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On September 11, 2000, Kaiser Permanente Staff euthanized our father, Adam Wesley Arnold, against his and his family's wishes.  He was 70 years old and the father of 6 living children.  He had been married 51 years to our mother. To the left is a picture of our Dad, Adam Wesley Arnold before Kaiser got ahold of him.  

Here is his story - CASE SUMMARY -

• A Health Care Partners physician - Angela Ross Hay did intentially defraud Medicare a branch of the Fed­er­al Government by billing for non existent treatments, illnesses and did diagnose non existent disease through SCAN Insurance - A Senior Provider for Medicare.
• A Tenet Hospital, since closed, St. Luke's Hospital assisted Angela Ross Hay in this defraudment of the Fed­er­al Government.
• Angela Ross Hay did knowingly and intentionally for financial gain cause irreparable harm to a senior citizen.
• Barlow Respiratory Hospital did assist Angela Ross Hay in continuing the Medicare Fraud by  not re-evaluating the patients diagnosis and consequently appears to have been found to be involved in their own little defraudment of the public.  The California State Board of Pharmacy requested that the California Medical Board formally investigate questionable medical treatments which can needlessly endanger patient life.
• Kaiser Foundation Health Plan working with a conservator illegally attempted to place the patient in their hospice program and a nursing home in downtown Los Angeles.  Conservator was later found to be running two different probates on Mr. Arnold at the same time with the assistance of another individual.
• A Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Permanente nurse, Dennis Kane (since promoted by Kaiser and with a proven lengthy history of patient abuse), openly stated to the family of the patient that the patient was being killed for financial gain and to make room in the Kaiser program for more patients.  (Medicare will only allow so many patients at one time per month in that program.  Stacking patients per month is a big money maker for said corporation.)  A detailed accounting of this financial Medicare Defraudment program was provided by this nurse and has since been confirmed as fact.
• When Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Permanente Personnel were notified of the attempted defraudment they immediately stopped all medical care which to that point was slim to none anyway.
• Because Kaiser had never provided a physician to make an evaluation based upon true examination but had continuted the medical prescriptions originally provided by Angela Ross Hay and an additional one by Barlow Respiratory Hospital the patient succumbed to an septic infection and an overdose of potassium.
• Kaiser did not ever monitor the potassium levels and was found to have attempted to alter the computerized medical and pharmaceutical records.  Proof was obtained by the obvious to authorities tampering of the computer template.  The template was created and the information half erased.  The template, due to the system Kaiser uses could not be removed. 
• The Department of Health Services did find Kaiser Health Plan to have been negligent in their lack of medical care.
• Also Kaiser was found to have altered the patient information on the home health computerized system by the repeated material indicating that the patient had expired several weeks before it became fact.  This was repeated done by Kaiser personnel.  By doing this it would indicate to schedulers that no further medical care would be needed, hence the lack of actual medical care.
• The above action did not stop Kaiser from billing Medicare.
• The Department of Health Services immediately fired the director of the depart­ment that filed the above mentioned report and for over one year lost a copy of said report.
• The Department of Health Services upon receipt of further written evidence from within Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Hospital advised the family that an immediate reopening of the case was warranted and that they would be going in.  That was two years ago and they still haven't done it.
• LAPD advised that Leland Wong of Kaiser Permanente had to grant permission for a criminal invest­i­ga­tion.  
• LAPD five years later received new information and did conduct an invest­i­ga­tion.  
• LAPD advised the family that they will have to wait a long time for a response from LAPD as to how they will be proceeding.
• 2005 - CMS wrote that Kaiser did not get to keep Medicare Funding for the care of our Dad.  DMHC still refused to investigate, even though it now fell under their jurisdiction and CMS  requested they do so.
• 2009 - We are still waiting.

TO THE ACTUAL AND ONLY MEDICAL RECORDS IN THE ENTIRE KAISER SYSTEM PERTAINING TO MY DAD. It took five years to obtain them.  The Supreme Court for the State of California ruled that the next of kin and eldest child had no right to them if that is what they feel like doing.  Three days after that ruling, and after my husband consulted with a DA in Ventura, we got a phone call to go pick up the records.  Here they are: https://kaiserpapers.com/pdfs/Adam-Wesley-Arnold -Medical-Records.pdf

As soon as we learned of the existence of the newly created California Department of Managed Health Care a phone call was placed to them.  I was assured that their very existence was to handle such matters as we had witnessed and experienced.  They had me fill out their online form.  They also over the years had us send them more and more requests for an invest­i­ga­tion.  Here is the coorespondence from the DMHC - Department of Manged Health Care that showed that something else was blocking any invest­i­ga­tion. https://kaiserpapers.com/dmhc.html Over the years, numerous requests have been made to the California Board of Registered Nursing for a formal invest­i­ga­tion.  Here is one of the com­plaints filed, at the Board's request on April 10, 2004.  You will note that Dennis Kane, the nurse involved in this, the "closer" by his own statement, was also the primary offender in the Inclan vs Covenant Health Care case which did go to the Supreme Court and did extend the statue of limitations in some instances of Elder Abuse.  He did the same thing to several of his patients and The Inclan family sued.  Unfortunately in that case Dennis Kane got off due to a technicality involving statute time constraints.  How that happened while in litigation is a question to be answered by attorneys. https://kaiserpapers.com/pdfs/april102004complaint.pdf

Adam Wesley Arnold's story, has been made public because numerous people assisted us in gathering this information and wanted to know the truth. This also has been placed online because thousands of people in this country are treated the same way and not one government agency is willing to do the right thing and stop it from happening.  This has been very difficult to put together and made more so because prior to this we greatly valued our privacy.  More important than our privacy though, is giving people the chance to stop this from happening to one of their family members.  Here is a link to the story with the information that we had in 2002 when it was read before Congress:https://kaiserpapers.com/pdfs/elderjustice.pdf  Since that time we have received further information and have learned that there was much more to the story than we were originally allowed to know.

November 2006 - The month we decided that the truth could finally come out. Since September 11, 2000 I have cooperated with the authorities.  I have kept quiet about several things that took place regarding my father's murder and the numerous people that have profited off of it.  All it got me was a big headache and threats from indi­vid­uals that wanted me to remain silent.  I am tired of being threatened and I am tired of living in fear that any member of my family will be harmed if I tell what we now know to be fact.  I am also tired of being used by people that only want personal gain.  This is not a rant page but an explanation as to what actually did happen to our father and why it took 5 years to obtain the truth.  We have all known the truth since the last week of October 2005.  We have waited an additional year for the police to do something.

I have to wonder if even the OJ case that every police depart­ment and DA in this country uses as an excuse to avoid doing their job was actually a thrown case.

For anyone reading this you will be hard pressed to try and make this out to be a conspiracy anything.  I am just a wife and mother that accumulated a lot of papers from the court system, talked to a lot of people and saw some really horrible things take place.  

This is a factual story and is a story of greed and Thriving from Thievery while not caring who gets hurt.  This has been verified by the authorities that just haven't gotten around to doing anything yet except asking our family to remain silent.  A good portion of the documentation  was obtained from two separate probate records, filed in two different probate courts by two different people at the same time claiming conservatorship over my father's matters.  GP007284 and GP008068.  One case was started at the beginning and the other created half way through. Both remained action from their creation until the courts end of this issue. One case was never finalized.  The excuse made when inquires were made was no one had the time to clear the other. The excuse doesn't fly considering their contents.

The Conservator in this matter,  Kaiser and The California Department of Managed Health all tried to prevent us from obtaining the medical records.  They did this for 5 years.  They tried so hard that they involved a court of law in this that ruled that I in particular and my other siblings had no right to my father's medical records.  

The following Monday, five years after the original request for medical records and after this unique ruling, for unknown reasons, Kaiser released the medical records to us.  I then presented those medical records to every government agency that had used the excuse that they couldn't obtain them before because of HIPAA. Those agencies still aren't doing anything but throwing up smoke screens.  Truthfully with their conduct they all do have a lot to hide. That in itself is a disgrace to this state.

My father was a regular Dad and nothing more.   Any insinuation to the contrary by any source is puffery intended to distract from the truth.  We witnessed a murder and it happened to be my father that was killed.  As it turns out our mother was also helped along but not by the medical establishment.  Permanente employees using their titles of M.D. that have implied otherwise in an attempt to discredit fact should be ashamed of them­selves.  Attorneys that are on a gravy train that may have their ride disrupted by this information should also realign their personal values and stop their mud slinging.

Here are the facts and witnessed events in somewhat of a chronological order -

1.  A physician misdiagnosed for whatever reason a serious heart condition in my father.  The medication created a side effect of   tremors.  He was later diagnosed with Parkinsons Disease because of these tremors.

2.  Angela Ross Hays, M.D. was fired by my father in the Spring of 1999.  He said that he didn't believe what she was telling him the truth about his medical condition and wanted another physician assigned by SCAN Insurance (A Medicare Senior Health Provider) to oversee his care.  Further information on SCAN from the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee at:http://waysandmeans.house.gov/hearings.asp?formmode=view&id=5849

3.  The very next day he was placed on so called life support by this doctor's associate because of his alleged serious heart condition.  The doctor said that he feared he would not last the night. As it turned out all the doctor had done was dope up our father to make him unconscious.

