Her nearly lifeless underweight and naturally petite body drifted down the steps of the Somerset El stop.

Her nearly lifeless underweight and naturally petite body drifted down the steps of the Somerset El stop[1] as street bound soles continued in their street bound life, mass transit commuters dashed to their destinations and two of Philadelphia's Finest in blue stood by as crowd control. 

I held in my arms this bluing childhood resident of Philadelphia's suburbs and now of Kensington's streets as she drifted further toward death and down the steps at the same time.  I was doing what I could to keep her head from bouncing down each step as she drifted.  With two Narcan given and no breaths detected, I provided the slightest of mouth to mouth resuscitations - only the third time in over 20+ years of medical work that I've needed to do so.

"'First Name', don't do this to your children!"  I pleaded into her ear as I held back my own tears in needing to stay focused on my friend and overdosing medical patient of Substance Use Disorder laying all but lifeless in my arms. 

By the grace of God and the stunning miraculous nature of Narcan, she regained consciousness.  In a state of disorientation, she walked to an awaiting ambulance stretcher, was taken by that ambulance with its blaring lights and sirens to the local denominationally named hospital[2] and, within minutes of arrival, was told by the on duty Registered Nurse to "Get out of my emergency room!"

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In my blog "Damaged Determination," I shared with you the situation that "Rose" experienced and the poor medical provision she received by a Philadelphia hospital that treated her medical infection and not her detox/withdraw symptoms of dope sickness.  The understandable end result was that she left AMA[3] so as to find her own healing from the $5.00 contents of a little blue bag of heroin.

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In my blog "Drug vs Detox: A Civil War in the Mind," I shared with you the determination of one of my loved ones who was laser focused on being done with heroin - a determination that ended when the detox facility could not provide prompt comfort care during detox to her: their patient who they had beautifully accepted into their care only hours before.

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These are three examples of failures of the Medicaid funded medical provision process offered to patients of Substance Use Disorder who are residents of the streets of Kensington.  These three people sought care either through a near death experience or through arriving at that moment of 'being ready' or finding 'rock bottom' that we often hear about as being a required destination prior to detox. 

These three…

No…      

Wait… 

It's time that I share with you a bit of insider information… 

These three factual accounts of what I witnessed firsthand involve not three but two very real people…[4]  Two people who I still see and love and hug as they remain actively using their 'medicine'. 

With that thought in mind of three actually being two, imagine being the one person who is described two times in these three factual accounts of what they experienced as a Medicaid reliant patient of Substance Use Disorder! 

From their perspective, life is much less of a nightmare to continue with fundraising and injecting than it is to seek medical help from a medical provider for their medical diagnosis that is clearly described as such and labeled Substance Use Disorder in the DSM-5.

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If you have lost a loved one to overdose and that loved one was reliant on Medicaid for their health care funding, first of all, I'm very sorry for your loss…

Secondly, please know that at some point in your loved one's life on the streets, they probably sought healing.  They most likely found the process of getting to that healing so absurd that they gave up or actually overdosed in the midst of taking their medicine while jumping through the Medicaid required hoops and gross incompetency's on their desired way toward healing.

Let's boil this down further…

When your loved one transitioned by way of overdose from this world to their next, overdose did claim them in that moment.  Medicaid funded health care incompetency's set the stage for that moment.

It is way past time for any and all of us who care about this issue to work together in whatever role we play in society so as to make the changes that are needed.  In so doing, we will save the lives of our Moms and Dads, Brothers and Sisters, and all other manners of relationship from this barbaric and incompetent Medicaid system that has completely flushed the ideals of Hippocrates upon which it is absolutely intended to be fitted upon its firm foundation.

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[1] https://www.google.com/maps/@39.9913207,-75.1228445,3a,25.2y,289.65h,88.48t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s3lwJFv-DKrPelbXW1B7sGQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?hl=en

[2] Which is THE hospital in THE bulls eye of THE heroin crisis for THE entire east coast of THE United States of America.  You would think that emergency nursing staff in such a setting could be more professional than this but such was not the case.

[3] Against Medical Advice

[4] As I write my blogs, I often mix pronouns (he/she) and names so as to add anonymity for their privacy.