In
Copyright Since September 11,
2000This web site is in no manner affiliated with any Kaiser entity and the for profit Permanente
Permission is granted to mirror this web site -
Kaiser Patient Malpractice Stories
A
Abdominal Stories
Physician Drug Abuse Medical Disaster Stories
Anesthesia Stories
Agent Orange and Other Poisons
B
Kaiser giving parents the wrong baby Stories
BEHAVIORAL HEALTH STORIES
BIRTH INJURY STORIES
BLOOD CLOT DISORDER STORIES
BOTOX PATIENT STORIES
BOTOX PATIENT STORIES
C
CANCER AND TUMOR PATIENT STORIES
Children Horror Stories
CHRONIC PAIN/PAIN MANAGEMENT STORIES
CNA Kaiser Patient Stories
DESTROYING CREDIT RATINGS STORIES
CRIMINAL LEGAL RETALIATION STORIES
D
THE KAISER PAPERS DEATH WATCH
E
EMPLOYEE/PATIENT STORIES/WORKERSCOMP
ER ROOM STORIES
EUTHANASIA STORIES
Eye Surgery Stories
G
Gail Shephard - Victim of Kaiser Downey
H
HEART PATIENT STORIES
HEAD INJURIES
Hospice Stories
I
IT Article
Infections
Dusten Chevalier
and here
and here
Grant Boswith
L
Liver Related Stories - This includes hepatitis stories
Cruz Gomez - Was he harmed intentionally?
LOST BODIES STORIES
LOU GEHRIG'S DISEASE
LYME DISEASE STORIES
M
MEDICARE STORIES
WRONG MEDICATION STORIES
Meningitis Horror Stories
O
ORTHOPEDIC STORIES
David H Stanley - Baldwin Park Abused Patient
OTHER WEB SITES WITH KAISER PATIENT STORIES
Doctors Selling Out
OTHER UNCATEGORIZED KAISER PATIENT STORIES
P
Pneumonia Stories
Physicians Maimed by their own system
R
RSD STORIES
T
TB STORIES
TRANSPLANT STORIES
U
Urinary and Bladder Stories
V
VACCINE STORIES
The following stories and articles are about actual Kaiser Permanente Patients and Employees that have been abused, maimed and killed.
They are sorted by category. If you want your story on this web site then tell us when you write in. Unless you tell us you would like it online we will not share it with the public.
These are tough times and tough words are necessary. For each patient story that is presented on the Kaiser Papers there are at least 1,000 more that should also be told. For each person that remains quiet and does not make their information public they are just as responsible as the medical staff that enables and absolves each other by their group participation in actively harming patients for financial gain.
No matter how they want to sugar coat this they are all taking part in group absolution and justifying to themselves their lack ofresponsibility and lack of action because they choose to believe that as employees they have played a small part in harming the patient. Well, the truth is that they know about it and how they all are working together and they are not stopping it. But you the public can do something about this. You can stop it from continuing by making their corporate actions public. You can contact your legislators regarding all Federally Financed contracts that Kaiser and the Permanente are paid by, and expose their wrong doing.
A
letter from a former KP Patient
It
scares me to think that Kaiser could be the template for national
health care! My husband and I will work ourselves silly to afford
better! All physicians who are from other countries, and are working
with the American public, need to understand, have respect for, and
be able to communicate very well with Americans and in very good
English. I was bombarded several times with physicians who
patronized, looked down on, and who had little regard for Americans
or for learning proper English. In addition, there were a total of
three situations we experienced with Kaiser which resulted in our
resolve never to return to their plan.
My
husband and I were
members of Kaiser for three years back in the late 1970’s when I
worked with Sacramento County. We joined again briefly about fifteen
years later, but we quickly dropped out and pursued private
insurance. I have a story that I have told many times for its amusing
qualities. As a community college instructor in California for a
number of years, diversity and our ability as a state to integrate so
many immigrants from all over the world has always been a source of
pride as a Californian. We are glad that our sons grew up knowing and
understanding many cultures and having friends from many countries.
For this reason, I have never had a problem with going to physicians
from other countries.
One time
in the late 1970’s, my
toenails started to give me problems after I did a lot of hiking in
Yosemite National Park. I also noticed my toenails were not growing
correctly. I saw a physician from India and explained to him my story
about hiking, the pain I was having in my toes, and about how they
were not growing correctly. He looked at me for a long time, not at
my toes, but at me in general. He then said in halting English, “You
look good on outside, so you are good on inside.” That is all he
said. I looked at him in disbelief, and asked him again what he
recommended. Again he looked at me and said, “You look good on
outside; you do look good on inside I think. You have no problem. You
look good.”