The ICU director at Huntington Memorial Hospital (a very good hospital) informed our family that night that there was nothing wrong with our father and to get him out of there as fast as possible.  We were informed that first night that our father did not have a heart condition. The Director and a nurse even suggested that I pose as my mother who could not be present that evening to sign him out.

One of the siblings prevented this from happening that night but we didn't realize what was going on until much later.

The director of ICU that night said that he could not call the police himself but if we did he would and could talk to them.  I regret not understanding fully what he was telling us.  I think that evening we all began to question everyone in the medical field.

The director also said that our father did not need the pres­crib­ed oxygen though he did have some COPD.

The entire thing came across as the treating doctor and her associates were trying to cover up the Medicare fraud and didn't care if the patient died as long as she and her office didn't get caught and made their money.  I suppose if our father had the opportunity to contract with another physician that actually examined him the truth would have become known much sooner.  Maybe that is what they were afraid would happen.

The sibling situation that arose seems to be unrelated to the medical scam that took place.

4.  My father was shortly thereafter illegally transferred to the now out of business St. Luke's hospital in Pasadena, California by Angela Ross Hays, M.D. against his and his familys wishes.  There she created false medical diagnoses for the purpose of bilking the SCAN insurance and Medicare system.  She made a lot of money.  Law Enforcement became officially involved at this point.

5.  The insurance company was of no help.  The insurance company refused to switch doctors.  The insurance company thought what was going on was funny and bluntly told us that they were not going to do anything to help my father.  The insurance company got bilked by the doctor.  Medicare was bilked by the doctor.  My father's health was destroyed.

6.  The one sibling that blocked our father from going home in the beginning became conservator over our father.  We were a fairly trusting family and it never crossed our minds what was really going on at that time.  Our sibling kept him in the hospital  longer than necessary because she took the money for an attorney to rep­re­sent our father and used it for her personal business instead, while failing to men­tion this to the rest of the family.  So from the very beginning there were two unethical people overseeing our father's medical care.

This sibling was trusted because she lived in our father's house and as a court clerk for family/probate court in Los Angeles we believed that she would be the family representative most capable to handle the legal matters.  In a perfect world, perhaps that would have been true.

While this was happening our mother who suffered from the disease porphyria, a genetic disease which does affect the mind when not properly treated was beaten in the home.  She stated that the sibling who was conservator had beaten and kicked her.  This was credible information because of prior incidents within in the home that we all knew of.  This was reported to the attorney handling the conservatorship, the judge involved in Pasadena, California and to the Elder Abuse unit at NorthEast LAPD.  Elder Abuse showed up to interview our mother after the bruises were gone and interviewed her in the presence of the accused abuser.  

Five years later our family learned from court documents that the sibling went into court and stated that everyone in the family made up stories but her.  The judge allowed her the position of conservator and didn't bother to check out anything.  Five years later we also learned that other family members  independent of each other had also reported these events to the authorities, the court, the judge and the attorney.  All parties re­spon­si­ble and with authority to stop harm to our mother did nothing to help her.  I also learned five years after my father's death and verified through court documents that this same sibling had also been accused of abusing our father by other members of the family.

While our father was hospitalized during those long months our mother was not allowed to visit him by this one sibling. All branches of government did nothing to help our mother. 

7.  Finally after everyone peeled away the sham diagnosis created by our father's physician and was putting pressure on the hospital to release him, our father was transferred over to Barlow Medical Center.  Barlow had a PR reputation for undoing the damage caused by other facilities that placed patient on ventilators.  As with all body parts that become dependant on mechanical devices, from back and neck braces to breathing devices the the body weakens and often has to be retrained to function on it's own again.  In this case it was learned that our father was not on a respirator but was on an air pump.  There is a big difference between the two.

8.  At Barlow the phy­si­cians in charge didn't bother to examine the patient, our father, but did simply continue the treatment for the fake heart condition and by that time numerous other fake conditions that Angela Ross Hays, M.D. has declared our father as suffering from.  They tossed in some heart medication that was applied as a cream on his chest on top of everything else.  They also started our father on a large dose of potassium which was given daily for the rest of his life.

No matter how many times we repeated to these doctors that he did not have a heart condition we were ignored.

9.  The Barlow physician in charge, Dr. Christopher Ho was once a pharmacist.  He knew that for emergency purposes a large dose of potassium could immediately assist a patient suffering an asthma attack.  Dr. Ho pres­crib­ed a high dose of potassium for my father which didn't really work well with all the other medi­ca­tions that Dr. Angela Ross Hays had forced on him.  So in short a man was misdiagnosed with a heart condition, pres­crib­ed medi­ca­tions that caused other misdiagnoses, including two incapacitating operations, was terribly abused by the medical system and related staffs and died from a potassium overdose and a medically induced septic infection that was denied medical treatment.

Barlow publicized information on Christopher Ho:

The following information was originally located at: http://www.barlow2000.org/hospital/c_ho.htm but has since been removed. Christopher K. Ho, M.D. President, Barlow Pulmonary Medical Group cho@barlow2000.org

A member of the Barlow medical staff since 1990, Dr. Ho is the Director of Rehabilitation Services, providing the physician direction and man­age­ment for both the in-patient and ambulatory care Pulmonary Rehabilitation Programs. One of three full-time medical staff members at Barlow, Dr. Ho’s appointments include the directorships of the ABG Laboratory, Ambulatory Care Services, and Pulmonary Physiology Laboratory. He is also the Medical Director of Respiratory Care Services and the Associate Director of the Respiratory Intensive Care Unit. Dr. Ho joined the staff of Presbyterian Intercommunity Hospital in Whittier - the site of Barlow’s first satellite unit - in January, 1997.

Education and Training - 1974 - UC Berkeley Bachelor of Arts - 1979 University of Southern California - Pharm D. -  1985 ROSALIND FRANKLIN UNIVERSITY, THE CHICAGO MEDICAL SCHOOL North Chicago, Illinois Doctor of Medicine 1986-Internship, Los Angeles County / University of Southern California Medical Center, Los Angeles, California - Internal Medicine 1987- California Medical License obtained JUNE 22, 1987 1988 - Residency, Los Angeles county/University of Southern California Medical Center-Internal Medicien 1990 - Fellowship, Los Angeles Coutny, USC Medical Center, Los Angeles, California Pulmonary Diseases, Critical Care

Certification  Diplomate, American Board of Internal Medicine, 1989  Diplomate,ABIM Pulmonary Disease SubSpecialty Board, 1998

Special Procedural Expertise  Percutaneous Dilitational Tracheostomy (PDT)  Video Fluoroscopic Swallowing Study  Fiberoptic Evaluation of Swallowing Study  Transtracheal Oxygen Catheter Insertion

Academic Appointments  Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine, Department of Medicine UCLA School of Medicine, Los Angeles, California

Community Activities  Medical Director, 20^th Annual Asthma Camp, American Lung Association of Los Angeles County, 1997 Member, American Lung Association Research Board, Los Angeles County, Advanced Cardiac Life Support Instructor, Fundamentals of Critical Care Instructor and Course Director, Trudeau Society of Los Angeles County

Medicare blindly paid for all of this without questioning a single thing, even when the family tried to get help and begged for assistance.

Due to the tremors which were really a form of panic attacks created by the unnecessary medi­ca­tions, Barlow staff shoved my father's hands in mittens and tied him down.  He had been tied down over at St. Lukes previously for the tremors and Barlow just continued the same treatment.  By the time Barlow released him his body was deformed from being tied down for so long and one of his hands was permanently deformed from the mitten.  Barlow never did bother re-examining my father and never did get him off an air pump.

Today Barlow is under invest­i­ga­tion because Dr. Christopher Ho used this high dose potassium prescription on a great number of patients and yes when medi­ca­tions are not in conflict many of the patients will be able to get off a true ventilator.  Unfortunately a high dose of potassium routinely given to a patient does more harm than good in the long run.  So while short term results are often seen, the destruction to the rest of the body greatly shortens the patients life span if the medication is continued in such a large dose.  Dr. Ho continued this prescription after our father was released from Barlow as he did for many other patients in the Los Angeles area. Again, Dr. Ho was first a pharmacist and should have known better.  I guess he just wanted to make a reputation for himself and a lot of money.  Maybe he just figures that the end justifies the means.

You tell me which is worse;  A patient walking around for up to 20 years with his little portable oxygen tank and tubes stuck in his nose or having a hole punched in his throat to breathe or two years of high potassium, no oxygen tank and tubes and then death from the damage to the body caused by the medication.  That is the simplified version of what Barlow does with some patients.

While at Barlow my sibling realizing that I was catching on to what she was doing and threw up smoke screens and lots of melodrama. She threw up so much in the way of trouble that finally my family and I decided to just stay home and avoid the situation as we could not stop it and we also could not condone it.

