Please Know...

As I come to know these fine people, they share with me more of their personal and sensitive stories. Their collective story is what I am trying to share with you as my way of breaking the stereotypical beliefs that exist. "Blog names" have occasionally been given to me by the person whose story I am telling. Names are never their actual names and wherever I can do so, I might use the opposite pronoun (his/her, etc.) just to help increase their privacy.

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Friday, September 18, 2020

As I write this blog, an inspirational human being who is made in the image of God and who is worthy of dignity, honor, respect, and love lies in an Intensive Care Unit bed with a chest tube and multiple IVs

...so as to bring her back from the edge of a very thin hiking trail on a cliff that separates life from death that he's walked on as she[1] has tried to traverse over Medicaid Mountain.  

Too many medical and nursing professionals who have dedicated their careers to the ideals of Hypocrites have failed in their sworn privileges when this human being sought care in their required visit to a local crisis center.[2]  

  • They failed to treat him with the dignity and respect that he deserves.  
  • They failed to provide basic comfort care as she waited double digit hours for full[3] treatment as an inpatient.  
  • They failed with their built-in procedure that any human being must wait double-digit hours for care that is (currently) only provided as an inpatient.

 

Here's how one person explained their experience when they tried to traverse Medicaid Mountain… 

I have personally been to several crisis centers in Philadelphia.  A few months ago, I went to one and sat for about 13 hours in a waiting room so very sick shaking and sweating and vomiting everywhere and all for them to come out and tell me that there were no beds and said to come back the next day to try again.   

Mind you I was very very sick and when they told me that, I asked them what should I do as I was laying on their bathroom floor vomiting everywhere and it looked like someone had sprayed a hose on me because I was dripping wet.  My clothes were soaked and I was flopping on the floor like a fish out of water.   

The doctor said to me "I don't know what to do."  She said she cannot give me anything because I am not admitted and there are no beds.  So they asked me where would I like to go to because they will call a cab for me.  As I was waiting for the cab, security and a nurse came outside to me and asked me what I was doing and I said "You told me you are calling a cab."  The nurse said, "We did not call one and you have to get off of the property!"  

Mind you I had no money and I was so sick so I ended up walking to the EL.  The SEPTA personnel told me I cannot go through without money and I told them that I just came from the hospital.  I showed them paperwork and they still said "No" so I ended up jumping the train and the SEPTA personnel hit the alarm!  

So thank God the train came before any cops got there so I was fine.  As I was on the train I dropped to the floor and had a seizure.  When I woke up people were standing around me and they were waiting for the ambulance but I jumped up and said no and got back on the next train and got off at Somerset station and had to find a way to get well... 

My experience that day with the crisis center made me so sick to my stomach thinking that I really wanted to get clean and I really wanted help and nobody helped. 

It is time to plow down Medicaid Mountain!



[1] (Note the deliberate mixing of the pronoun he/she.  This story is playing itself out multiple times and in multiple places as I write and as you read.)

[2] Medicaid reliant patients of Substance Use Disorder are required to go to a crisis center - a place where mental disorders are diagnosed - for clearance and as the first step in finding a bed for further treatment somewhere within the city.

[3] And proper treatment as outlined in their sworn Hippocratic Oath

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