I excused
myself and left his office, marching
right down to the patient relations department. I may not remember
exactly the name of the department, but I was told that if I had a
complaint that is where I should go to explain my issue regarding the
doctor. I was assigned another physician, but after seeing the next
doctor, the nurse at his office quickly walked up to me and said,
“You’ll never get the proper treatment here; go see this doctor,
an Internist. He will take you seriously and get you help." I
had to make excuses as to why I should go to yet a different doctor,
but I did eventually get proper medication.
On
another
occasion after the birth of my first child, I had some strange
cramping and was sent to a general practitioner for an exam. An older
doctor and Caucasian, he was pleasant but began to talk about surgery
to resolve post-birth problems. I had not even been examined yet. I
sensed a strange logic in his explanation on why I should be operated
on, and decided not to return to Kaiser again. I found a gynecologist
who examined me and offered exercises and a diet plan which resulted
in all ending of my symptoms and increased health. In 1975, when I
was working with Sacramento, CA. County, my husband was having a lot
of pain in his left heel, an area which he had had surgery on as a
child.
Because
my husband’s family had been with Kaiser for
a long time, and because we were newly married, I didn’t have any
history at that time to cause me to second-guess their treatment. My
husband agreed to surgery, which the doctor said would “update”
the skin graft done in his childhood. After the surgery, my husband’s
nerves in his left heel and foot were damaged and resulted in the
loss of feeling. A year later my husband went to a private surgeon in
Fresno specializing in the feet and leg areas.
My
husband was
told that the surgeon was a “butcher” and ruined the graft that
had been “state-of-the-art” in 1958 when he had had it done.
Unfortunately, the damage was done, and my husband never obtained any
compensation or feedback from Kaiser. In addition, the surgeon that
had done the surgery was “no longer with Kaiser” as said by
Kaiser’s administration office. Those are our stories, and I hope
that others can learn from ours and others’ stories that it is
important to accept only physicians who are culturally respectful of
Americans, who have a very good command of English—our language,
who have proven success in the area of specialty that is needed, and
who do not push for unnecessary surgeries. “JTF”
June 26, 2005- TRAGEDY AND TRAVESTY AT KAISER HOSPITAL - A letter from
Dr. Nayvin Gordon regarding the substandard care his daughter, a twenty year old San Francisco State University student received at Kaiser. Were it not for the Kaiser diluted, overly managed, corporate cost cutting features of standard, accepted by the entire world life saving procedures this young lady may well have not suffered permanent brain damage. Kaiser really botched this case but instead of owning up to it pulled strings all over the State of California with every government agency in existence to not be held accountable.
The clock is ticking Kaiser and you are going to fall hard when the bell rings. Your time is past and we are all just going to let you lie there in the mud where you deserve to be.
formerly at: http://www.buchanan.org/db00-0131.html but is at:
http://web.archive.org/web/20070808041710/http://www.buchanan.org/db00-0131.html
12/7/99 I was on a project with Kaiser Permanente (KP) in Pasadena, California in 1997-1998. KP was developing a new system, using Cool:gen (IEF). There were a number of Cool:gen consultants working on the project - a mixture of H-1Bs' and U.S. citizens.
KP wanted the U.S. consultants to sign on as full time employees but was only willing to pay us about $60K per year. ($60K per year is a low salary for an experienced I.T. professional in S.California). As consultants we were making about $60 per hour so needless to say, most of us declined the KP offer.
So what did KP do? It sent it's managers to the Phillipines, Egypt and India to hire employees on H-1B visas. And guess what? Some of these new hires had NO knowledege of Cool:gen. They had lied on their re'sume's and in the interview. The H-1B hires were being paid about $50-55K per year. And you guessed it, once we trained the H-1Bs' our contracts were terminated.
The Cool Cool-gen programmerLinda Kilcrease email: netmouser@earthlink.net
KAISER CRIMINAL LEGAL RETALIATION STORIES
Often insurance companies in an effort to save face and pretend that they are perfectly run will ignore and or deny their errors in judgement and action. Rather than apologize and say they have made a mistake they will knowingly follow through to the end even though it is bringing sesrous harm to a person and their family. This is a immature, outdated business practice. The people in this subsection were wrongly incarcerated by the Kaiser Plan and the for profit Permanente Medical Group. Kaiser made a mistake and instead of correcting their mistake when it was discovered they chose to instead allow innocent people to be branded and incarcerated for the sole purpose of avoiding the publication of negative publicity.