10.  Our father went home at the end of the year in 1999 and a relative signed him up with the Kaiser Senior Advantage program in the Spring of 2000.  

This is when things really got bad.

11.  For a while my adult nephew, himself married and a father stopped everything to care for our father in his home.  He became the primary caregiver. The assigned Kaiser doctor, James Robert Evans did not provide medical care but did transfer all the prior medical prescriptions over to the Kaiser system.  Dr. Evans later claimed he never had my father for a patient but his name was on the prescription bottles and the medical records indicate that he was my father's assigned physician.

12.  Under my nephews care Kaiser ordered in March of 2000 my father to be taken to the doctor at Kaiser Sunset for a cursory examination. An ambulance was ordered to transfer him because we still did not realize that all the equipment, etc., was not necessary for my father and we feared for his well being.  By this time the potassium had further weakened my fathers body and he could no longer walk at all or sit for any period of time but we did not yet understand what was going on.

For the publics information too much potassium can paralyze and definitely make a person unable to sit up, walk or do much of anything.  It eventually kills by paralyzing the entire body if used in too great an amount or if it builds up in the body.  It is a recipe for misdiagnoses and a recipe to hide something illegal that is going on.

Dr. Evans, as  per the medical records ordered a few routine blood and urine tests.  The potassium was continued but never monitored. My sister told the doctor that our father had Parkinsons Disease. Dr. James Robert Evans did not bother examining our father to find out what was really wrong.  The records were never transferred from Barlow, St. Lukes, Huntington Memorial or anywhere else for the doctor to review.  Dr. James Robert Evans, Kaiser Geriatric Authority at the time just took the word of a relative and ignored the word of both the caregiver and another sibling that was present during this exchange.

By this time the sibling conservator was on a power trip and anyone that questioned her statements or behavior began to have serious personal problems.  It is well documented that most everyone she feels has crossed her starts having problems with law enforce­ment.  It doesn't seem to go any further than harassment though.

13.  One night three members of the family obtained absolute, beyond a shadow of a doubt proof that this sister was looting our fathers bank account, taking rent monies and not documenting tenant payments, maxing out credit cards for her clothing, eating out, buying liquor by the case,  I presume for gifts  and other non household nor medical purposes items.  She was also taking possessions from the home and it was later learned selling them under value.   Note:  The reason absolute proof had to be obtained before confronting her is because of our mother's illness.  Our mother suffered from the genetic disease porphyria and it was often not controlled properly.  Often her mind was not clear and often she could be convinced by others that she had done something wrong. Many times she did do something wrong and every one would have to sort out the story and fix the problem as well. The family had to make sure what was the truth and was not and who was doing what.

14.  These members of the family asked the sister to leave the home immediately one evening or they would bring this matter to the authorities as she refused to stop stealing.  She felt it was a salary owed her she said.  There was an altercation in which two other members of our family  came to the house and supported her.  These two members have also profited well from these activities and protected their little sister.

15.  Later that night she and the two supporting brothers telephoned me and presented an incredible story.  They claimed that the three other family members that tried to stop the thievery and violence were in fact re­spon­si­ble for it all.  Keep in mind that I had intentionally withdrawn from what was going on because I was very familiar with this pattern of familial behavior.  I spoke with my mother and she expressed anger over what the brothers were doing and told me that they were not telling the truth.

That night they all requested that I move down there and assume the position of conservator.  I made it clear that would not happen until I saw the financials and spoke with all parties.  I didn't trust anyone at this point and wanted to know what I would be walking into. They simply refused to allow me to see the records  and so I remained away from the situation.

From that night forward my nephew, his family, a brother a sister, all their children were never again allowed to see our father as per orders from our sister the conservator until his funeral  They were formally banned from the internment upon order of the sister in question.  Over 20 people were never allowed to see their grandfather again so one greedy person could have her way.  

16.  A few weeks later I received a telephone call from Dan Stubbs a professional conservator, a personal friend of my sisters who stated that she had asked that he take over her position.  At that point he advised me that he was placing my father in the Kaiser Hospice Program.  I asked when my father had become so ill.  He stated that he was not terminal but that Medicare would pay better in that program.  He also said that Spring of 2000 that our father's Medicare benefits had run out for the year.  I advised him that this was fraud and  because of the nuttiness of the overall situation and futility of trying to stop it I remained out of the picture. Dan Stubbs asked me to come down to the house and care for my father.  I still refused because untruthfulness was still taking place.

17.  They went through several caregivers under Dan Stubbs "reign" for lack of a better term.  The care was pretty bad I understood from my mother and the neighbors.  Finally Stubbs decided that he was going to put my father in a nursing home in downtown Los Angeles and ban members of the family from visiting him I was told by my sister, the former conservator.  I was told it was an emergency and that I truly was needed to go down there and stop it from happening.  She claimed that they had run out of relatives to help out and could not afford to pay for continuing medical personnel.

I made it clear that if there was any more lying, any more hanky panky, any more violence or anything out of line that I would personally turn them in.  They all agreed with my terms.  I telephoned Stubbs and spoke with him.  He admitted that he had made these statements that indeed he was taking this action against my family and my father.  It was his solution to prevent my nephew, my brother and sister and related family members from seeing our father he said.  He claimed our sister his personal friend told him that they upset our father and so it appeared that he was just honoring her wishes.  

Our mother couldn't do anything.  She was aware that she had previously been declared incompetent because of her medical condition and was fearful what would happen if Stubbs found out about it as was the entire family.  The worse case scenario as per family dis­cus­sion was that Stubbs would have them both placed in nursing homes, over medicated and we would all be prevented from seeing them while he ran up his bill.

I understood from Stubbs that his motivation was because members of the family had been requesting that he make visitation arrangements for family members to visit our father.  I reiterate that the primary concern with visitation without legal protection was our sister.  She has a lengthy history as per her statements to me and statements witnessed by other family members of creating harassment by filing police com­plaints against anyone that gets in her way.  The police already are very aware of this information and have reviewed their own records.

18.  While I served as our father's caregiver beginning the month of July until his death in September there was indeed a lot of melodrama.  The medical care provided by Kaiser was next to nothing.  The abuse, both physicial. and emotional by their staff was great.

19.  The first week there my sister and one of her defending brothers bragged how they were getting even with the family members that tried to stop the stealing.  The brother claimed he was a great friend of NorthEast Station officers and had provided a lot of private contract services for their homes. He also claimed that he assisted in some investigations where police could not do certain things. This brother bragged that he had convinced Commander Kyle Jackson to contact a Sheriff Department in another community and have an invasive search made of our nephews home.  The claim was made that they were searching for hidden military paraphernalia.  They found nothing and the brother claimed he was trying to convince Jackson to do it again.  This is called retal­i­a­tion.

This was later verified through family members that were present at this invasive event that did terrorize small children sitting at the dinner table and was also verified again this year through LAPD.

Until then I had always thought that the police needed a little bit of proof and certainly more than the word of a snitch to do that kind of thing.

I witnessed many methods used to try to set people up and have them arrested as a form of intimidation by that sister and that particular brother.  One of the things interesting that became of use five years later in a court of law was a unique, at least to us method of blackmail.  One of the methods my sister would control our mother with was blackmail.  I doubt she knew if she had done something wrong or at least not most of the time.  However for one particular matter that my sister thought would be useful to hold over her head (an indiscretion when she was 15) she made eye contact with our mother and slowly raised her hands together at the dining room table and then slammed them down.  That scared the heck out of our Mom right then and there.  The next day she told me what it was about because she was tired of being scared.  That was the end of the leverage over her.

Five years later the same technique was again witnessed in a court of law against the same judge that is repeatedly involved in this entire mess.  

This sister in particular always has a court case regarding child custody and one night before a hearing she showed her black book that she carried around with her and told us the contents of that book.  I also saw at a later date the contents of that book.  That same judge from the book just seems to always be involved with my family probate, sisters child custody, seek an autopsy, etc., matters.

20.  Kaiser assigned a nurse, Dennis Kane to our father.  We were told that our father was on the hospice program and when Dennis Kane a documented by court of law abusive nurse said straight out that he was killing our father to get his bonus at the end of the month I blew the whistle on the entire thing.   This nurse has a pattern of behavior doing this type of thing to patients that has been shown in a court of law. Dennis Kane - https://kaiserpapers.com/denniskane.html,

Our father had a build up of potassium and slowly became unable to move on his own due to the lack of medical monitoring.  As Kaiser refused to monitor his urine and blood this build up was allowed to progress.  When Dennis Kane as referenced above, came along and intentionally created an infection which Kaiser refused to treat but did record in their computer system it added to his sudden decline.

Over a period of time the use of potassium in such amounts often weakens the kidneys and other organs in the body creating new problems.  Potassium that is not released from the body can cause paralysis which is basically what happened in my fathers case. When the body starts slowing down for example from an untreated infection the potassium will build up in the body.  When death results from an overdose or build up of potassium the heart and the lungs simply stop while the mind remains very alert.  In essence the person going through this is very aware that their heart and lungs have stopped functioning, and is terrified. This goes on for a period of several minutes until the person dies.  Some phy­si­cians have stated that a patient in this position dies while in great pain. This is what actually happened to our father.  Here is the clincher:  If it weren't for the medical records there would be no way to prove this.  Until recently an  overdose of potassium at the time of death could not be proven by autopsy.

