Sweet Retribution

If you've ever watched a parent die a needless death then you understand what I'm currently going through.

In February 2007 my father was admitted to OHSU's VA Hospital. He had no insurance and a severely infected wound in his foot. They immediately admitted him and according to family stated themselves that the foot was extremely infected. For the next 6 days they paraded medical students through his room to point out what happens during gangrene. The spreading redness around the wound, the swelling and the slow blackening of the wound did nothing to make them actually treat the injury with anything more than intravenous antibiotics...which were even to the untrained eye obviously not working. When the last two toes on his foot turned black they finally put him under to do a partial amputation. It was likely too late by then.

Roughly three weeks later he was back in the hospital, so sick he was jaundiced. Sure he was stubborn and tried his best not to go back to the hospital he thought wouldn't treat him anyway. Sure my stepmother waited WAY too long to call an ambulence but had it been any other patient perhaps they would have tried more to save his life. From the little bit that I saw they let him lay there swollen with infection, doing nothing to drain the infection from his system while they treated him and his visitors as a nuisance. Sure a few of his nurses really did seem to care, the others just seemed to wish he'd go away. Not a way to treat a man with major organ failure.

I got a call today from Holly Lloyd seeking my information as his sole heir. It seems my grandparents started what I couldn't afford to do. We are in the process of filing a wrongful death lawsuit against OHSU. While I may not get much from it if anything at all it's not the money I'm after.

What I want is for no one else to loose a parent to a needless death. For no one else to know that their father will not see them accomplish the things he'd always wanted for them. For no one else to watch their father cry infection laced tears from the pain. For no one else to watch a nurse first manhandle the patient and then tell them point blank 'he's dying anyway.' I want them to pay. I want it to hurt. I want the hospital administrators to immediately make policy changes to ensure it never happens again. Sure, my father was an alcoholic but NO ONE should have to die like that, knowing the hospital is doing nothing to save them. Knowing that no one in their medical team is loosing any sleep over the fact that they are loosing their life. I want to know that no child regardless of age is ever going to have to look their dying parent in the eyes and know that if only they had money things would be a little better. For me it was only 24 hours, we'd lost contact and they had to hunt me down, for the rest of the family it was much longer watching him slowly rot away from the inside out. May 17th, 9:45pm...I still have nightmares about that time. I still wake in the middle of the night wondering when my mother will leave too. No one should have to watch someone they love die knowing the hospital could be doing more to at least make their final moments more comfortable. It would not have killed them to at least be polite to a dying man. Even if they didn't agree with his lifestyle decisions. Hell I didn't agree with his lifestyle decisions, but he shouldn't have had to die amongst indifference and sometimes open scorn.