I Hate Dialysis Message Board
Dialysis Discussion => Dialysis: General Discussion => Topic started by: BattleScars on February 04, 2014, 03:03:21 PM
-
I have read that places like Davita blackball patients all the time and discharge them for no cause at all and this is a death sentence because no other clinic will take them. I am being discharged for making a complaint. Now I have a death sentence. I'm not going to sit out the next few weeks and suffer. I am ending my life tonight. This is what happens when you complain. We are screwed as dialsyis patients. They got their wish. I am done. This has been a cruel life. Goodbye.
-
I honestly believe there is a solution for you and pray that you rethink this. Please PM me - I would love to speak with you. Please.
-
Well, if you have already ended your life, I guess you won't be reading this. However, if you are still around, may I suggest that you need some help immediately! I don't know how things work where you are ( I presume you're in the USA), but there must be some helpful organisation you can call. Do so immediately. A fight with a Dialysis company is not worth killing your self for. Pick up that phone NOW!
-
YES. PM Carol quick smart. She is so kind and wise.
-
There are some knowledgeable people here who can help you brainstorm a solution. Like Galvo said, there must be a helpful organization out there to help. I wish I understood or knew USA procedures but I don't. Right now, it looks like it may be the end of the road but there has to be a way. There always is a way! Best wishes...
-
Look. Ending it is letting the creations win. Find a good malpractice lawyer and sue them for a ton of money. They win if you roll over and die. Find the meanest lawyer you can get and sic him or her on them if they are black listing you with other clinics a good lawyer can make a slander or libel case against the corporation and the individuals who are participating in this.
-
BattleScars, you are a staple on this board and many of us know you and care for you from our relationship and common issues here. I hope you can reconsider and reach out for some ideas to better deal with the situation. We all support you and care for you and you will hurt more than yourself by doing something bad to yourself. I am sure many will help resolve your problem with the clinic if you just reach out. Please talk to okarol or call someone close to you. It is a solveable problem. Please reconsider and reach out to someone. God Bless you.
-
If they have contacted other clinics without your permission they have violated the federal hipa law don't give in contact a lawyer if you can't afford one call legal aid. What is being done to you is both vile and petty. Stand up to them for yourself and for the next patient..
-
Here is a link to an organization that specifically intervenes in situations like yours. Give them a call asap: http://dialysisadvocates.com/
-
Thanks for calling Battlescars. Please keep in touch. There are a lot of people here with knowledge and who will support you - don't give up.
How do I file a complaint about my dialysis or kidney transplant care?
End-Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) Networks and State Survey Agencies work together to deal with complaints about dialysis or kidney transplant care.
More info here: http://www.medicare.gov/claims-and-appeals/file-a-complaint/kidney-care/complaints-about-kidney-care.html
-
You're a champion, Carol! Battlescars, best wishes to you!
-
Battlescars, please don't give up, follow Okarols advice, whatever it is and please just don't do this to yourself.
-
Your nephrologist is also responsible to you. As a doctor I have been drilled for many years about NOT ABANDONING A PATIENT. It is not allowed . A doctor can lose their license and be sued successfully for abandonment. You can call your state medical board of licensure immediatly to report the nephrologist . Also they can help you find another . You can also sue on grounds of abandonment if the doctor has not gone through all the proper steps to drop you as a patient AND make sure you have a doctor to take over care. Doctors have a legal responsibility to their patients to care for them and transfer care when they no longer can or want to. Dont allow them to win.
-
Battlescars...
Thank God you're still with us... ALWAYS reach out to us... That's what we're here for.....
Hope you find a centre to meet your needs...
Thanks Karol.... You're a gem!....
Stay with us, Battlescars... We can't survive without each other!....
God bless...
Darth...
-
Dear BattleScars,
I can understand you situation very well because I have been completely discharged myself,
not from dialysis (I am fighting every day to keep my kidneys functioning to avoid dialysis for as long as possible)
but for other non-compliant/non-obliging reasons towards sadistic doctors... and I dared to complain as well...