The week before my father's death my sister and one of her defending brothers talked about how they were going to make sure the rest of the family were jilted out of the estate.  At that time I was considered one of the good guys and they openly bragged about what they were doing.  They had made sure that no autopsy would happen, they made sure that family members would be blocked from the funeral.  They thought that they had made sure of a lot of things.  Truthfully they did get away with preventing an autopsy and they used the cover of their friend Homicide Detective John Berdin to stop an autopsy that the family did request.

The night of my fathers death my sister told the Kaiser doctor that never met  the patient much less saw his medical records while on the telephone that the cause of death was Parkinson's Disease. The paramedics verified that he was dead to the physician and nothing more,.  The doctor later admitted what he did was illegal.  He also admitted it to the police but kept saying so what, Kaiser would take care of him.

So in short a man was misdiagnosed with a heart condition, pres­crib­ed medi­ca­tions that caused other misdiagnoses, including two incapacitating operations, was terribly abused by the medical system and related staffs and died. Medicare blindly paid for all without questioning a single thing, even when the family tried to get help.  A professional conservator and a family member reaped financial rewards.  

After our fathers death we went to the police for help.  My brothers friend, Homicide Detective John Berdin was in charge of this matter.  He had us running all over the country side obtaining information for him.  For one year he strung us along and did nothing. In the end he said that he felt sorry for me and that there had never been an invest­i­ga­tion.  At one point he had me request an invest­i­ga­tion from a man named Leland Wong that worked for Kaiser.  I also contacted Parker Center and asked them what to do.  They also referred me to Leland Wong and gave me his telephone number.   Today Leland Wong is under invest­i­ga­tion for a lot of things but as far as I know nothing related to my father and what happened to him.  Leland Wong didn't help me at all.  He told me that he couldn't because he worked for Kaiser.  Leland Wong was on the Police Commission overseeing Retirement along with a lot of other Commission positions in California.

BTW - One of the Kaiser executives, Dan Garcia , that took part in investigating Leland Wong  and was also on some of the same commissions as Leland Wong in Los Angeles,  including President of the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners should be in hot water  up in Oakland for the information recently made public by  Justen Deal. See:http://www.fixkp.org/

Along the way putting all of this together I learned that in the year 2000 the Los Angeles County District Attorneys office had over 250 murder cases lined up, ready for trial and naming Kaiser Permanente as re­spon­si­ble in the com­plaints.  Not one of these cases has yet been allowed to go to trial.

Over in Nevada the State Comptroller was found to have been murdered by Potassium.  They took the time and trouble over there to investigate and prosecute.  Of course the guy they are holding re­spon­si­ble is her husband.  It wasn't a medical corporation that did her in.   21.  After our father's death our mother asked to have our sister move out and another family member move in with her.  Our sister has a history of creating difficulties and it could have been harmful for other family members to have accomodated her.  Elder Abuse out of NorthEast was again called because of another incident.  They did nothing.  They promised that they would check back unannounced but they never did.  

One day during a phone conversation my mother said that they had forced her to see an attorney and sign some papers.  I thought that she took care of her will and wouldn't let her tell me about the contents.  I figured that there was enough money grabbing already going on and decided that I didn't want to be a part of it.

She was not allowed to speak to me more than once or twice after that.  The rest of the family was banned from seeing or speaking to her as well.  We all complied because we knew that the NorthEast Elder Abuse Unit was a waste of time and were concerned that she would receive further physical harm.  Two years later began a series of emails to me from a woman begging for help that said she was my mother.  We were surprised because our sister had forbidden our mother from touching the computer.  In these emails she said they wouldn't let her see a doctor.  She said that she had quit Kaiser because they wouldn't help her.  She wrote and asked if I thought her new doctor, Dr. Hardesty on York Boulevard was good.  She wrote that she needed help immediately because they would not let her have her medicine.  We telephoned, we tried to get her help but they wouldn't let us talk to her.  We reasoned to ourselves that she could get help by asking the neighbors for it if nothing else.

It turned out that Dr. Hardesty was the doctor she signed up with after she left Kaiser and that the emails did come from our mother.

A few days after the last email we received a phone call that she was dead.  We were told that she had died from a seizure. We later learned that the police were there and the paramedics took the statement from my sister and brother down there that while it was not expected but that she had died from a heart attack that had lasted 15 minutes.  The brother wasn't there when it happened and the sister was asleep so how they knew this is a mystery.  The family called LAPD and Detective Berdin  stated to everyone but me that if I had not named Kaiser regarding our father's death that they had enough to go forward , they also had an impartial witnesses but because I did name Kaiser they would not investigate nor would they investigate our mothers death.

 Berdin was upset that we got the incident number from Parker Center.  They all were upset when we found where they had taken our mother.  We had to find her ourselves because they refused to let us know where she was at.  They were scheduling her for cremation just as they did with our father.  

That was against both of their wishes and a sure fire way to destroy evidence.

The Coroner was called just as it was before with our father.  They set everything up for an autopsy and LAPD's Berdin again stopped it.  In fact the last I heard the Coroner's office had lost all records related to this.  We then went to court to obtain an autopsy.  We requested that we not have the same judge that had been previously involved in the legal actions related to our father.  

Sure enough there he was and we had no other choice but to let him hear the case.  Our sister came out of his chambers in front of everyone shortly before the hearing.  I spoke, a nephew spoke and no one else but the sister in question was allowed to speak.  She told the court how wonderful Kaiser care is and gave yet another version of what happened to our mother.  I am not sure why the statements about Kaiser were allowed or even necessary.  The judge was ready to rule and looked right at me, my brothers and sister, nieces and nephews, and then he turned and looked at our sister.  We again got to see the same hand motion that had been used 5 years earlier to control our mother.  The judge became pale and ruled no autopsy allowed.  She was cremated a few hours later.  He said that the LAFD paramedics were well trained and capable of calling the cause of death on a patient that they never saw, never knew and hadn't been seen medically by a doctor recently.  And that was that. My sister had arranged to have at this hearing the attorney she had taken our mother to sign the legal papers years ago.  The papers that she tried to tell me about.  He handed us all documents in the court room that day.  In these documents we all were disowned from our mothers share of the estate as were all future generations related to us.  Not much of a surprise there either.  None of us have been down to our parents home which we all own a portion of because of what has taken place.  It is sickening to think of what our parents were put through and for what reason.

We realize that those documents were presented at such a time and place in an effort to wound us.  Unfortuantely for the people that did that they will never be able to understand that not everyone believes as they do.  Not everyone is more concerned about money and possessions than they are life.  In fact most people are more concerned about life and are not greedy and selfish.

When all of this was put together LAPD was again contacted and a new homicide detective was at NorthEast.  Berdin had retired by this time.  He asked to have all of the material put together for him as there was not a trace that there ever had been a previous invest­i­ga­tion.  No number, no photographs, no medical records, nothing.  In fact, as not mentioned above there was also an independant witness that contacted LAPD the night of my father's death to tell a different story than our sibling related that night to the paramedics.  LAPD also did not have in their possession the lab report created by their own labs on what killed my father. LAPD had used urine taken at the time of my father's death for their testing and lost the report.  It agrees with Kaiser's medical records.

Instead I contacted Chief Bratton's  office and then mailed two sets of records to him.  I was then told by Bratton's office that it was now part of a Fed­er­al invest­i­ga­tion.  As far as I know everything that we have said has been proven except the missing Coroners information.  Detective Berdin is now retired and I was told that they can't do anything to him for what he did to my family and for allowing our mother to be harmed.  The invest­i­ga­tion was completed and the last I heard is that it was sent off to someone else and that we are to just continue waiting to find out what they are going to do.

I never believed that this could happen to my family much less actually have relatives participating in it.  I trusted the police as well.  I don't openly trust them anymore.  I also learned really fast to question medical personnel and to be alarmed if they are offended by said questioning.

The first doctor was stealing from Medicare at the expense of patient health.  The second doctor was deceiving the public and getting a lot of money from Medicare.  The third doctor and his medical program were just plain negligent and making money off of the patient.  The nurse that caused my father's death was prompted by indi­vid­uals within the system as part of a premeditated act to profit financially via bonus money.  They justified it to them­selves because of the patients age (statements of they are old and going to die anyway) and statements that they had to make more money to support their familiy.

It was very mean for Kaiser, The Department of Managed Health Care, The Los Angeles Police Department, The Conservator Dan Stubbs and anyone else involved to have hidden this information from us for so long.  It was cruel having us gather information for them.  It was very nasty for these people to have worked together to prevent us from obtaining the medical records which clearly showed that what we all saw and understood was factual and correct.  Instead they all tried to save their behinds and prayed I am sure daily that we would never find out the truth, but we did.

