The Healthcare System in This Country Sucks
Warning: This is a rant. I'm not going to adhere to the rules of writing or even be philosophical. Proceed at your own risk.
I was informed this morning that they want to move my mother to a nursing home from the hospital. It's not because she is well and they want to provide her with round the clock physical therapy to help her back on her feet. It's not because she is so sick she will never be able to care for herself again.
It's not even because her doctor says so. He argued with the hospital this morning about her moving.
No, it's because Medicare says it is time for her to move someplace else where she can still get IV antibiotics so it is cheaper for them.
And why are nursing homes cheaper, particularly the ones that allow low-income patients such as my mother?
Because they staff their operations on a shoe string. They have one nurse on staff caring for 60 patients (confirmed this with a friend this morning at this particular place) and the low level of staffing affects everything about the place.
But because the government has a chart that tells them when patients have to be moved, instead of relying on a doctor, who presumably went to school to make such decisions for the care of his patients, we're now entering a new and very scary realm of care.
I was informed this morning that they want to move my mother to a nursing home from the hospital. It's not because she is well and they want to provide her with round the clock physical therapy to help her back on her feet. It's not because she is so sick she will never be able to care for herself again.
It's not even because her doctor says so. He argued with the hospital this morning about her moving.
No, it's because Medicare says it is time for her to move someplace else where she can still get IV antibiotics so it is cheaper for them.
And why are nursing homes cheaper, particularly the ones that allow low-income patients such as my mother?
Because they staff their operations on a shoe string. They have one nurse on staff caring for 60 patients (confirmed this with a friend this morning at this particular place) and the low level of staffing affects everything about the place.
But because the government has a chart that tells them when patients have to be moved, instead of relying on a doctor, who presumably went to school to make such decisions for the care of his patients, we're now entering a new and very scary realm of care.
posted by Kerri Fivecoat-Campbell at 7:50 AM
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