If, in my despair and trauma I would have committed suicide, these medical sadists would perhaps have had a party ...
...but I am not ready to give them such a pleasure...
Please do the same... please hold on and find a lawyer and get some urgent practical assistance ...
Our life is much too short as it is and we don’t know what the future holds for us ...
... and fortunately you are still living in a system where lawyers have a chance to stop such horrible sadistic manoeuvres
to keep dialysis patients humble, obedient and grateful, even if they are being abused...
... You have dared to complain and as a result you have been excluded from a life-important survival
because Davita and your nephrologist want to “show you the score” and “put you in your place”
and your heartless nephrologist even assisted Davita in their inhumanitarian manoeuvre...
... please find a lawyer and please, please succeed ... !
Kristina.
-
I think that along with the other suggestions it would be a good idea to find a therapist to talk to. Many charge on a sliding scale. I think you need someone to talk to who puts their attention on you.
Are you willing to tell us what you complained about? You don't have to.
-
Sorry. Just saw your other post about the complaint.
-
You should contact a local news place and tell them your story. See if they will do a report on it. Draw attention to the problem.
Also we all should contact our Senators and Congress. There should be a law that centers cannot deny treatment.
-
I'm sorry you're going through all of this. You are a strong person - you wouldn't have filed the complaint if you weren't. I know you feel beaten, buy as long as you keep fighting, you're a winner. I hope you've decided to stick around a while longer. It's one thing to choose death when you're so ill that you really have no life anymore. I accept that. But I think choosing death out of anger or due to the loss of a single battle is regretable. You might think you'd be telling your center "look what you drove me to," but the message they'd get from your death would be "See, we were right." They aren't right. You deserve good care.
-
If you are willing to go to a newspaper , I have a contact at the Boston Globe. I remember you said you were in Mass.
She is a healthbeat reporter and writes on these type issues. Email her at Lizbeth.Kowalczyk@Globe.com
Liz Kowalczyk does some good work with medical stories. She just did a big piece on Liver transplants at Lahey clinic in Mass.
-
Hang in there, Battlescars. We don't want to lose you. Please know that we all care about you.
-
Sorry you are going through this BattleScar; however, you can choose a new kidney doctor in Boston and he or she will direct you to a new dialysis center. Going forward, put everything in writing when you are going through this because you can take them to court put you must have proof. Things will turn around for you, keep your head up.
-
Bungarian, I do not agree that centers should never be allowed to deny treatment. I believe there should be procedures and documentation before discharge. There should be more protections for patients. But no one should have to treat or be treated next to a truly violent patient. It is also not right to keep a chair open for someone who only comes when they feel like it. We have to find a way to balance clinic and patient needs. I think that before a patient is discharged we should have another neutral party involved to mediate or else someone assigned to be the patient advocate that the centers are required to listen to.
I think that someone to represent BattleScars could have helped. They could not have hidden behind letters.
-
I have read that places like Davita blackball patients all the time and discharge them for no cause at all and this is a death sentence because no other clinic will take them. I am being discharged for making a complaint. Now I have a death sentence. I'm not going to sit out the next few weeks and suffer. I am ending my life tonight. This is what happens when you complain. We are screwed as dialsyis patients. They got their wish. I am done. This has been a cruel life. Goodbye.
Battlescars,
I have a Foundation that helps with just this type of thing. You can private message me and I can find out how best to help you right NOW with the situation you are facing. Be Bold and Stay Strong.
-
You can do this! Expose the bastards! Plugger can also help with this.
:grouphug;
-
I complain occasionally at my Fresenius center and they generally accommodate me. The only thing that I have not been able to get them to do is raise the unit's temperature (69 degree) up a few points where we don't have to bury ourselves in blankets.
I don't know if I am blackballed or not but I do know that my reputation always precedes me so they must have this documented somewhere available to be read wherever I might go.
Battlescars... This is grossly unfair to you and you should channel your bad feelings back to them in some sort of legal action. They can't release you from their care until you have another unit to care for you. I would target the Davita's CEO Kent J. Thiry, cc the local director of your unit also the D network in your area, HMS medicare, and local media. They can't kick you out of a D facility unless you were violent.