There are several fine points, details really that are not included in this writing.  There was no need to include them and if the police are sincere about doing something to bring to justice the people involved in this matter those details may be the keys to proving who did what in a criminal court of law and I wouldn't want to ruin that evidence.

And so there you have it.  That is what happened to my father and my mother.  That is what I was told to be quiet about and live in fear of harm befalling my family if I or the rest of us told what happened.  Near the bottom of this page you can read the information that we had available when this all began.  At that time we thought it was just a bunch of crooked doctors.  We are very sorry that this turned out to be much more.

The following is the original story as presented before this new information came to light.

On September 11, 2000, Kaiser Permanente Staff euthanized my father, Adam Wesley Arnold, against his and his family's wishes.  He was 70 years old and the father of 6 living children.  He had been married 51 years to our mother. 

Kaiser euthanized him because his health maintenance had become too expensive for this HMO to honor the written  contract that they had with him. This I was told by his Kaiser Permanente/Sunset Branch  nurse -  Dennis Kane - https://kaiserpapers.com/denniskane.html, when I asked directly why he was hurting our father. He also, on my father's front porch expounded as to what his financial benefits were in having my father killed and then told me what a great Craftsman House it was an Kaiser euthanized him because his health maintenance had become too expensive for this HMO to honor the written  contract that they had with him. This I was told by his Kaiser Permanente/Sunset Branch  nurse -  Dennis Kane - https://kaiserpapers.com/denniskane.html, when I asked directly why he was hurting our father. He also, on my father's front porch expounded as to what his financial benefits were in having my father killed and then told me what a great Craftsman House it was and how much he wished that he could have it for himself. He was that callous and cold when he plainly explained to me why he was having my father killed.d how much he wished that he could have it for himself. He was that callous and cold when he plainly explained to me why he was having my father killed.

I immediately reported to Kaiser Permanente/Sunset what had taken place and what this man said and Kaiser did nothing. 

His death was painful as he had developed blood poisoning under this nurses care which Kaiser refused to treat.  Kaiser denied my father of any and all medical care either regular or emergency treatment. Under Kaiser's care he was denied any antibiotics and was needlessly pres­crib­ed a lethal dose of potassium chloride. 

The local government - The County of Los Angeles, Department of Health Services, Licensing and Certification  Division/Home Health Hospice, did sanction Kaiser for this patient abuse.  The sanction amounts to more frequent  self regulated inspections. The Sanction never made it to Medicare Enforcement Division for unknown to the government reasons. 

The Medicare Fraud Enforcement Division when I last spoke to them said that they do not know what to do about the interception of Government Sanctions against Kaiser from Southern California which routinely takes place.  Continued non reporting means that Kaiser continues to look good on paper to CMS thus CMS continues to report that Kaiser is providing good care.

I urge everyone to contract with a different insurance company.  Not just to spare your family the grief that we have and still are going through but to also avoid the threats of medical retal­i­a­tion against your families that we have had to endure. 

I am pretty sure that our father had the same low opinion of Kaiser's treatment as we do. I very much wish that he were still with us today.  I promised my Dad that Kaiser was not going to get away with what they did to him and I keep my promises to my Dad.. 

The above was written on September 11, 2001 - The first anniversary of his death.  A horrible war started a few hours later.

The synopsis of the Kaiser abuse on my father is as follows.  This was originally displayed at Ron Panzer's  Hospice Patients Alliance web site at: http://hospicepatients.org/ Since the time of this originally being written we have learned a great deal more about the intentional destructive medical actions taken against my father for the personal profiteering of indi­vid­uals associated with this matter.

HMO Commits Fraud - Enrolls Non-terminal Patient in Hospice; Causes Infection and Makes Patient  Terminal by Withholding Antibiotic Treatment ... Resulting in Fatal Infection, Also Overdoses Patient  on Potassium, Shuts down Heart Function but Never Informs Family that High Dose of Potassium is Lethal! 

(A Medical Doctor's Analysis of this case Follows Below)  This account of an involuntary euthanasia comes from Victoria Travis whose father was lied to, misdiagnosed and  treated with inappropriate medi­ca­tions and even inappropriate surgeries, denied needed care for an infection resulting  from Kaiser's own actions, and overdosed on potassium resulting in death. In this case, the family itself was instructed  by Kaiser Permanente to give the potassium resulting in cardiac failure and death, and for the family, ongoing anguish  and regrets. 

Misdiagnosis and Inappropriate Treatment are Equivalent To Assault and Battery  In the spring of 1999, my father fainted and was transported to Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena, California.  At the time his medical insurance was with SCAN. The attending physician in the emergency room made a major  mistake and deduced that our father had serious heart problems. As it turned out our father was having a panic attack, which can resemble a heart condition, but you are supposed to check the patient's vital signs, and this was not done. 

Thus our father was placed on life support and sent to the intensive care unit. The head of ICU that first night informed  us that our father did not have a heart problem and that he was "perfectly fine." In fact the Director for that evening  asked me to pose as my mother and have him released from the hospital. I regret not doing so. 

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However, as his children we did not have the legal right to release him; as our father was heavily sedated, he could  not release himself from the hospital. A legal nightmare began at that point for us! 

The attending physician transferred my Dad to St. Luke’s hospital in Pasadena, California acute care unit, without  permission from my Dad or our family, where the doctor had a tracheostomy tube inserted and a gastro-intestinal  tube placed (both of which were totally unnecessary and medically not indicated as per medical authorities). St. Luke's Hospital formally of the Tenet Hospital chain has since been shut down.

I was, however, able to prevent the doctor and hospital from transferring my father to the doctor's own private nursing  home (where she could personally continue to collect money for room, board and unwanted medical care). At this point we had family members with him nearly 24 hours a day ... we had to! When we learned that the attending physician was attempting to gain conservatorship over our father, we were shocked and were forced to go to court. 

This doctor had at this point indicated that our father suffered from everything from Leukemia to Parkinson's disease,  and the doctor also refused to honor our father's demand to be released from the hospital. 

My sister became the legal conservator at this point. She was selected because she lived in the home with my parents. 

Still the family had to take legal action to have our father transferred to Barlow Respiratory Center to undo the serious damage to our father's body that was done by the attending physician. This doctor falsely made claims of her affiliation with Barlow Center in an attempt to intimidate us into complying with her wish to transfer him to her nursing home. 

She also forced a contract with Barlow to receive payment for referrals in order to have our father transferred to their  hospital. For the rest of the world I believe this is referred to as a kick back. The family also had to promise that once  he was released to Barlow that they would discontinue the SCAN medical insurance. The hospital there did what they could, but they did not get him completely off oxygen before the family money ran out.  Dr. Angela Ross Hay,  https://kaiserpapers.com/angie.html is the doctor that created this medical fiasco and is currently not disciplined  by the CA Medical Board. She did have her hospital privileges recently reinstated from another incident, which  resulted in the cruel tortuous death of another patient. In short, Angela Ross Hay made a lot of money off of my  father’s body and weakened him physically to the point he never recovered. 

Beginning of HMO Failure to Provide Care  Finally we converted part of the family home into a care unit for our father including specialized medical  equipment, heating and air conditioning, and an emergency electrical generator. We thought that we were  prepared for just about everything. He was transferred to the family home where a family member signed  him up for Kaiser Permanente Senior Advantage Plan. He became a home health patient. 

After the family paid for $350.00 per day for nurses that did not provide proper care nor did they exercise  his body, the family members took care of him. With six brothers and sisters we all took shifts and were  fully trained (probably more so than the licensed professionals that we had hired). We now laugh at the  quality of care by these "professionals," because we did a far better job. As is normal with a large family  there were squabbles amongst us children. 

Some family disagreements arose and in order to stop the family fighting, a private conservator was hired to  oversee the family matters. Under his direction I became the official desig­na­ted caregiver for the last three  months of his life replacing another member of the family. Now, I drove 100 miles each day to and from  the house to care for my father. I left my home at 5 in the morning and returned home after 10 at night.  I was dedicated and honored to have the chance to be of assistance. 

HMO Commits Medicare Fraud by Enrolling Non-Terminal Patient in Hospice  Kaiser’s "assistance" amounted to a nurse visiting once a week and asking me how my father was doing.  Occasionally they brought bandages for his stomas. When his Medicare funding for home health ran out he  was transferred to their hospice plan even though he was not terminal. The conservator and my father's "hidden"  Kaiser doctor, Dr. James Robert Evans, made this arrangement. The conservator openly told the family,  myself included that while my father was not terminal this would ensure that he received decent medical care  as his benefits, which according to Kaiser had run out for the year.  I advised the conservator that this was  fraud upon the Fed­er­al Government and I advised him to not do this. I was ignored. 

HMO Intimidation to Force DNR Status and HMO Abuse Begins 

The hospice nurse, Dennis Kane, RN. repeatedly terrified my father. Who could blame him for being afraid  after the treatment that he had already received? The nurse yelled at him, "you're going to die" and "you'll never  walk again." During this time, Kaiser staff intensively pressured us to make my father's status DNR, or  "do not resuscitate." This was against my father's and our family's firm convictions. He, and all of us as well,  wanted him to receive all medical treatment that would be appropriate when necessary and under all circumstances  to resuscitate him. This was documented in writing several times. 

