in by his/her trolling.
She has stated over and over what dosages of morphine are appropriate and the limit she claims will not cause harm.
Now, what if someone follows that advice, and harm is caused? She is liable for that harm. That is why there are laws against it.
A nurse can not prescribe medication or the medication dosages.
I have seen her and others make many other statements that would fall under making a diagnosis, prescribing treatment, as well as making "professional" recommendations, for specific conditions, based on the fact that they are a nurse.
Describing situations one has encountered and protocols which have had to be followed in one's many years' professional experience, however, is absolutely fine. Carry on, Sue, please.
Prolife is a troll who has infested many threads on this forum in order to manipulate people's emotions for the purpose of (in his/her mind) furthering his/her personal political agenda.
If Prolife were truly interested in doing something about this issue, he/she would be busy lobbying legislators and other decision-makers, and wouldn't have the time to post repetitively in a single forum. Prolife is clearly only interested in provoking reactions and disrupting conversations, and is probably enjoying him/herself very much.
In my real life, I've known a couple of "pro-life" (in this case, anti-abortion) people who've gotten kicked out of their local activist group for being problematic and disruptive, so they've taken their energy online to troll people where there are fewer consequences for their actions.
As discussed in another hospice thread.....I'm sorry some of the threads are making people's hearts heavy, but it's quite clear things were going fine until Prolife came along to disrupt supportive conversations and drag all of these hospice threads under. If the moderators would ban Prolife's IP address (this site IS supposed to be non-political), these threads would probably return to some kind of normalcy.
Personally, I'm not one bit sorry for mocking Prolife, because he/she is a big faker who goes around making up new accounts (sockpuppets) on AgingCare.com just to troll us all with more obviously fake "testimonies."
Emotional manipulators are among the worst kind of people, and he/she ought to know some of us see right through him/her.
Prolife, it would be better if you contact your State Senators/Congresspersons and your U.S. Senators/Congresspersons and let them know how you feel regarding Hospice.
And also contact the National Institute of Health and let them know that their information is incorrect according to your findings.
Otherwise, nothing is going to be solved by posting your material on the forums.
"Nurses gave high doses of drugs such as morphine, regardless of whether patients needed it, to justify the higher payments, prosecutors said. In some instances, these excessive dosages resulted in serious bodily injury or death."
Let's tear this apart. "Nurses gave high doses of drugs such as Morphine".,.. Yes, hospice nurses (and hospital nurses) give high doses (10-15-20 mg.) to relieve pain. If you or I took that amount, we'd sleep for hours. That's a GOOD thing when you have intractable pain when dying, right?
...."regardless of whether patients needed it or not"...Now WHO assessed whether they needed it? Nurses with a state license? Or the Prosecutors? Were they medically trained to spot signs of pain? Do they make up the rules as they go along? "Oh, this one is screaming, so give her some Morphine but this one is only moaning and frowning, so he doesn't get any Morphine." This is ludicrous.
....."To justify the higher payments, prosecutors said"...... Prosecutors obviously don't understand that Medicare is billed for each day hospice has a patient on service and pays a set rate. It is NOT billed by how much medicine the nurse gives. As with the rest, this sentence doesn't make sense.
Any registered pharmacy (NOT HOSPICE) dispenses a standard amount of Morphine for the patient. The hospice doesn't get a kick back or get paid for the medications.
..."In some instances, these excessive doseage a have resulted in 'serious bodily injury' or 'death'." These are people dying in pain or anxiety. What 'serious bodily injury' will present itself by getting a large dose of Morphine? It's not rat poison. It doesn't make your skin fall off. Death is to be expected if a person is on hospice. A doctor had to recommend them and state that they believe they have less than 6 months to live.
If hospice is trying to get rich, wouldn't you think they'd be trying everything they could to keep their patients ALIVE? You can't bill Medicare for a dead patient.
"Nurses gave high doses of drugs such as morphine, regardless of whether patients needed it, to justify the higher payments, prosecutors said. In some instances, these excessive dosages resulted in serious bodily injury or death."
This is the indictment; what he was charged with. It does not prove him guilty. This is not the verdict. Your arguments would carry more weight if they were based in fact.
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What life-limiting illness caused him to be admitted for Hospice care?
If there was no life-limiting illness that was documented, you should report this to the DA, to the Ombudsmen and to CMS.
Since you keep posting, I'm sure that you're expressing your concern by taking real action, not just posting here, but contacting law enforcement, legislators, and other people who have the authority to introduce legislation or initiate investigations.
As I would think anyone could surmise, posting on a forum is not going to initiate any change. We don't have the authority, and most of us are too busy taking care of our parents or other loved ones in the family to take up someone else's cause.
So, please share with us the results of your legal contacts, or grass roots lobbying groups you've started. I'm also especially interested in which legislators specifically have expressed concern and will be introducing legislation to address the issues.
Oh, and how is your med mal suit for wrongful death proceeding? (I'm assuming you've filed one?)
Yes. If the patient is willing to put up with the pain, they should not be forced to take the opiates or any other pain meds.
Some people can tolerate a high level of pain and do not want to be medicated into oblivion.