Man
Wrongly Convicted
of Murder Freed After 21 Years Behind Bars
BUELL: Kaiser Hospital was caring for my son. And in January, before
he died -- a few months before he died, he was bleeding internally when
my sister was watching him. And they said that he had a ruptured
spleen,
and then it turned around that he had no ruptured spleen. And they
don't
know where he was bleeding or...
KING:
You
think the hospital was covering its
own ineptitude?
MARSH: Well, to a degree, yes.
KING: Were you a
scapegoat?
MARSH: I just think I was
caught up
in the overzealousness
of child abuse at that time, yes.
Update
on this
story:
January
20, 2006 State
Pays Wrongly Convicted
Man
*
Compensation board
awards Kenneth M. Marsh
$756,900. He served 21 years for a toddler's death that was later
deemed
accidental. By Maura Dolan, Times Staff Writer
http://www.latimes.com/
Mirrored
at for
historical purposes:
https://kaiserpapers.com/horror/kenmarsh.html
Other
relevant
link:http://freekenmarsh.com/index.html
"A Myotonic Muscular Dystrophy Miracle Story"
https://kaiserpapers.com/horror/lindsay.html
Link to a Letter from Mike and Kathleen Gentry to The American Public and All People of this world.
https://kaiserpapers.com/horror/gentry/gentryletter.html
These are the medical highlights of Lindsay's first 6 years of life.
https://kaiserpapers.com/gentryletter.html
The Children of Yvonne Eldridge
Here is a brief overview of the heart-breaking story of Yvonne Eldridge. It is an incredible story of lies and false allegations, of egregious misuse of public trust, of an astonishing breach in the criminal justice system, of courage to stand against a brutal system gone haywire, a system intent on the systematic destruction of a loving and close-knit family. A story of perseverence under the most supremely difficult of circumstances. A story so outrageous and so shocking you won't believe it could happen. Not here. Not in America. But happen it did, and in fact, is still going on in the quiet, unassuming town of Walnut Creek, California.
A warm, caring foster mom of two medically fragile infants, Yvonne was falsely accused of child endangerment by an unscrupulous doctor. Even though there was no evidence to back up his claims, Yvonne was put on trial. During the grand jury, a so-called medical "expert" testified under oath that Yvonne suffered from Munchausen's Syndrome by Proxy (even though a scientific diagnosis was never made), and therefore, nothing she said could be believed. - Read more....
https://kaiserpapers.com/horror/eldridge.html
TB Isn't a Disease of the Distant Past By KRIS HOGERHUIS
Cynthia Toussaint -Cynthia Toussaint’s career as a ballerina was ended when a pulled hamstring led to RSD. Today she is dedicated to RSD awareness and HMO reform.
KAISER
BEHAVIORAL HEALTH PATIENT STORIES
Another HMO Horror Story- It can happen to anyone
November 4, 2005
‘Psyche’ patient escapes
By Bill Silverfarb
A Kaiser Medical Center patient is in custody following a bizarre incident that left a security guard hospitalized and a pregnant woman traumatized. .....“If he is mentally ill I’m more angry at the people that allowed it to happen,” Singh said. “If he was on a suicide watch they weren’t doing a very good job of watching him.”
http://www.smdailyjournal.com/article_preview.php?id=49612
text mirrored at:
https://kaiserpapers.com/horror/poorsecurity.html
KAISER
ORTHOPEDIC PATIENT STORIES
Parents Overcome the Odds -- Twice by Dana Parsons
Ryan Royer
The odds of Chris and Rod Royer's 12-year-old son getting the debilitating hip ailment known as Perthes disease were 1 in 5,000. But he did, and Chris knew things were bad in December 2001 when Ryan approached her as she sat in the stands watching him play basketball and said, "Mom, I can't run."
The Royers soon learned that the prognosis for Perthes, which causes deterioration of the thigh bone in the hip socket, was not good, especially for children in Ryan's age group. Kids like Ryan typically had to hunker down, withstand the arthritic-like pain the disease brought, and wait for hip-replacement surgery as adults.