For the entire time my Dad was enrolled in Kaiser's hospice "program," his nurse refused to change the foley  urinary catheter nor would he change the trach tube.  Dennis Kane, RN also told us that he was a PA  (physician’s assistant) which was not true. These urinary drainage catheters are usual­ly changed a minimum  of once per month and sooner if they become blocked. The nurse also told the family in the presence of our  father that if we wanted the g-tube changed that he would have to stand over our father on his bed and rip it  out of his stomach without any anesthesia and then use an hard object to shove in a new one. Kaiser even refused  to provide an adult-size wheel chair for our father, but they did provide a small, child size one that my father was  obviously unable to use. 

I repeatedly requested physical therapy assistance for my Dad and was told several times that they had been  billing Medicare for physical therapy, but no one performed any physical therapy on my Dad other than myself  and other family members. Kaiser said that they did in fact have a report from a physical therapist. If they had  a report, it would be fiction, because no physical therapist ever came out to work with my father, even though  they were billing the government for therapy services. He was also supposed to have a respiratory therapist,  and they did bill for that also. But there was none. 

There was a man that came out to check the equipment twice, but that is all. As for assistance with bathing,  there was a health aide that every fifteen days or so would call and say she would be out to help us. She seldom  showed up. I was his bather and again it was an honor to serve my father. 

Of course we complained to Kaiser about their not honoring their contract with our father. We were always  informed that they had budget and scheduling problems and "nothing could be done" to help us. 

Still, we as a family continued to go forward and our father kept getting healthier and much stronger. After one  of the physically painful incidents that my father had to endure under the care of Dennis Kane, R.N., I finally told  him that I knew medicare fraud was being committed and that I was going to talk.  The following week Kaiser  officially upgraded my father’s health and they commented that it certainly didn't look like he was going to die any  time soon. He was to be transferred to the palliative section of the Kaiser/Sunset home health depart­ment, but not  until they actually formed a palliative section or depart­ment, so we patiently waited while he received no medical  care from Kaiser. 

HMO Nurse Causes Fatal Septic Infection and Sepsis  When they finally got this depart­ment created for their patients, Dennis Kane, R.N. was ordered by Kaiser to  finally change our father's catheter and trach in order to finalize his work and complete his reports. He came  out to the house under duress, informing me that he was acting as a "Closer", and without washing his hands  nor wearing gloves he proceeded to change the foley catheter immediately after using the bathroom where he  did not wash his hands. Then, still without washing his hands, nor wearing gloves attempted to change the  trach tube. After a lot of blood being spread around, the nurse informed me that he was unable to change the  trach tube because it was stuck and  it was now a detriment to our father's health if he continued to try do so. 

We later were informed that Kaiser rules require two nurses to change a trach tube. My father did develop an  infection, and to us, it is obvious it resulted from the complete failure to follow sterile technique required to  change an indwelling foley urinary catheter and the tracheostomy tube. 

Finally a new nurse came to see our father. She actually examined him, but we never heard from the bather  again. The new nurse did try to get us to help her go after Dennis Kane, R.N. for his terrible medical treatment  of all of his patients. She did change the catheter and the trach was changed. For several weeks we demanded  that our father be treated for his infection, but Kaiser  refused him treatment. 

HMO Practices Medicine Without License

Does Not Have Actual Doctor Making Orders, Directing Care We took a urine sample for Kaiser and the nurse finally took it with her. Previously we were always informed  that they could not take a urine sample or a blood sample without a doctor's order. Unfortunately, Kaiser never  did assign a doctor that we knew of for our father. No Kaiser doctor ever did examine our father, nor did any doctor specifically make the orders that decided what care our father would not or would receive.  The new nurse did take care of the wheelchair matter but it took a few weeks because as we learned,  Kaiser had falsely recorded in their computers for several weeks before our father's death that he was  already deceased! Kaiser never corrected that matter. The doctor's named on the prescription for potassium  denied he was our father's doctor. 

For the next three weeks the new nurse repeatedly told us that our father did not have an infection and that  we "did not know what we were talking about." Those were her words. She also pressured us again to make  our father a DNR patient, however our father and we did not want that and we refused to cave in to Kaiser’s  manipulations. We all wanted our Dad to be resuscitated if his breathing or heart stopped. He had been getting  better. We just wanted his infection treated to allow him to recover! 

On Monday, September 11, 2000 when I arrived at the house I saw a drastic change in his health. He was  seriously ill. Kaiser staff threatened me that if I tried to treat him with antibiotics that they would have me  incarcerated. So, to my regret I did not. Throughout the day and that night we repeatedly contacted  Kaiser Permanente/Sunset begging for medical assistance. 

One nurse informed us that our father had a septic infection and that it was very serious. Apparently this  information was tied into their computer problem that said he was deceased. After it was clarified that  he was very much alive, the nurse asked what antibiotics he was on. We explained that we had been  repeatedly told that no antibiotics could be given. The nurse told us that she did not know what to do  about the matter then, and she did nothing to make sure our father's infection was immediately treated! 

HMO Director of Home Health Laughs At Us When We Pleaded for Help  We all kept calling the various depart­ments of Kaiser and finally reached the head of  the Kaiser Permanente  home health depart­ment/Sunset Division. The head of this Kaiser depart­ment refused to have medical  assistance provided and laughed at us and said, "If you don't like the care your father is receiving under  our care, get coverage under a different health care plan." Our father's conservator also unsuccessfully  attempted to get medical care for our father that night we were told by him. 

Our father developed severe edema and his catheter was entirely plugged up with a grainy material. Kaiser  told us that if we wanted to do anything about the plugged urinary catheter, that we would have to take care  of it ourselves. Urinary catheters that become plugged can back urine up into the kidneys causing kidney  failure and death. We learned that night how to remove a foley catheter because he had become a medical  emergency at this point. However we replaced it with a common sheath catheter as not being trained in  insertion of objects into a bladder we did not want to cause any more harm than had already been done.  As it turns out, my Dad passed away within a few hours. 

Unfortunately, because no Kaiser physician, ever saw or participated in any way with the medical decision-making  made by Kaiser with regard to our father, the paramedics could not declare his death until a day later.  September 12, 2000 Kaiser finally found a doctor to come up with a cause of death that would not implicate  Kaiser’s actions in causing his death and who was willing to sign the death certificate. This man that had never  even seen our father had over the phone decided that our father died of Parkinson's Disease, which he most  likely  never had! 

Were We Used by Kaiser Permanente to Harm Our Own Father?

During the course of our father's "treatment," Kaiser had made sure that our father got 100 MeQ of Potassium  every day. We thought that this was just standard medication, however, we later realized that potassium is often  given as a replacement when a diuretic like Lasix (furosemide) depletes the potassium found in the blood. We  were later informed that potassium given when not medically indicated, can cause severe adverse reactions,  including shutting down the heart. Drug references warn that potassium can cause death. Now we wonder if the  HMO had us help our Dad take his pills, including the potassium, so that our Dad could die from the potassium.  There were no lab tests for several months, and we now have learned that periodic lab tests are necessary to  determine the medical need for added potassium. In fact, now we learn that some "angels of death" like  Jack Kevorkian and Elian Saldivar/Glendale Adventist respiratory therapist, have used potassium to kill their  patients.  A potassium death is not painless nor is it peaceful. A potassium death causes terror and is a  form of torture.  The heart and lungs stop working yet the person’s mind is clear.  This goes on at  the least many minutes.  It is not in any manner a compassionate death. 

HMO Falsifies Death Certificate to Cover Its Tracks

I thought that no one can die just from Parkinson's Disease, but then who am I, I was only there. The current  death certificate falsely states that he died of Parkinson's disease! In the presence of impartial witnesses, at the  time of death the bodily fluids were properly collected and taken to an independent laboratory for analysis. The  following day, again with proper chain of command and great legal documentation, under the direction of the  mortuary director, photographs were taken by my husband and myself of the blisters and oozing sores that  broke out on our father the day of his death. These sores were an indication of sepsis as the body was trying  to eliminate the poison through the skin. 

The laboratory informed us that our father had two different types of bacterial infection, common in cases of  septic infection, and that in our father's condition they certainly were serious enough to have killed him. 

I requested an invest­i­ga­tion by Kaiser Permanente as to why our father received this type of treatment and  they denied us that right. Following through Kaiser chain of command I finally reached a supervisor that  asked me "What is it going to take to make you go away?" I informed her as I do everyone to this day that  I want Kaiser Permanente to change the way they treat their patients. She in turn offered me $219,000.00  to go away. 

HMO Threatens to Retaliate if We Go Public  I refused the Kaiser money. The Kaiser supervisor then threatened me that "Your family will most likely  receive medical retal­i­a­tion unless you keep quiet and don't talk about what happened." 

