Unethical Practices by the Witholding of Pain Medication:

The anger, resentment and outrage I feel towards Beaver Dam Community Hospital (BDCH) as I write this is so overwhelming I can barely contain myself. I cannot begin to relate how angry I am after the treatment of my wife on Saturday night, May 15, 2010, this past weekend. My wife has been dealing with chronic pain, and diagnosed with fibromyalgia for the past 9 years, after being run over by a fork lift truck in an industrial accident. This was prior to our marriage, and with this being a temporary assignment, having a boyfriend at the time who was interested only in quick cash as opposed to her long range well being, and the attorney who handled her case misrepresented her, and is still missing after embezzling other funds for years now. Her money was spent by her ex-boyfriend, after being convinced to make a quick settlement with the insurance company, and many undiscovered medical problems have come to light since. She is on Social Security Disability, and cannot stand on her feet for long periods of time, nor sit for long periods of time either. As of late, a doctor has found through an MRI, a better understanding of her problem with her back and the excruciating pain she endures on bad days. There has been talk of a back surgery, but she has to go to a specialist to find out exactly what must be done, what the benefits are, and the drawbacks. She has what seems like, been to every doctor I can think of, tried as many different medications as a small pharmacy and has to use narcotic medications to control her pain. The medication does not even help at times, and we have to take her to the E.R. where they inject her with a cocktail of potent muscle relaxer, a narcotic such as morphine, and stomach medicine to prevent her from getting sick from the potency of the narcotic. I have been with her throughout all this since her accident, first as a friend, now as a friend and loving husband.

To watch my wife struggle with her medical problems tears me up every day, and I feel helpless to her plight. I only want what is best for her, and I do not like to see her in the pain and misery she endures. We have been to so many physicians, pain management clinics, therapy and the likes, that I have lost count. The amount of E.R. visits is staggering, but finally there seems to be some light as my physician agreed to look at her, and is earnestly trying to find the appropriate help for her. This brings me to my current state of anger and frustration with BDCH as to the callous nature of treatment on Saturday night. Your treatment of pain relief depends on which doctor is working in the E.R. Which is to say, it's a flip of a coin whether you will get relief from pain, or treated like a common criminal drug dealer and sent home without as much as an aspirin. It is ethically absurd to know the level of care you will receive depends on the staff on duty at the time, along with the ethical beliefs of the treating physician as to his outlook on pain medication and how he views patients. A good indicator is in his bedside manner, and how well he communicates with you, and/or family members/friends who may be with you at the time, about your condition.

I will concede that it is common knowledge that there are those who abuse the E.R., attempt to feign illness or pain in an unethical manner in order to get narcotic medication to feed an addiction, or sell their medication to others. The frequency someone visits the E.R. does not necessarily make them to be drug seekers. Given all the problems with insurance, and physicians who won't accept certain forms of insurance, and in particular state aid, the E.R. for a while may be the only place they have to turn to for assistance. A rush to judgment, or prejudice by the treating physician and staff, as to your manner of dress, age, hair style, the way you talk or look, or the frequency of visits for that matter, should not automatically preclude you from receiving the same quality of care as the soccer mom with top notch insurance who comes in out of the blue with a migraine, or stressed out seeking relief, and walks out with a prescription for 15-20 valium.

As in the case of the way my wife was treated on Saturday by BDCH. I already stated that the amount of times we have had to take her to the E.R. is staggering to say the least. It seems like every few days in the past month alone as her back problems have gotten worse. This pain travels on through down her legs at times, is so excruciating that she cannot walk at all at times, or must use a walker or cane. They already know what her problem is; they believe it to be in her sciatic nerve, her vertebrae in some spots is bone on bone, and she is also diagnosed with fibromyalgia. They are not sure exactly, and from what she describes as a knife like pain in her knee up into her lower back, loss of sensation in her lower leg to where she can't stand, period. I have to watch her go through this excruciating pain and crying all day and throughout the night because she can't sleep. She has purposely avoided going to the E.R. at times because certain doctors will not give her the necessary pain medication, or slap a label on her as having drug seeking behavior. She had been trying to tough it out as much as possible, until her appointment with my doctor on Tuesday, with the hope she would get a referral to a specialist who could help her.I brought her to the E.R. on Saturday evening because she simply could not stand the pain any longer; as she was instructed to by the one E.R. doctor who took pity as to her plight, and my doctor who had saw her once two weeks prior, if the small amount of pain medication did not help her level of pain. The E.R. treating physician on duty was the one who had shown empathy, gave us those instructions, shot my wife up with medication on numerous occasions, and had told her if the injections wore off to return for the same treatment. In a sudden , unexplained turn of events, instead of treating my wife last night he refused to treat her with the medication cocktail he normally gave her, and instead sent her home to stay in excruciating pain until her appointment on Tuesday. He simply made this decision based on the amount of visits to the E.R. and inferred that she was exhibiting drug seeking behavior and stated this was a " pain management issue".

