September 22, 2010

Chuck:

I'm not "raging on the internet." I'm merely reporting the true facts about all the ways doctors and nurses at I U Hospital have hurt and continue to hurt my wife. I have not said a single thing in any of my e-mail to friends and family that was not the truth. If Debbie chooses to share these private messages with hospital staff then she is on their side, not on Linda's side or my side. Every one of my e-mails has a statement on the bottom that it is intended only for the individual recipients. Debbie's decision to share them with hospital personnel is an illegal violation of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, for which she will eventually have to answer.

The hospital's portrayal of me as a violent and abusive person is libelous and false and done for the express purpose of justifying their decision to cut off communication between us about her care and all the mistakes they continue to make, which are preventing her from getting better. I am confident Linda told them I have never been abusive towards her, and they know I have not. If they really thought I was they would have gone to court and obtained an order of protection, which they have never done and which they have no basis for doing and they know that. Everyone who knows and loves Linda depends on me to tell them how she is faring, since no one in my family, or among our friends, except you, Debbie and Richard, is allowed to call and get information about her, or to visit her - not even our kids. I U Hospital is only trying to protect the reputation of its transplant program and to keep the truth from coming out in public. They know I have reported their abuses to the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals. They know I have told newspaper and TV reporters about everything that is happening, and they are angry because they can't stop me from telling the truth. The only weapon they have is cutting off communication between me and Linda, and they don't care who gets hurt in the process.

Well, now they are shooting themselves in the foot, because their intransigence is going to cost Linda one of her two health insurance coverages, and they aren't going to get paid for their services any more. Maybe that will help then decide to let her go somewhere else. When it happens, they will have no one to blame but themselves. I can't help her with this issue if I can't communicate with her about it. Richard just brushes it off by telling me "Once Linda is off your COBRA, she will qualify for the new ICHIP program until she gets Medicare," like that's a good replacement for the double coverage she has from BC/BS now.

No one wants to take responsibility for helping Linda solve this issue, but nobody wants to let me help, either.

It's up to you whether you want to shut me out of Linda's life now. I can't stop you if that is your decision. Whether you tell me what is going or not, I will eventually find out in the court proceedings, and the world will know because everything in court is public. As for any conspiracy between us, I never meant to imply any such thing. I merely reported what you told me, and drew my own conclusions from the obvious facts. You and Debbie both insist Linda is getting better, yet after all these months she still can't breathe on her own, and no one will do anything to stop the pleural effusions. If they don't fix that soon, Linda will die, and everyone inside and outside IU Hospital knows it. Yet, they won't allow her to be transferred to the one place near here that specializes in just such problems.

I don't have enough information from Debbie, from you, or from anyone else to know whether Linda still loves me or not. No matter, because I still love her, and no one will ever stop me from doing everything I can within my power to help her get out of that awful place. It will be up to her to tell me, once that happens, whether or not she still wants me in her life.

I have never threatened anyone at I U Hospital with anything violent - I only told them they were going to get sued, and they knew that anyway. In fact, on more than one occasion Dr. Tector told me to go ahead and sue him. He pretended that it has never happened to him before, but a review of the state claims database in Indiana indicates he has been sued multiple times before he ever got involved with Linda, so he is no stranger to the process.

The people at that hospital are so full of shit when it comes to respecting what their own brochure says are patient rights, and they lie to their own employees about guardianship and orders of protection, that I don't trust any of them about a single thing. Then even wrote lies about me in their own hospital chart, before they threw me out of there. I pointed them out to Dr. Tector, and he acknowledged they were false, but refused to change the record and tried to blame it on the fact that the doctor who dictated the operative report, who was not even in the building when what he described was supposed to have happened, was dictating in a "second language." Horse manure!

They are cooking up all this garbage about me being violent and abusive just to discredit my testimony in the lawsuit they know is coming. They have nothing at all to back it up. They can't stand the fact that someone knowledgeable and intelligent is looking over their shoulder, and calling them out for their mistakes. It sickens me that they have pressured you into becoming an apologist for what you say is good care for Linda. The reason they have been so abusive to me is an attempt to intimidate me into silence as well. It won't work.