Many patients are medically savvy and know what these drugs can do to breathing and to kidney and liver function.
On opiates patients often lose interest in eating and do not think to hydrate themselves properly.
No patient should ever be given pain meds, when they do not want them.
Please report this promptly to you state elder abuse organization.
These opiates are being overused. They are also being used as a form of chemical restraint.
For those who are claiming that the meds are merciful. Here is something to think about:
A neighbors son died of a Fetanyl over dose. They found him on the floor with clumps of his own hair in his hand, pulled out by the roots.
The doctor explained to the boys mother that Fetanyl can shut down respiration and that is very frightening and can cause panic. He likely pulled out his hair in a panic.
Yet, when an elderly hospice patient is given a deadly hospital cocktail for pain and it hastens death, the family is told they died peacefully. Hmmmmmm!
Would you like to say a little more about the situation?
I am trying to wrap my head around what alleged behavior you’ve assigned that nurse.
Nursing & Drug Administration is very important to every nurse out there. To entertain the thought that a nurse was circumventing physician orders and decided to (arbitrarily) administer more of the Hospice cocktail to your GM sounds like you are implying the nurse was simply giving bolus doses of the meds.
That nurse wouldn’t know your GM was feisty or so 3 months ago & can only see an elderly woman that has reached her end of life. A good nurse must/will assess the patient’s pain, etc, evaluate what’s already been given & any acquired relief from the meds first before administering any more. The decision to administrate the Hospice cocktail medication formula is not determined until the nurse performs an accurate assessment & data review - like intake, BP, output & uses nursing judgement for managing a Hospice.
Again my condolences to you & your family.
The final day was just like the others--we raced to the hospital, kind of expecting the same outcome---and his dr asked if we would allow him to give him some morphine as he was choking to death and in terrible pain. OF course the kids said yes to that--within 20 minutes he passed.
Did that dr kill him? Absolutely not. Just gave him a peaceful passing.
The notes ought to have been properly completed. Yes, they should. I wish I had a dollar for every time I've ever said that...
There will almost certainly be other records (stock, supplies, a room inventory, something) you can use to verify what she was given, if it's still troubling you. But I'll bet you anything the nurse was just in too much of a hurry.
Nurses and care aides do, sadly, lose it from time to time. They may shout, they may be rude, they may leave the room abruptly, they may even slap or roughly handle patients; and although it is never okay once you've been through the trenches you're not so quick to judge.
But I can't imagine a nurse will think "right, you..." and actually overdose a patient just to avoid tending her. The kind of very disturbed people who might do that poison their patients with insulin and get caught pretty promptly.
Nurses are Angels. I praise them for their very tough job. But sometimes I think some maybe in the geriatric section might loose their composure and help things along to possibly relieve their stressful situation hence a bigger cocktail than necessary.
There are other posters here with the nursing and medical qualifications to give you the exact figures; but even as a lay person I know that to drop somebody's respiration by THAT much you would have to give them gigantic amounts of morphine. Massive. And it's a controlled substance, you couldn't just say oops I miscounted.
I'm so sorry for your loss, and for your grandmother's passing, but the sad reality is that by the sound of it her heart gave out. Her pulse slowed and became erratic, her circulation petered out (hence the low O2 sats), and she passed quickly and peacefully away.
And can I say how personally fond I am of bellicose, assertive, cranky elderly ladies who poke people with a stick if they don't jump high enough? Your grandmother was a character in her ALF for five years. I expect they miss her *terribly.*
Did the staff over medicate her to keep her quiet or possibly give a little extra to help her over the edge? But was disappointed when family came in and thwarted there plan?
She literally came back to life after she ate and drank. When your that medicated you can eat or drink so what happened?
Fast forward to yesterday, she is back to her old self, cranky, eating, drinking, wanting to go out of her room, get her hair done, visit with people, talk on the phone, get up and go to the restroom, talking about the good old days, you get the picture right, well apparently she got int it with a nurse and was screaming and carrying on about noontime and they gave her two meds. Antivan and Morphine. Now at this time she had a pretty deep cough and was on O2 to help her breathe.
Within an hour of administrating this combo of meds, her O2 sats dropped to the 50’s so they placed her on a higher dose of O2 and called us.
We got there around 3:30 maybe and they had called a hospice nurse to check her and they basically said she was actively dying. She did die at 4:23. We saw it happen.
We were told that the nurse who gave the meds was not there and she did not leave any nursing notes as to what happened. I was surprised as was the hospice nurse about that. My question is, is it just possible that the nurse had had enough of her screaming at her and possibly gave her maybe too much, concidering her bad cough and already compromised breathing?
She was alert, had eaten breakfast, gotten up to use the restroom, maybe got mad at something, demanded her pain meds and the nurse maybe gave her too much?
You didn't respond to my other comment.
Please, tell me how long it takes morphine to metabolize in the body?
You are obviously confused.
I have never diagnosed anyone. That's a doctor's job. As others have done, I have speculated on physical problems but I have never given a diagnosis.
I have never prescribed medication for anyone. Again, that takes a doctor order to do that. Along with others, I have given an opinion on certain medications and how they have worked for me, my mother or my patients. That is NOT prescribing, nor is it giving advise. It is my opinion only. I do not charge for any opinion, therefore I am not practicing medicine without a license.
