Guaranteed Healthcare

This is not the average story. My mother is not poor, not homeless and not in good health. "Having a higher income only gives you bigger bills," my mother always said. A series of health problems have hit her close together and I now see how frustrating medicare can be.

A Very long story as short as I can make it; My Mother supports Amnesty International, started a Humane Society in a small town in N.C., had a Llama Farm, and was an author of articles of sorts, and CAN'T get the proper health care she deserves.

After spending a month in the hospital with pneumonia, she broke her hip (femur). Due to incompetence in the hospital, she aquired VRE. Due to incompetence in the hospital her injury was further complicated by the screw moving to the edge of the ball joint. NOW, She needs another surgery to correct the problem! She has been non-weight bearing on that leg for months. She has had pneumonia, thrush, infections, and hasn't been home for 6 months. Now her 100 days of short-term care have been used up, and even with Private care, I can't get her in a decent nursing home for physical rehabilitation, because of her history of VRE.

Recently, she had another non-VRE bladder infection, was in the hospital, and when she was released, fell when she was being helped by nurses into the car to go home. She then developed a stomach flu and now has dehydration, bed sores, and thrush. She is in the hospital. Now, weak and only 68, I pray she regains her strength and can come home. This shouldn't be happening!

Do you know that after 100 days of Medicare, it is private pay after that? It takes 60 days of NOT being in the hospital or other facility to regain the 100 days. It is January, flu season, and my mother is very prone to pneumonia. The hospital is not where she needs to be, but I have no choice! For 6 months my mother has been shuffled around to 4 nursing homes and 3 hospitals and has spent less than 3 weeks home.

There are many complaints, but right now the most important thing is my mother's health. I have approached the closest nursing/rehabilitation homes, but for months now they won't accept her. But recently when I informed one it would be private pay, they couldn't talk to me enough, which is funny because I have been calling them for months. When I arrived the next day to tour and fill out paper work, suddenly they didn't have a private pay room available! And they were most worried about her history of VRE.

It is DISCRIMINATION because of the VRE, I know because I saw it on a medicare web site, but this doesn't help to get her the help she needs. Hospitals and nursing homes are businesses, for 6 months I have driven to see my mom at nursing homes an hour and a half away. As an only child, everything falls to me. The system that is in place DOESN'T WORK!!!! I feel so helpless, I have my own health problems and am very aware of what little help is available to those with lower incomes. But I must say that I am surprised to find that those with more money face the same dilemmas. The poor healthcare system affects all people. It is shameful that in this country of such inovations and new ideas, we have one of the worst healthcare systems in the world. Shame on US.