That of course has spurred me on. How dare they threaten me for such a matter? The arrogance of this  organ­i­za­tion is revolting. Finally, under duress because Kaiser was not acting in the spirit of the law, The  State Board of Managed Health Care had a formal invest­i­ga­tion conducted by Kaiser them­selves.  Unfortunately, Kaiser refuses to release to the family or to the State of California the results of their invest­i­ga­tion.  Whether the State or other government agencies are going to force the issue to get the invest­i­ga­tion report is  still unknown. 

Needless to say, all of this has been extremely hard on our family. We all find ourselves extremely angry,  hurt and depressed by the unspeakable violation of our father as a human being. The HMO not only caused  terrible suffering for him, but also killed him, quite literally. This is something that we will never let go of. For  our father's sake, we will fight this type of HMO atrocity to the very end. 

We refuse to accept any financial bribe to keep quiet from Kaiser or anyone else in this matter; thus we choose  not to handle this through the civil courts and the tiny cap that California allows. It would not harm of reform  Kaiser in any manner. Numerous people in this community have come up to me and informed me of similar  events that have occurred to their family "In The Hands of Kaiser."  I sincerely am attempting to turn these  needless deaths into good by making these arrogant corporations that purport to be not-for-profit health  care organ­i­za­tions reform them­selves. 

If they can't do that then they should be put out of business once and for all! The patients' relationship with  the health care professionals and Kaiser’s should be one of trust. You may not be aware that many highly  educated people are refusing to seek basic medical care. I thought that was silly, but now I understand and  I am very sorry that I do. And my father had to suffer so terribly for all of us in our family to directly learn this lesson! 

I respectfully request any of you who read this to bring this matter to the attention of the American government  officials and the general public. I am confidant that our entire family will be willing to cooperate with you in  most any way that you request and will provide you with any and all documentation that you request. 

A Medical Doctor Speaks Out and Analyzes This Case

Note: The actual HMO name and other identifiers have been removed, but this is the actual analysis provided by a medical doctor very familiar with the workings of Kaiser Permanente.

The doctor writes:

The Kaiser organ­i­za­tion is as sly as it is evil. They communicate to each other through oral agreements  rather than written policy. They try to set up the individual front line person as the bad apple if anything  goes wrong, official policy always spinning out great concern for the individual patient. Let's start with some historical perspective and you will better understand my spe­ci­fic comments about  each choice Kaiser made with your father. Through such history you will see that the government is not  a passive observer. 

The Pearl Harbor attack not only set off war with Japan it also set off price control in the United States.  Job salaries were fixed. Workers could be attracted or rewarded, however, with unlimited health benefits.  The war years created the health packages of today.

But this approach also put the quality of care offered by health plans in the hands of the employers.  It set up the unholy alliance between employers and insurers which put the worker at risk. Health care  rationing - if done with craft and cunning - could be conducted under the illusion that patients were in  a Health Net ..., etc. 

Then President Johnson initiated Medicare itself in 1966. It was almost the nation's memorial gift to  the legacy of assassinated President John F. Kennedy. Kennedy had the dream. Johnson was the legislative ringmaster and master barbequer who could launch this part of the Great Society.

But by 1973 Medicare's funding was already in trouble. So under President Nixon, Prepaid Health Plans  were deceptively renamed "Health Maintenance Organizations" and given funding and help to rapidly  expand. [the HMO] Act of 1973 helped transform Kaiser from a small to a large organ­i­za­tion. Next an ERISA protection act out of Congress made them impossible for patients to sue HMOs organ­i­za­tions.  It confirmed diplomat status to [an] ethically challenge[ed] industry. It was at this point that Patient Rights  were taken away, the restoration of which still puzzles Congress in the year 2000. This state, in the mid 1980s - fearful that OB doctors were pulling out due to high malpractice insurance -  in the mid 1980s passed a ... Cap which limited the amount phy­si­cians would have to pay for bad decisions  to $250,000 plus actual patient damage. Fewer lawyers since have found the cost of a medical malpractice  case worth the investment in experts and time delays.

Kaiser Permanente added in mandatory arbitration in their enrollment contracts. And, because Kaiser is the  largest employer of arbitrators, the decisions are once more weighed toward Kaiser and against the patient.  But this ... [is] not informed consent. The trusting patient signs to arbitrate what has been secretly designed  as tightly rationed care. It is a death trap designed by the withholding of vital care rather than the aggressive  act of IV euthanasia.

We are now dealing with a royal court which owns the premiums. Patients are but serfs hoping for an  occasional help from the castle. Sick patients are barbarians trying to ask too much of the King. This is why  I keep a picture of a castle on my desk - representing Fortress Kaiser (a term expressed by a frustrated patient  which I since borrowed). It is a dark castle and can easily rep­re­sent a Death Star when my communication  symbolism varies. (I am not sueable for all of these comments because I have kept track of the deaths! In fact,  Kaiser calls itself internally a "mean machine.") All of this has made Kaiser cocky and nearly invincible in this state. And ... Kaiser would love to be perceived as a "national model," .... Back in this state it is as if we had allowed a Nazi like regime to flourish in the middle of a "civilized" state.  Kaiser makes money off well people; Kaiser loses money off sick people. Hitler could build armies off of [a]  well Aryan race and could only lose money off those in ghettos who could not be allowed to work due to  being of the Jewish race. And as the trains pulled up to the Gas Chambers, sadly it was phy­si­cians that  decided who among the condemned could work for a while. The Final Solutions to the very sick Kaiser patient include: 1) encouraging them to get mad enough to  dis-enroll; 2) calling them into Hospice too early to bring in more federal monies to the organ­i­za­tion;  3) calling them deceased (but still charging Medicare) so that services would become more difficult to obtain;  and 4) withdrawing the support needed to fight infection and let disease be the internal gas chamber.  Your father (and thus your family) experienced every major tactic. To disguise all this to families and the front line care givers (who might only be hourly and have no pledge  of silence to Kaiser’s methods), the Kaiser system burdens such care givers with too many patients to do good care. Then, cutting corners falls to the care-giver to simply get through the day's tasks and try to get  home to the family. The choice given is take care of the patient correctly or see your family. This is how  they morally break almost everyone in the organ­i­za­tion. But morally broken leads to financially restored.

Meanwhile, Kaiser holds out to be nonprofit and therefore devoid of evil intent. But the .… Medical Group  is the dog that wags the Kaiser tail. And ... the Permanente [the parent corporation] is for profit. Bonuses  are created when care is withheld. It is called "productivity." Bonuses are protected when there is silence  about error. It is called "collegiality." All of this is done without any paper trail.

Now let us go to your situation. I will comment as a physician who observed Kaiser carefully for 18 months  within the Firm. I am still listed on staff so that Kaiser can only come at me through by-laws or bombs. Excerpts from your letter: 1. "it is a crime of willful homicide to intentionally kill someone that had both  verbally and in writing repeatedly stated that they wanted their life saved in any and all circumstances." My Comment: the worst level of homicide is that which is calculated over the greatest period of time and  requires the cunning of those with the highest education; (interestingly to me [the] CEO ...  was an [Ivy League] College premed graduate of the class of 19__);

2. "My father was on home health. We were informed by Kaiser that due to his Medicare benefits running out for  the year that he had to be transferred to Kaiser Hospice program. His care from Kaiser consisted of his nurse  visiting once a week and asking me how my father was doing." 

My Comment: this is Medicare fraud; a patient can only be transferred to Hospice when a spe­ci­fic physician  makes a spe­ci­fic decision that someone has less than six months to live; this is a way to get more money for Kaiser;

3. "His care from Kaiser consisted of his nurse visiting once a week and asking me how my father was doing.  He [the nurse?] was also verbally and mentally abusive to our family." 

My Comment: I will assume that the nurse was abusive to your family. Often the Kaiser attitude gets  expressed through those in the front line particularly when they feel that a patient is breaking Kaiser  (by being sick). A nurse can mistakenly feel that he or she has become the gatekeeper holding back the plague.

4. "I believe that he was under great stress because he kept stating that Kaiser did not have any services such as  physical therapists or instruction nor respiratory therapists to assist us nor could my father have a wheelchair that  he could fit in, nor was there any physician for him to see because there were budget problems and they were cutting back." 

My Comment: Every front line worker is given an impossible load. That is how rationing is accomplished.  The Kaiser morale is similar to an army of zombies. The lack of a physician is more Medicare fraud.  Nurses cannot just make up care orders on their own. And Kaiser is very much making money this last year. Questions: Did your father take any medi­ca­tions? Who was the physician who wrote them? Were any of them split?

5. "As it turned out Kaiser did bill for these services to Medicare and also there are supposed to be reports for these  services at Kaiser. 

My Comment: This may be the best case using the Medicare Fraud hotline or getting a percentage of the recovery  for false billing under Qui Tam approaches.

6. [He was] "Strong enough that we were told that it was obvious that he was not going to die any time soon and  that he was being upgraded to palliative care. It took about a month for Kaiser to form their palliative care depart­ment,  as we were repeatedly told by the Kaiser staff and so we patiently waited." 