Then the Royers got lucky. Chris learned about a relatively unknown procedure known as "distraction" that was performed at Sinai Hospital of Baltimore by its originator, Dror Paley, an outside-the-box orthopedic surgeon who reported 95% success rates.
The Royers, who live in Fullerton, asked their longtime health insurer Kaiser Permanente to pay for the surgery. The company refused, describing the procedure as "not medically necessary." The Royers, seeing Ryan's condition worsening to the point that pain sometimes left him in tears, signed up for it anyway. Last November, they took Ryan to Baltimore for the surgery, which cost about $50,000.
Once back in Orange County, Chris Royer took on Kaiser. Read more.......
https://kaiserpapers.com/horror/royer.htmlWe heard her speak the woman's name, the name of the previous patient. We didn't react at once, but when we heard the name repeated as they went out into the hall, the unthinkable occurred to us and we decided to make sure.
KAISER
CREDIT
REPORTING TO THE DETRIMENT OF PATIENTS
STORIES
By WILLIAM DOTINGA
A former Kaiser Permanente patient wants $1.2 million, claiming in Los Angeles court that Kaiser sent her to collections for bills she did not owe, and has damaged her credit. This patient presented well documented evidence that Kaiser indeed had done this to her. The public should read this article and the court filing linked below because this patient has done exactly what needs to be done to have problems like this resolved. Kaiser finally did rectify their error. The method used by this patient is one that all people should employ when faced with a situation such as this. Please read the article linked below and the entire court filing to have a greater understanding as to exactly what people should do to fully present documentation that can be used as court evidence.
Article at:
http://www.courthousenews.com/2013/05/06/57362.htm
Court filing at: http://www.courthousenews.com/2013/05/06/tan%20asks%20$1m%20for%20aggravation%20sc120606.pdf
What
Kaiser Does With the TRW Report They File on You
All wasn't good news however, as it took 6 months to get the
health
insurance I should have had all along. Kaiser turned me down because I
had "been hospitalized once within the past year". Big mistake; never
mark
this box on a health insurance application. They denied me any form of
coverage for any price, and apparently reported that to a "health
insurance"
version of the TRW credit reporting business. Everybody else I applied
with turned me down as well, and I couldn't lie since it would be
reported
why Kaiser had denied me. Finally, in April, Blue Shield took my
application,
along with a $318 check to get the policy started. The 14th of that
month
they cashed the check.
This is the story of a senior citizen that trusted, was mislead by Kaiser Permanente, received very poor medical care, and could not change his medical plan because Kaiser had total control over it. The Federal Government was robbed for Kaiser was paid for this deplorable medical service from government funds. The citizens of this country were robbed because they funded this government Medicare program and trusted that it would be administered properly and that someone would be honestly providing oversight.
The attorneys consulted in this case for representation of Mr. Kline and his family sold the family out to Kaiser. Rather than honestly tell the family that it is a rigged system for all intents and purposes they strung them along and gave them false hope. They intentionally let the statute run out knowing full well that no one would ever question their behavior, including the California Bar Association.
Kaiser Permanente violated the law in overcharging for the actual cost of photocopying the medical records. They took advantage of a family already in the throes of mourning to drag the entire matter along until the very short statute regarding malpractice in California would be past. It was an intentional act on the part of many differnt people that consistently work together for personal financial gain at the detriment of the suriviving family members.
Mr. Kline was denied emergency medical care and from the family's information it sounds as if Kaiser also openly practiced active euthanasia on this patient.
https://kaiserpapers.com/horror/johnmkline.html
The
Bill
and
Marie O'Dell Story.
Bill
and Marie are Senior
Citizens that in my opinion
have been misled by Kaiser. Marie has diabetes and Kaiser did
create
serious medical complications with her care. She has been
placed
in Kaiser Hospice, because "Kaiser will then pay for her
medicine."
Mr. O'Dell was advised by Kaiser to give her Morphine for breathing
problems.
DR.
CHARLES
PHILLIPS KAISER PATIENT STORIES
Talk
About Kaiser Chutzpah (Nerve)
The Killing Fields The ongoing slaughter in the offices, clinics, gurneys, and beds of Managed Care
Kaiser and Stress Tests by Charles Phillips, M.D.
OTHER WEB SITES WITH KAISER PATIENT STORIES
Stay
away from Kaiser Permanente - Kaiser Permanente is
very much like
the cigarrette companies, and makes money while maiming and killing
thousands
and thousands of people. There is no telling how many people
have
died because of Kaiser Permanente.
