Tuesday, May 25

OK, grab yer soapbox and settle in...

First, go read THIS.

It's absolutely terrifying! The next thing we know, we'll all be getting a note from the State as soon as our pregnancies are confirmed telling us to whom we should report for prenatal care, where and when and how we will be delivering. Think it can't happen? That's not far from how it's done in France! When the government provides your care, the government controls your care.

First of all, let's set the record straight- medical care is a business. Personally, I think that's great. It means they provide a service and you can choose to take your business elsewhere if you aren't pleased with the care you receive. WAHOO! Long live capitalism! You may like that fact, you may not, but let me give you some insight before you go off on a socialist rampage against my stance.

There is a reason you are asked to sign "AMA" forms when you do not take the route or means of care your doctor advises. You are acknowledging that you are going "against medical advice". It's not a mandate. It's advice. Take it for what it's worth. You have hired a consultant and care provider to whom you ultimately do not have to submit. That person, that facility, is employed on a contract basis BY you, and THEY answer TO you.

It's bad enough that doctors have filled our country with women who have been pushed, prodded and scared into elective surgeries and unnecessary interventions by these "it's for the health of the baby" scenarios. Now the doctors have decided that, in spite of their own pitiful failure rate, exorbitant costs, unnecessary interventions, outrageous infection rates (if lay midwives had secondary infection rates to rival hospitals, there'd be a bigger witch hunt than there is now!) other increased risks, and so on, they somehow still know best. They know all.

Are we going to let them take this power? It's ours to give, or to refuse to give! They won't be so quick to go after families if families stop paying them to do just that.

Why am I so adamantly opposed to socialized medicine? Why am I not clamoring at the feet of whatever liberal politician stand up and shouts, "We need medical care!" Well, let me tell you- first of all, you can get medical care in the United States. Yes, even if you cannot afford it. A public hospital cannot turn you away for care if you show up on its doorsteps. If they do, they are violating the law. But I firmly believe that medical care should NOT be given over to government control because of idiots with a God complex like the staff at Wilkes-Barre Hospital in Pennsylvania! If the State is willing to come in and take away a mother's guardianship of her own child because the physicians at the hospital are upset that she won't let them play Dr. Frankenstein, then the State already has too much power! We do not, I repeat DO NOT need to give the State any more power. We need to take it back or we are going to find ourselves in a very frightening, bleak future.

Please allow me to share, just from my personal experience in the medical community, some of the many, many times the "experts" have been dangerously wrong (these are just a couple, as I'm short on time tonight, but there are plenty more):

1- My mother was at her wits end by the time I was six months old. I cried and screamed 20 hours out of every 24. The doctors insisted that she was "imagining things", that I was "spoiled", that I was "feeding off her stress" and she "should just lay that baby down and let her cry". My mother went AMA repeatedly, determined to find the root of the problem. One physician prescribed a sedative in a dosage high enough to knock out a 200 lb. adult male. It would have killed an 8 mo. old infant. She declined the prescription. Three months later, due to her unswerving determination, it was discovered that I had been born with a double ruptured hernia. Surgery was scheduled immediately. (For the record, I also caught measles suring that stay in the hospital, and had been vaccinated already.) If the government and the medical establishment had the authority to coerce and force her to follow their edicts, I would be now, at best, severely damaged, most likely dead.

2- At the age of 16, I was diagnosed by a physician at the UNM Hospital in Albuquerque as "epileptic", and prescribed Dilantin. We fought it. I was not about to take Dilantin when I did not need it, not knowing what I knew about the side effects. The physician tried to pit the State against us. We fought for two years and discovered that I have (believe it or not) perfectly normal brain activity- not a single sign of epilepsy. The nerve damage, vision problems, and blackouts I suffered were an allergic reaction to Nutrasweet/Aspartame. My Central Nervous System, liver and teeth are most appreciative of the fact that we had the right to take our business elsewhere and find the answers we truly needed.

3- What if hospitals had the ability to force a pregnant woman to take an FDA approved drug because of the "health of the baby"? Would that be ok? Let's talk Thalidamide. How many more women and children would have suffered if they hadn't had the right to say "no" to that drug? Even if rejecting it meant that they had to go against medical advice... even if it meant "putting the baby in jeopardy". That's a risk I am willing to take.