My Comment: Your father had a silent physician who did not like to come for home visits. Such a physician  did not need a "palliative care depart­ment" in order to act. There was no reason to delay care. But this is  simply another form of giving up on your father. The VA is also excited about its new "palliative care"  program. Funds for all this come from withholding intensive treatment from patients.

7. "Another nurse in the hospice depart­ment, and this is not public information due to the fact that she requested  we not men­tion her involvement, came to the house and advised us as to how to care for a sore that had opened  on my father's elbow. She could not touch him but she did instruct me in proper care for this type of wound. It was  not a pressure sore." 

My Comment: a nurse can touch an elbow. But Kaiser’s style of retal­i­a­tion on its own staff prevents those who  would like to help from doing anything. After all, this is the prototype Medical Firm.

8. .... We insisted that our father be treated for his infection and demanded that a urine specimen be taken or a blood  sample. We were informed that it could not be done because she needed a doctor's prescription for tests like that and  our father did not have a doctor." 

My Comment: Your father did have a doctor so this was a lie. The doctor was probably the head of the Home Care Program and preferred to hide. (Medi-Cal is also famous for its "verbal control" phy­si­cians who like to go  unnamed.) This is more fraud.

9. "Bear in mind that by this time there were no less than three people now present when anyone from Kaiser came to  the house that were witnesses because of the foolishness that they were pulling. We were fully aware that they were  lying to us about services that were available and treatments but we chose to make it as simple as possible for our father." 

My Comment: Lying is possible when the pre-calculated risk of being discovered is a small fraction of the  cost of achieving the goal of the lie - to withhold care. Only the rare family can summon three witnesses in a  home and pursue the issues like you have.

10. "Two weeks later we were informed that the wheelchair still hadn't arrived because our father was listed as  deceased in Kaiser’s records. Of course we have all of this in writing from Kaiser least you think that I have no proof." 

My Comment: Putting "deceased" on the computer will be blamed on an encoder and thus is another bad  apple in a good barrel. Someday an encoder will step forward and turn evidence on this bad barrel behavior.  The goal of putting "deceased" on your father's name is to delay care further in the hopes that the label would  soon fit.

11. "Three days later, a Monday, September 11, 2000 when I arrived in the morning to take over for the night shift  (a brother and sister) my father had declined severely in health. His eyes were sunken in and blisters and oozing sores  had formed all over his body." 

My Comment: He was allowed to progress to bacteremia as well as widespread impetigo, both severe infections.  These sores were not from pressure but from untreated infection, poorly managed tubes, etc.

12. "My father was on oxygen and that day the machine suddenly failed. New equipment was rushed to the house.  I repeatedly contacted Kaiser throughout the day and night asking for assistance. The nurse couldn't be reached we  were told and we were advised to wait. In late afternoon when the rest of the family came to the house everyone  began calling Kaiser for help. At one point a nurse on the Kaiser help line told me that she was sorry that my father  had passed away the previous month and asked why I was calling." 

My Comment: there is no need to turn off respirators when you can contract with oxygen supply groups  who know to whom to give the old machines. Most of these companies are capitated to the number served  and benefit when death occurs.

13. "I was threatened with arrest if I attempted to give my father any antibiotics, which I regret not doing so to this day." 

My Comment: I suppose the police might be called if you gave an antibiotic to your family to try to keep your  father alive. But more than likely they would arrest the physician who would not come to the house to make a  proper diagnosis. You would have probably got a police life saver award.

14. "The head nurse that evening in the home health depart­ment openly laughed at us and stated 'If you don't like the  care that Kaiser is providing for your father you can always get him different insurance." 

My Comment: the way you get to be a head nurse or medical director in HMOs is to get with the program.  You need to get the vision of medicine as a business and expenses of the sick patient as a "loss ratio" to profit.  The federal government has asserted that HMOs wasted billions of dollars in chasing healthy seniors and  dropping out the sick ones as fast as possible.

15. "Our father died a couple of hours later. The paramedics could not call his death until September 12, 2000 though,  because they had to wait for Kaiser to finally assign a doctor to our now deceased father." 

My Comment: Your father always had a named physician in the background. And paramedics are linked to  an on duty emergency physician. They were probably concerned that this might be a homicide and turned it over  to the coroner's office. The coroner's deputy then would chase down a Kaiser physician willing to sign to some  benign cause of death.

16. "The doctor that never even saw my father wrote down that he died from Parkinson's Disease. Following proper  chain of command, the body fluids at the time of death were taken to an independent laboratory and analyzed.  We were informed that he had two different types of bacterial infection and that while they may not have at that stage  killed a young, healthy adult they most certainly did our father in his weakened state." 

My Comment: On the death certificate the physician must write down the last time that this physician saw  the patient. The physician might have tried to use the nurse's visit for this purpose - also illegal. This should have  been a full coroner's case. At least you got some evidence of the infection. I would get the license of the physician  off of the death certificate.

17. "I very nicely asked Kaiser to change it’s practice of harming patients and to perform an internal invest­i­ga­tion.  I only wanted them to change. Instead they asked me what it would take to get rid of me. I told them only bringing  my father back. So they offered me $219,000.00 to go away. I said 'No,' I did not want money because my father  died I just don't want anyone else to suffer as he did at their hands." 

My Comment: Kaiser has a budget of about $13 billion a year. The piggy bank can do better.

18. "Then I was told that if I continued my family would most likely receive medical retal­i­a­tion." 

My Comment: As for retal­i­a­tion, Kaiser is a "mean machine." They retaliate against anyone who gets in the  way from doctors to patients to clerks. This organ­i­za­tion is glued together by a mutual fear. No one has any  value except as they fuel the machine.

19. "So I contacted our state Board [Department] of Managed Health Care and under duress Kaiser has supposedly  conducted an invest­i­ga­tion into this matter. Unfortunately Kaiser refuses to release the results of this invest­i­ga­tion either  to anyone in our family or to the state of this state. Of course The state of this state is a wee bit upset about this matter." 

My Comment: The state of this state is an obligate parasite on [the HMO] industry both for rationing care  and for funding the governor. I am waiting for the Department of Managed Care to make its first systemic  change. If the depart­ment really cared, it would quickly champion getting rid of arbitration as uninformed  consent, suing HMOs as RICO racketeering organ­i­za­tions (Connecticut style), empowering patients  (Massachusetts style), challenging ERISA (Texas style), speeding payment of providers (Florida style), etc.  Crocodile tears over your father's care together with a speeding ticket issued to Kaiser Permanente will  not impress me.

20. "I now understand why so many highly educated people refuse to get even basic medical care. This is the most  shocking breach of trust that I have ever experienced. We literally begged repeatedly for help. We were ignored  and laughed at. My father wasn't dying until Kaiser got a hold of him." 

My Comment: I am considered a bit radical for calling HMOs Killing Fields. It is not a wild comment by a  raving professional but a focused rage from an oath expanded to a crystal clear conscience. Thirty-two  years of medical practice helps. Family contact with Ghandi and Schweitzer also helped.

21. "However, if there is some quicker way to be able to present proof to the authorities and perhaps those in  government that are accepting Kaiser funding then maybe changes will take place a little faster. ...Gray Davis is  a smart man and he will turn his back on Kaiser if the proof is made public as will any other government official  with aspirations to a higher office. This information would also be of great assistance to the Homicide Detective  in charge of this case. The FBI has also stated that if the appropriate laws apply to this case that they will be  involved also." 

My Comment: I wish I could find the government to be the innocent investigator of these things.  But then you get the entanglement between Kaiser and its congenital twin the VA system. And then  you find Medi-Cal patients all forced to choose HMOs or have them chosen for the patient. Next you  follow the ... Gray Davis’ fund raising approach using HMO dinners to raise money just before  moderate decisions. You get skeptical at age .... 

I think that you belong at the next Congressional hearing about the Patient Bill of Rights. And when  Kaiser lobby tries to deflect our representatives that the answer is the Kaiser model, you speak up.  Plane fare available I'll sit one row back to applaud and confirm. Then all of the ambivalent agencies  you have mentioned - also afraid of the power of the Kaiser Firm - will have to do their duty just to  be credible. Governor Davis ... will have to join you just to get on the Newsweek cover again for his courage.

22. "You seem to me to be a means to do something meaningful to stop the needless deaths that are occurring.  I have so many people telling me similar stories that have taken place in their families that I truly believe that these  people, including my father died to lay the groundwork to stop the terrible things that are occurring in Managed  Care today. I only personally have this horrible experience with Kaiser Permanente and I certainly never want  to have to experience it again. This could happen to anyone of us, don't you think that we should do the right  thing and do what we can to stop it now before it gets worse? Is there anything else that you would like to  know about me and why I wrote you this evening? I do hope that you will be able to help in this matter." 

My Final Comment: you have identified the enemy any many of the tricks being used in the Art of Slow  Homicide. Can you channel your energy into periods of Focused Rage backed by intense preparation?  I think you can.

Signed,  Dr. Charles Phillips  

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