I got released from a D center because I had a verbal altercation with my doctor because he wanted to shorten my treatment time ( from 4 hrs to 3.5) and increase my pump speed from 350 to 450. As he was walking away I told him in front of everyone in the center that "the only reason he was doing that was for the money!". A few days later I received a letter that he was discharging me from his unit and would care for me until I found somewhere else to go.
Years later from what I have read in IHD posts was that he was not justified in kicking me out of that unit as I was non-violent and had a good rapport with all the people there and they were shocked at what he had done.
Don't let it be that they write in your epitaph "done in by D clinic" .
Your name is BattleScars, a D person that will someday look back at this when you have received a transplant and this will all be old news.
You can defeat them!
I wait to read about you continued lifelong success.
-
I ended up never having to go on dialysis, but that doesn't mean that I won't have to sometime in the future. So maybe my comments/thoughts are irrelevant, but after reading through this thread, my gut reaction is to call my congressperson and lawyer up. I'd SO sue them. I've sued corporations before and won, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat.
-
Having to do dialysis is enough suffering for anyone. To be treated so harshly be *care* givers is unacceptable. Use whatever resources you find here in this post and STAY STRONG, accept help from others and KEEP FIGHTING THE FIGHT.
A dialysis center is NOT the kind of place that should be able to say 'take your business elsewhere .... if they'll have you' ........... Sure, when you complain about a restaurant or a coffee shop, they might get attitude and say 'don't ever come back'. But usually it is the COMPLAINER who chooses to not use that business and to go elsewhere. A dialysis center ? Not so much ....... you're not perfect, Davita. Suck it up. (and why do you bother sending out those surveys if you don't want an honest response .......good or bad ???
-
Do you remember when you were a kid in school and the threat was that everything you did would go on your Permanent Record and follow you everywhere? That's what it feels like we're talking about. Seems like we are little kids who need to be controlled in the dialysis center. Instead we should be adults involved in our care.
-
I wish I would have noticed this earlier, but yes Dialysis_Advocates (http://dialysisadvocates.com/) can definitely help. Arlene Mullin, a founder of the group, has over 15 years experience at helping dismissed patients, has the experienced legal help none of us could afford - and a patients' group you can talk to, to boot! Don't let the turdballs win!
Phone:
800-847-8842
Washington D.C. - (202) 567-1616
Contact page:
http://dialysisadvocates.com/patient-contact/
-
Can we get an update?
-
Seems a very blanket statement, and assumption, from the OP that they were discharged (banned?) from their Center because they complained. I'm sure there's more to this than that.
Either way, I hope they have not taken the drastic step they suggested - sometimes life IS tough and depressing and seems hopeless when you seem helpless, but there are ways to address this and I hope you've reconsidered and looked into this further, as Karol has suggested and provided some info on.
-
Battlescars....
Haven't seen you for a while, and am wondering how you're doing....
Please get in touch with Plugger, he's one heck of a good advocate, and much as I hate to admit it, he's a nice guy, too!....
Thinking of you...
Darth....
-
I got a text on Saturday - he's going to go to the ER to get help, hemoglobin is at 8 and he's been feeling so low.
-
That's good to hear - some fight in him yet. Thanks Karol!
-
Thanks Karol....
Keep up the fight, Battlescars.... We're all rooting for you!....
Love....
Darth....
-
Yes, thanks for the update Karol!
-
I'm thanking God you got in touch with Karol. Please don't do anything to hurt yourself. There are better solutions.
In following your story, the one question that kept coming to me was where is your doctor in all this? At minimum, he/she should be in top of your labs and insist that you get your epo.
My first step would be to contact either your neph or PCP and describe your situation. If they are worth anything, they will take the lead in getting you some help, if not act on the situation themselves.
God bless. Please let us know how you're doing.
-
This post was 7 years ago.
Has anyone kept in touch with BattleScars?