4- When John was 7.5 mos. old, his big brother got hold of some Formula 409 and decided to "help clean" his baby brother. I began flushing his eyes immediately, called poison control, called the ambulance. The paramedics told us to go on in (since I was alone with the two boys and would need transportation home), and called the ER. We got there and they refused to see him. They didn't feel he was behaving distraught enough for anything to be wrong. For three hours, the triage nurse told me to "go home, he's fine." For three hours, I grew increasingly angry and insistent upon being seen and having a thorough flush done. It got to the point that I had to stand in the lobby and scream. They put us in the back to shut me up. An hour later, I cornered the physician on call and demanded my son be tended to. To "placate" me, she did a litmus test. He had a pH of 11.5! (Eye fluid should be neutral- appx 7.5) At that point, it was a different story. Suddenly, there was an emergency! The doctor requested the "big bag" of solution. One for each eye, actually. Then she sent in a nursing student who had never performed an eye flush and was too afraid to try. I flushed his eyes myself. We stayed until he measured neutral. I have no recourse because "his records show that he was attended to". It does not matter that he was attended to under extreme duress. It does not matter that he did not receive professional or timely care. It does not matter that *I* am the one who provided the actual treatment. Hospital records show the hospital to be blameless. Imagine that. If these people had the authority to determine care solely on their whim, my son would be blind today.

5- My friend, Amy, was afraid to challenge the hospital staff. She underwent four surgeries to correct a "collapsed shunt" from her gall bladder surgery. By the time her husband could convince her to seek medical care elsewhere, she had been in ICU for a month, had had numerous MRI's, CT scans, surgeries, blood transfusions, antibiotics enough to choke a horse... she was at another hospital a whopping four hours when their staff found a cancerous mass the size of a football in her abdomen (right where the other surgeons had been poking around.) They scheduled treatment immediately, but it was too late- she died the next morning. If she had felt she could complain, she might have received better care elsewhere rather than taking what was given to her. We won't have that option at all if the State and the medical establishment continues to rein in our rights as patients and consumers.

6- I don't know how many times my sister was officially pronounced dead. Then got up from the bed, asking for food. I know it was three, but there may have been more. Doctors are not Gods.

7- A chiropractor broke one of my mother's ribs. She was in such excruciating pain that she finally told me what happened. I took her to the ER. They took X-rays. The doctor on call showed us the X-rays, showed us the broken rib, explained how to care for it. Two months later, her physician hadn't even asked about her rib, so she questioned him about it. He was confused. There was nothing wrong with her rib. He showed her the ER report. The tech who prepared the report for her physician is tight w/ the chiropractor who broke her rib. The report stated that there was found, "no indication of trauma or injury". The X-rays "couldn't be located" for confirmation. Humans are fallible, corrupt and essentially unethical when they have too much power.

8- A friend broke her arm and went to the ER. They X-rayed it, then put on a cast. She complained repeatedly over the next few days of the excruciating pain and asked that they do something about it. She was told that she just wasn't prepared for the pain of a broken arm. We finally convinced her to go to another hospital. They took X-rays and immediately removed the cast. It had been put on improperly and she was in danger of losing permanently the use of three fingers, as a muscle was caught between the bones. I repeat: Doctors are not Gods, and should not, no- MUST NOT- be treated as such.

There are so many more examples of medical ineptitude, of life-saving questioning of advice or refusal to follow doctor's orders. I know that doctors can be invaluable assets and save many lives many times over, but there must be some balance of power. No one authority on any subject. When citizens cannot question, the nation will stagnate. There is no reason to give the medical establishment more power, more authority. We need more personal responsibility, less power-play and coerced intervention.

Some writers are trying to draw a parallel with abortion advocacy and consider this a "woman's issue". I say that's selling the issue short. This issue is a human rights issue. It is about the difference between providing care to citizens and turning citizens into lab rats. Don't let this happen.

If you live in PA, write to the hospital. Demand an apology from them. Demand a change in protocol. Demand patients' rights be broadened, not restricted. Tell them you will neither support their hospital nor patronize it, and then follow through. Publish letters to the editor of your paper. DO SOMETHING NOW! When it comes down to it, their bottom line is the fiscal one, and unfortunately for all the jibberish they spew about "patient care", it's the dollar that they will heed. So please, if you have dollars to spend, spend them elsewhere and let Wilkes-Barre Hospital know that you chose to spend them elsewhere. Demand accountability from these delusional powermongers before it's your family they come after!

*As a matter of fact, write your judges and other elected officials and let them know that this slight of hand did NOT go undetected and will NOT be tolerated. If they value their job security, they'd better straighten up quickly!*

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