Criminal Activity at Kaiser HMO Hospitals Computer Center
The Death of Richard Leonard during Routine Ear Surgery
https://kaiserpapers.com/horror/richardleonard.html
Commentary on the Kaiser Permanente fad of gastric bypass surgery.
Another Life Ruined By Kaiser - A Kaiser Botox Story
Kaiser ruined my life so, obviously, I pre-judge them. I am no longer with Kaiser. I was with Kaiser - Vallejo (North Bay Area) until 1995 when I changed to Health Net to save my life. The internist I saw through HN diagnosed my case in 2 minutes. She had never met me before. The ENT's and speech pathologists at Kaiser treated me for two years and had no clue.
Read more at:
http://jwinjuryblog.com/2008/05/16/1871820-awarded-against-kaiser-permanente.aspx
December 7, 2007
Kaiser to pay $1.8 million in malpractice case
45-year-old man was not diagnosed with cerebral bleeding and later suffered permanent brain damage.
Kaiser Permanente will pay $1.8 million to the family of a man who suffered a brain aneurysm after his headache was wrongly attributed to grief.
In 2005, 45-year-old Ted Blackwell visited a Kaiser clinic in Orange County with a headache and neck pain. According to the binding arbitration document, doctors attributed his symptoms to grief over the death of his brother eight days earlier.
He received an injection and was sent home.
Blackwell returned to the clinic two days later, still in pain. According to the document, his daughter requested a CT scan because of her father's disorientation but doctors decided that wasn't necessary.
Two days later, Blackwell collapsed and underwent surgery at Hoag Hospital for bleeding in his brain. He suffered permanent brain damage and is unable to work, according to his attorney James McElroy of Del Mar.
http://www.ocregister.com/life/blackwell-pain-brain-1937851-kaiser-days#
mirrored for historical purposes at: https://kaiserpapers.com/legalstuff/tedblackwell.html
A long time California Kaiser patient suffered a painful injury. Consequently this patient received the standard Kaiser treatment of delay diagnosis, deny treatment. When Kaiser was pushed in a corner the physicians did mistreat the patient by only providing the illusion of medical care.
The patient took a chance and left the Kaiser system, leaving the state of California and obtaining insurance elsewhere. In a matter of days the patient was examined, tested and is now receiving life saving medical care that was denied by the Kaiser Permanente system.
"Had I not taken the gamble to leave the state and try to get insurance elsewhere I would have lost my legs. I know that not everyone can do that and I have suffered financially - but I have my legs. "
Please read this material send directly by the patient to the Kaiser Papers at:
https://kaiserpapers.com/horror/modesto.html
Jeannette D. Brown received medical treatment on August 6 and 8, 2000 from health care facilities owned and operated by Kaiser Foundation Health Plan for the Mid-Atlantic States ("Kaiser"). On August 9, Brown was admitted to the Fairfax Hospital emergency room for a perforated sigmoid colon and significant sepsis, where she remained for forty-two days.
http://kaiserpapers.com/legalstuff/brownmedicare.html
From: http://cbs2.com/consumer/local_story_016195509.html
A cancer patient in the fight of his life suddenly has to fight his HMO at the same time. They cancelled his membership just when he needed it most. So we got involved to help him and what happened next could be a lesson for everyone.
Scott Bracy is the father of a three-month-old baby girl, and he’s fighting for his life.
In August Scott was diagnosed with malignant melanoma. Doctors at Kaiser Permanente medical center in Riverside told him with aggressive chemotherapy treatment he would have a twelve percent chance of survival.
Then,
just a few days before his fourth scheduled
treatment, Scott received
this letter from Kaiser, which says, “your membership in
Kaiser foundation
health plan has been revoked due to the intentional misrepresentation
of
your health history." An allegation that Scott vehemently denies.