I HAVE medically treated hundreds of patients over 39 years, WITH a doctor's order. By law, I am allowed to do that. That's why we have licenses, so we can implement the doctor's orders.
IF you had bothered to read my posts, I have described my experiences and actions.
No one IN THEIR RIGHT MIND would suggest that I did otherwise.
I'm actually sorry for you. You are not happy unless you're stirring up p**p.
Make all the accusations you want. Your credibility is non-existent.
Go troll someplace else. I'm tired of your ridiculous rants here.
Prolife is a TROLL who has infested many threads on this forum in order to manipulate people's emotions for the purpose of (in his/her mind) furthering his/her personal political agenda.
If Prolife were truly interested in doing something about this issue, he/she would be busy lobbying legislators and other decision-makers, and wouldn't have the time to post repetitively in a single forum.
Prolife is a big faker who goes around making up new accounts (sockpuppets) on AgingCare.com just to troll us all with more obviously fake "testimonies."
Prolife is clearly only interested in provoking reactions and disrupting conversations, and is probably enjoying him/herself very much.
Prolife is obviously a very sad and lonely person with nothing better to do than troll caregivers online.
I urge everyone to remember this when you decide whether or not to engage.
********************
Please feel free to copy and paste this message wherever/whenever you see Prolife posting, so as to warn others who may get sucked in by his/her trolling.
Say you are giving your patient 100 mg of morphine... you mentioned you can give every hour if needed..
If the medication lasts say 4 hours and you are giving 100mg per hour... that's 400mg in the patient's body at one time!!
Now, what if someone follows that advice, and harm is caused? She is liable for that harm. That is why there are laws against it.
A nurse can not prescribe medication or the medication dosages.
I have seen her and others make many other statements that would fall under making a diagnosis, prescribing treatment, as well as making "professional" recommendations, for specific conditions, based on the fact that they are a nurse.
As a nurse, you are not licensed to give medical advice.
Only a doctor is licensed to give medical advice.
Diagnosing, prescribing treatments and giving recommendations for specific conditions all constitutes giving medical advice.
If Prolife were truly interested in doing something about this issue, he/she would be busy lobbying legislators and other decision-makers, and wouldn't have the time to post repetitively in a single forum. Prolife is clearly only interested in provoking reactions and disrupting conversations, and is probably enjoying him/herself very much.
In my real life, I've known a couple of "pro-life" (in this case, anti-abortion) people who've gotten kicked out of their local activist group for being problematic and disruptive, so they've taken their energy online to troll people where there are fewer consequences for their actions.
As discussed in another hospice thread.....I'm sorry some of the threads are making people's hearts heavy, but it's quite clear things were going fine until Prolife came along to disrupt supportive conversations and drag all of these hospice threads under. If the moderators would ban Prolife's IP address (this site IS supposed to be non-political), these threads would probably return to some kind of normalcy.
Personally, I'm not one bit sorry for mocking Prolife, because he/she is a big faker who goes around making up new accounts (sockpuppets) on AgingCare.com just to troll us all with more obviously fake "testimonies."
Emotional manipulators are among the worst kind of people, and he/she ought to know some of us see right through him/her.
And also contact the National Institute of Health and let them know that their information is incorrect according to your findings.
Otherwise, nothing is going to be solved by posting your material on the forums.
Let's tear this apart.
"Nurses gave high doses of drugs such as Morphine".,.. Yes, hospice nurses (and hospital nurses) give high doses (10-15-20 mg.) to relieve pain. If you or I took that amount, we'd sleep for hours. That's a GOOD thing when you have intractable pain when dying, right?
...."regardless of whether patients needed it or not"...Now WHO assessed whether they needed it? Nurses with a state license? Or the Prosecutors? Were they medically trained to spot signs of pain? Do they make up the rules as they go along? "Oh, this one is screaming, so give her some Morphine but this one is only moaning and frowning, so he doesn't get any Morphine."
This is ludicrous.
....."To justify the higher payments, prosecutors said"......
Prosecutors obviously don't understand that Medicare is billed for each day hospice has a patient on service and pays a set rate. It is NOT billed by how much medicine the nurse gives.
As with the rest, this sentence doesn't make sense.
Any registered pharmacy (NOT HOSPICE) dispenses a standard amount of Morphine for the patient. The hospice doesn't get a kick back or get paid for the medications.
..."In some instances, these excessive doseage a have resulted in 'serious bodily injury' or 'death'."
These are people dying in pain or anxiety. What 'serious bodily injury' will present itself by getting a large dose of Morphine? It's not rat poison. It doesn't make your skin fall off. Death is to be expected if a person is on hospice. A doctor had to recommend them and state that they believe they have less than 6 months to live.
If hospice is trying to get rich, wouldn't you think they'd be trying everything they could to keep their patients ALIVE?
You can't bill Medicare for a dead patient.
Where does this cr*p come from?
This is the indictment; what he was charged with. It does not prove him guilty. This is not the verdict. Your arguments would carry more weight if they were based in fact.