There was another reason,as we found out later, my wife did not like her doctor's covering physician. She had been seeing this doctor for 6 years with no result, and after being pushed off on this assistant for three months with no real answers, she told her on Thursday 2 weeks prior she was going to look for outside treatment with someone who was willing to take an active interest in her, and her situation. My wife also made the mistake of telling this physician that she was going to talk to my doctor, and gave her his name when she demanded to know. This doctor took offense and started the whole chain of events, she entered in the computer remarks about her pain medication therapy, referred to her as a "drug seeker". The problem here was that her physician's office was located in the hospital, and this was entered in the hospital's computer system. In fact, when I took my wife to my doctor the following day, we were not greeted with open arms by my physician. He was hesitant about seeing her, and only agreed to because of me. The doctor who my wife was trying to get away from had called him, and told him that she was feigning her illnesses and was drug seeking. Even though my wife had an MRI, and years of documentation behind her. My doctor agreed to help somewhat, but I could tell he wasn't happy with these circumstances, and told me so. He placed her on a strict regimen of a low dose of fentanyl patches, and a small amount of Percocet, to get my wife through to her appointment with the pain management clinic, also with instructions to go to the E.R. if the pain got out of control. She had agreed to go to the pain management clinic again because she felt there was nothing left to do, and she had been to two others with no help. She was to call him on Tuesday if the patches did not provide enough relief, and he would increase the dose. They didn't, and she did call him, to which he increased the dose to two fentanyl patches, and increased the Percocet.

The E.R. doctor who had been so kind to her before, and had been the one who recommended she change doctors because he felt she was being under medicated, now showed a callousness, conceit, and non caring attitude that I couldn't believe. This callousness infuriated me so much so that the disrespect I showed him, and the staff was only measurable by the disrespect they had shown my wife. The veins were popping out of my neck, and forehead as I argued with this lying S.O.B.I went as far as return home and got his paperwork from the last visit to the E.R., along with the paperwork we had got from my doctor. This of course fell on deaf ears, even though they were his documentation as to what to do. It was everything to keep my temper under control as my wife lay in a bed in a hospital , who was charging the insurance an arm and a leg, and refusing to treat her. By now the Police had arrived from all the arguing and it was everything to keep me out of jail. It was a direct insult to our personal integrity, in valuated our personal moral and ethical beliefs as far as drug use in an unethical manner, and shattered any set of values and beliefs I had as far trusting those at BDCH who were entrusted with the care of my wife, and our personal medical information.

As I sit disillusioned at this sudden turn of events, my wife has passed in and out of sleep all night, as I have sat up with her to keep an eye on her, I am trying to ponder what to do next. I am faced with having to transport her to Columbus Hospital, Waupun Hospital, or taking a chance on another doctor at BDCH which after the events of last night, I would like to avoid going to an institution whose proven track record of turning patients away who are in acute pain, remains intact. I had heard stories from others who faced the same circumstances as I, but only saw it once before myself when I needed a refill on a prescription of a narcotic medication after a surgery, because my surgeon's office was in Milwaukee. The prescription could be called into the hospital by my surgeon and picked up by me there. The nurse who brought me out the prescription in the E.R., with no compassion, and the callousness she had in her, sneered at me and told me to make it last because I would not be picking anymore prescriptions up at the hospital in that department. She exhibited the same behavior, callousness and no regard for my condition as I stood there wrapped in bandages from my third rotator cuff surgery, as the doctor had for my wife last night. At the time my moral and ethical values that I hold did not feel threatened and I only assumed that this nurse was simply having a bad day.

Other thoughts of anger cross my mind as far as the ramifications of a doctor simply documenting drug seeking behavior or the statement he made that this is a "pain management issue". The E.R. doctor who does not personally know my wife, or what she represents in life, nor does he even have an idea what her personal values are when it comes to the unethical use of drugs or consumption of alcohol, could effectively alter my wife's treatment in an E.R. for the rest of her life. The implications of him inferring that she was there to do more than just seek medical attention could have an impact on her future treatment, and an irresponsible statement like he was implying could cause irreparable damage in her further treatment.

In all my years as a husband and father, I have never been so humiliated, or felt so helpless to aid my wife as the way physician and staff at BDCH did last night. The arrogance of some physicians with their attempt at playing God with lives of people has got to be regulated somehow. The practice at BDCH of simply turning away people who are in legitimate pain cannot be discounted as merely a "pain management issue", and simply sent away and told to get referred to the pain management clinic. The health care system is in shambles already, with insurance companies already dictating your treatment plan behind the scenes, law enforcement making doctors so afraid to treat patients with pain medications lest they be prosecuted for prescribing too much, and now physicians don't want to uphold their Hippocratic Oath to treat those who are suffering; it is no wonder why Americans hold so much resentment towards elected officials who do nothing but ensure their own agenda is met, and their own personal interests are satisfied. There is not a lot you can do with unethical doctors, both who prescribe too much medication, and those who seek to force their will upon their patients. For right now though all we can do is be patient, and I must continue to watch my wife be abused by a sick medical system that has no regard except that of the almighty dollar, and to protect that license that brings it to them. I intend to stay relentless in my pursuit of those that abuse chronic pain patients, and have put up a blog page to let others know of our plight. I plan on exposing those that don't have the courage, or moral fortitude to uphold their oaths for fear of losing their golf memberships, and in the process hope to educate those that haven't had the pleasure of dealing with an ailment you can't quite put your finger on, or in the other case you can put your finger on it, but a system so screwed up with insurance companies calling the shots, along with law enforcement, that you still can't get the help you need.