The Red Stethoscope: September 3, 2010

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

September 3, 2010

Dearest Linda:

I love you very much and I miss being with you. My lawyer is trying to get permission from I U Hospital for us to talk on the phone. I would love to hear your voice, if only for a few minutes. It is very lonely here at home without you to keep me company. I don’t understand why Debbie would not let us talk on your cell phone when she called me at the house.

I wish I could talk on the phone to you to figure out what it is you want for yourself. I am working with my lawyer to get you transferred to RML Specialty Hospital here in Hinsdale, but Dr. Tector and Indiana University Hospital are resisting the transfer. I don’t know if it is because you tell them you don’t want it, or because they think they need to be in control. I would love the chance to talk this over with you and Debbie if she will be there with you this weekend, and if she will let me talk to the two of you on your cell phone. Ask her, please. I hear they changed your trach so you can talk with less effort, and I would love just to hear your voice and be able to tell you how much I love you. If Chuck comes to visit you over the weekend I know he will let me talk to you.

I wish I could do more to help get you transferred to RML here in Hinsdale. I don’t know why Dr. Tector won’t let you go. You and Debbie both have to insist to him that you must be transferred. He has no right to hold you prisoner like this, if you want to be in another hospital. Indiana University Hospital has hurt you enough times, and they need to let you go somewhere else for care and treatment. The hospital lawyer and Linda Mills, the discharge planner, tell my lawyer that they are encouraging Dr. Tector to sign discharge orders for your transfer, but that he is refusing to sign them. If you want to be transferred, you need to discuss with the social worker and Linda Mills the possibility of signing yourself out against medical advice and coming to RML without Dr. Tector’s discharge order. You do have the right to do that if you want to. I don’t want to be fighting for something you do not want, but if you do want to be transferred to Hinsdale then I will fight in court to get the transfer for you. I just need to hear from you what it is you want.

Richard is taking care of the finances, but it is slow going. I hope he is telling you exactly what he is doing. Your health insurance premiums are all paid up. Everything is OK here at home. There is enough canned soup and breakfast cereal in the pantry to feed me for the rest of the month, and then some. There is also a good stock of pasta and sauces to eat. I cleaned all the old food out of the refrigerator which has been in there since we left home in April, and washed out the fridge. I just bought some fresh milk for the cereal, some soda and a dozen and a half eggs so I will have a variety of things to cook and eat. I am doing OK. RML Specialty Hospital has a bed for you, and all the financial and logistical arrangements are made for you to go there if Debbie and Dr. Tector will let you go. Talk to them. Or, if that is not what you want, please tell me.

I heard you had a blood infection, and got some more transfusions. I hope you are feeling OK. I know this has all been very hard on you. I wish they would let me be there with you to comfort you and sing to you at night so you can sleep better. I have been reading books in our library, but I would rather be reading them out loud to you like we used to do at bedtime. It is really horrible not knowing what is going on with you or how you are progressing. If you want the transfer to RML, I would love having you somewhere close by where I could at least talk to you every day and let you know how much I love you and miss you.

After you read this letter, please try to find some way to get back to me and let me know what it is you want for yourself. I don’t want to be wasting time, money and energy fighting for the wrong things. You can tell Chuck want you want. Or, you can deliver your answer through the person who brought you this letter. Or, if they will let you, you can call me and tell me yourself. That would be best of all.

I love you.

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Why The Red Stethoscope?

Ever since the Mayo brothers discovered the importance of doctors washing their hands before and after touching each patient, infection control in the hospital setting has become a major concern of all doctors, nurses, and other health care providers. Recently, hospital acquired infections by strains of bacteria resistant to multiple antibiotics, passed from one hospitalized patient to another, have been a major source of concern among infectious disease specialists.

As a result, rather than using the same stethoscope to listen to every patient's heartbeat, breath sounds and bowel sounds as they make rounds from room to room, and risk carrying bacteria from one patient to another on the steoscope, hospital patients who have infections get a red stethoscope placed in their room, and each doctor who visits that patient uses the red stethoscope to listen to the infected patient's chest and abdomen. The red stethoscope never leaves the patient's room, and hence cannot be the source of infection passed from one hospitalized patient to another.

I chose the red stethoscope as the symbol of this blog, because its advent and use proves that there are still many lessons to be learned by doctors, nurses, hospital administrators and other health care providers from the mistakes in their hospitals which continue to injure or kill hospital patients who should not be suffering and dying .

About Me

I am a lawyer, and husband of a liver transplant patient. As I begin writing this blog my wife has been hospitalized for four months following her transplant surgery, and it does not appear she will be well enough to get discharged any time soon. During her hospital confinements she has suffered just about every indignity and injury any person her age could be expected to survive.

I want the world to know about her ordeal, and about the terrible things done to her by doctors and other health care providers who believe it is their right to treat a patient however they please, even if the patient doesn't want the treatment. Everything in this blog is factual. Most of it I saw with my own eyes. The dates and times given are real, and the names of the patient, the hospitals, the doctors, the hospital administrators and other hospital personnel used in this blog are real names of real people.

If there are any print or broadcast journalists out there who would like to help publicize the egregious health care abuses described in this blog, you can E-mail me at red.stethoscope@gmail.com and I will arrange to provide you with documents supporting all the facts set out in my blog, to assist you in your work.