Mirrored for historical purposes at: https://kaiserpapers.com/horror/bracy.html
Keoki
Diaz,
who was
admitted on Monday because he
was having trouble
maintaining his balance,
was released Tuesday. The boy died in his
family's
home that afternoon.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2000/08/04/MN84004.DTL
Family Sues S.F. Over 911 Delay
Asthmatic woman died awaiting help
Susan Sward, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, October 30, 1998
The
lawsuit,
filed in Superior
Court, alleges
``wanton indifference''
to Chan's plight and seeks unspecified damages from the city and Kaiser
Permanente. The suit alleges that Kaiser negligently reported the
incident
as a drug overdose.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/1998/10/30/MN38144.DTL
High Court OKs Reduced Malpractice Sum in Girl's Death
State's $250,000 limit applies in suit over hospital `dumping'
Harriet Chiang, Chronicle Legal Affairs Writer
Friday, March 26, 1999
She arrived at 5:30 p.m. and was examined by a staff physician, Dr. Trach Phoung Dang, who wanted to do blood tests to determine whether she had a bacterial infection. But a doctor at Kaiser Permanente Hospital told him not to do so, saying that the tests could wait until she was transferred to Kaiser. The girl was enrolled in Kaiser's health plan.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/1999/03/26/MN102692.DTL
Daughter's dying from rare disorder
Sabin Russell, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, May 24, 1996
An East Bay mother whose 18- year-old daughter is dying of a rare metabolic disorder is picketing Kaiser Permanente after the HMO refused to refer the teenager for tests recommended by an outside specialist.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/1996/05/24/MN12556.DTL
Letting Patients Choose How to Air Their Beefs
Arbitration may be one of the best ways to deal with health care gone wrong. But it doesn't always seem that way when the little guy has no choice.
- Reynolds Holding
Sunday, July 26, 1998
The
pains in
her back and arm had grown
intolerable since late 1996,
crippling her ability to earn a living or really to do anything beyond
lying in a Vicodin haze at her Santa Rosa home.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/1998/07/26/SC85026.DTL
OAKLAND
Parents target drugs after kids' deaths
- Leslie Fulbright
Friday, January 14, 2005
A Danville couple whose children were killed by an allegedly intoxicated driver said Thursday they were working with Kaiser Permanente and state Sen. Tom Torlakson, D-Antioch, to develop legislation that would place tougher controls on prescription drugs.
Bob and Carmen Pack, who recently learned that the Walnut Creek nanny accused of running down their two children might have been abusing the prescription painkiller Vicodin, said at a news conference outside Kaiser's corporate offices they were pushing for a statewide, real-time database that would allow doctors and pharmacists to access medical records.
Their children Troy, 10, and Alana, 7, died in October 2003 after allegedly being hit by Jimena Barreto, 46.
According
to
transcripts from grand jury
testimony, Barreto told police
she had taken Vicodin and muscle relaxants the day of the accident. A
Kaiser
doctor who treated her days before the accident testified that she had
been seen by several doctors and given six different Vicodin
prescriptions.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/01/14/BAG94APU0C1.DTL
Kaiser Permanente and Medical Murder-by Scott G. Beach*
Patient story about an intestinal parasite infection that was inappropriately treated by Kaiser resulting in long term damage to the patient. The patient began picketing Kaiser Permanete Morse Avenue. Patient states that Kaiser retaliated against him by filing false criminal charges. The standard accusation of mental health problems and disappearance of conventional medical treatment records was made by Kaiser staff to discredit the patient. Further information on the patient at:
ref:http://www.dpd.cdc.gov/dpdx/HTML/Strongyloidiasis.htm
Bleeding the Patient: The Consequences of Corporate Health Care
David Himmelstein, MD, Steffie Woolhandler, MD, MPH
Ida Hollander, MD
Common Courage Press, 2001
Reviewed
by Kenneth R. Kahn
"Bleeding the Patient" is not simply the charts and graphs and statistical study of how people are unequally treated by America's nightmarish system of "health care' but for the army of bean counters and CEO's "Bleeding the Patient" is a way of life, a creed and code to live by.
The unfortunate part is that while this volume deals with an important, timely and life- and-death subject, it does so graphically, statistically and mostly fails to convey to the reader the life and death story, the human equation, of how Americans cope with a system to which its rulers are not subjected and which causes untold suffering and misery. After reading this volume, one can only come to the conclusion that the only thing worse than an HMO is being uninsured and that sometimes there may exist little difference between the two except for paying the bill.