The only reason the hospital feels like people who tell me the truth about what is going on are "spies" is because they have so much about the inadequacies of their doctors and their program to hide from the world. They hate me because I know how to make them give up the truth. Dr. Tector tried to pretend he had never seen a code sheet until I showed him Linda's. Bullshit. He has had to sign off on a lot of other charts with code sheets in them long before this. What pissed him off was the fact I told the press about what happened to Linda, and a television medical beat reporter called him and asked him questions about it. Now the Joint Commission is asking him about it, too.

For Linda's sake and for the sake of all the other patients in the TICU there, somebody has to tell the world what goes on there every day. Feeding tubes clogged because the wrong formula is given to the patient. Happened to Linda three times in one day, and who knows how many more times after they kicked me out. Nurses screwing up the IV tubing connections so an entire bag of IV antibiotic runs out onto the hospital room floor before anyone notices the mistake. Happened to Linda two days in a row before they kicked me out, and who knows how many times more since then. Even if they don't write down these facts in the nursing notes, the pharmacy records will tell the story when you look at why an entire bag of medication was "wasted" and had to be replaced within half an hour of being dispensed.

Do they think I'm too stupid to figure this stuff out? NO. They know I can do it, and that's why they are afraid of me, not because they believe I am a violent person. The only thing they really are afraid of is that the world will find out the truth about the deficiencies of their transplant program.

Just so you know, I'm not sending this to Debbie or anyone else but you. I only sent you the e-mail about Linda's insurance in the hope you could motivate Debbie to get some help from the hospital social workers to solve this, since Richard shows no interest in doing anything to help other than shunting Linda off to ICHIP - one of the worst insurance programs in the whole country - and just letting her lose the double coverage she has now, so she will have deductibles and co-pays on all her care and all her prescriptions for the rest of her life. 

I can't do anything to help if no one will let me communicate with Linda. So, as I said in my e-mail, unless Debbie and Richard are going to resign their powers of attorney, the two of them bear the legal responsibility for fixing this in the very best way possible, or paying the financial losses Linda and I suffer for the rest of our lives as the result of their failure. I didn't put them in this position, they took on the responsibility voluntarily. However, I am completely serious about holding them to their fiduciary responsibilities to Linda under the circumstances. I will help if they will let me, but without communication to find out what Linda needs and wants I can do nothing. Or, they can both resign their powers of attorney and I will take back the responsibility myself, and then the hospital will have a legal obligation to deal directly with me whether they like it or not. And, I will enforce that obligation in court if I need to.

I'm only saying all of this to you because I expect you will tell both Debbie and Richard how serious I am about it, and then they will have to decide what to do soon, while there is still time left to take action before Linda's coverage runs out at the end of October. Once that happens, she will never get decent insurance coverage again for as long as she lives. I hope the two of them are up to the task. I know neither of them has been as willing to fight for what Linda needs as I have. I don't know about Richard, but I am reasonably certain Debbie has no errors and omissions insurance coverage which will protect her if she falls down on the job. Her precious state employee pension fund will end up paying for her sister's health care for the rest of Linda's life, or until the State of Illinois employee pension fund goes broke, whichever comes first. I won't be shy about pursuing her for every dime.

These are not threats, there are merely statements of fact concerning the responsibilities and obligations Richard and Debbie took on when they decided to butt in and take over.

The difference between your position and my position in all this is you are still allowed to see Linda, so the hospital still has leverage over you. There is nothing left they can take away from me except Linda's life, and they do seem pretty intent on doing that, too. So, I am free to spread the truth about what is happening to her, since she and I have nothing more to lose by doing that.

I really do mean to get moving as soon as tomorrow on this health insurance coverage problem, alone or with all the help I can muster. However, I'm not taking anyone's word about what Linda wants done in this regard except Linda's. If I can’t get that from her, those who are legally responsible for sorting out the situation will have to be left to their own devices, and to full responsibility for their acts, errors and omissions in that regard.

 I'm not sending this to Debbie, so no one at the hospital will see what I have said to you. However, please pass along to her and to Richard as much of this as you see fit, in an effort to help Linda get the insurance she desperately needs. Otherwise, we will lose our home, what little money we have left, Linda's and my future social security benefits, and everything either of us is likely to earn in the future while she lives. Be assured I will spend the rest of my life pursuing everyone responsible for the loss.