A real life personal example of the tyranny of HMOs was driven home to me when my wife underwent surgery at a hospital. The HMO was Kaiser Permanente. The doctor committed what was to Kaiser an unpardonable sin--he admitted her a day early, an unscheduled admission due to a low blood count. To extract its revenge, while my wife lay recovering from surgery, Kaiser sent a social worker to see my wife and told her that she had a choice of being to either a "skilled nursing facility" or to obtain "home health care" at our expense. Keep in mind that I have been paying premiums to Kaiser for years. The ultimatum was delivered as a result of the early admission by the doctor. Additionally, my wife was approached by a nurse working for Kaiser to ascertain her condition and to get her discharge as early as possible. In the end, I had verbal confrontation with the Kaiser nurse and told them that if they did not back off, I would be filing suit for malpractice based on misdiagnosis. In the end, my spouse was driven home in an ambulance at Kaiser's expense. However, they refused to pay for home health services which we then contracted. We were told by the staff at the hospital that this conduct by Kaiser is commonplace and that they harass Kaiser patients regularly. Since the hospital has a contract with Kaiser, such conduct is tolerated. Additionally, we were told that Kaiser sends people to "skilled nursing facilties" at 10 p.m. and regularly monitors the conditions of Kaiser patients to send them home as quickly as possible.
Little Traci McGill
April 18, 1984
Author: Pam Slater
In what is described as the largest award ever in a Sacramento legal malpractice suit, a jury awarded an 11-year-old quadriplegic and her parents $2.35 million Tuesday after deciding the family's lawyer violated an attorney-client relationship.
The jury of 11 men and one woman unanimously found that attorney Rodney A. Klein breached his duties as the family's lawyer during a medical malpractice suit that ended in an out-of-court settlement in 1978.The jury unanimously awarded Traci McGill and her parents, Michael and Carolyn McGill, about $1 million in general damages, $469,392 in interest and $870,000 in exemplary damages.
The McGills' current attorney, Edward P. Freidberg, who specializes in legal malpractice cases, said it is the largest such award ever granted in Sacramento County.
Nov 6, 2009 9:47 pm US/Pacific
Baby Autumn lived for only two hours. Now her parents are dealing with losing her, not once, but twice. The Sacramento couple claims Kaiser Roseville lost their daughter's body.
Read more at: http://cbs13.com/local/corpse.baby.infant.2.1297864.html
mirrored for historical purposes at: https://kaiserpapers.com/horror/baby-autumn.html
Kaiser Apologizes For Burial Mix-Up
Hospital
now
says it tried to call priest's
family on day of his death
rather than three days after.
By John Geluardi and Rebecca Vesely
CORRESPONDENT AND STAFF WRITER
Kaiser Permanente Medical Center-Oakland is investigating how an Episcopal priest's body was misidentified last week, and changes in its morgue's record-keeping have already been instituted, hospital officials said Wednesday.
However, Kaiser officials are still declining to answer mounting questions from family members as to how Thomas Douglas "Dewey" Schwartzenburg's body was mistaken for that of an elderly Fruitvale woman and released to a mortuary, which cremated the body.
Kaiser representative P.J. Ballard said the 59-year-old Schwartzenburg drove himself to the Oakland hospital's emergency room early May 11 and died from a heart attack shortly after. But information about what happened after Schwartzenburg died is sketchy.
https://kaiserpapers.com/horror/deadpriest.html
Couple Claim Hospital Lost Baby's Remains
-
Wednesday, April 21, 1999
Oakland -- Oakland couple has filed a lawsuit against Kaiser Permanente Hospital claiming that the HMO lost the body of their stillborn daughter.
The child, Malika
Armstrong, was
stillborn at Kaiser's Hayward facility on November 23. Her parents,
Elisaia Levingston and Joe Armstrong Jr., claim that while awaiting her
autopsy results, the hospital informed them that it could not locate
her body. What happened to the body is a mystery.
Attorneys allege that the hospital had the remains cremated against the
parents' wishes. Kaiser officials yesterday said the hospital doesn't
perform or authorize cremations and doesn't know what happened. Despite
an hospital investigation and an extensive search -- even through
hospital laundry -- the baby's body has never been found. The
suit alleges that after telling the parents the baby's body had been
misplaced, the hospital offered Levingston her placenta for burial
instead and $15,000 for the loss of the child's body. The suit claims
that hospital officials told the parents at one point that the remains
might have accidentally been placed with another body that was to be
disposed of.
URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/1999/04/21/MNR3BA6.DTL
Kaiser giving parents the wrong baby stories
March 12, 1989
A
mother given the
wrong baby when she left a hospital maternity ward
last month cuddled her own son for the first time Friday and said all
she wants to do now is ``get to know him.''
Days of suspense and a barrage of medical tests confirmed what Rosetta
Kirks began to suspect earlier in the week - that the infant she took
home from
Kaiser
Permanente Hospital in West Los
Angeles was not the baby she gave birth to Feb. 11.