Monday, February 9, 2009

Complaining to the "Boards"

Since you are already on-line, this next part should be easy. Look up your state's "Health and Welfare" board. There should be instructions on how to file a complaint. The talking point that worked best for me, is the expense associated with "conscious sedation." If you are one of the unfortunate ones who was denied even the "informed" consent this is something that the Board will look at. They will conduct an investigation into it.

At my hospital 10 out of 11 patient charts had incomplete surgical consent forms. That means that in nearly every case the hospital broke the law. The hospital was cited for this, but the money generated by Versed more than makes up for a silly little citation!

Informed consent is very important for patients, but for the hospital not so much, at least in practice. The hospital knows full well that they can violate the laws with impunity, but getting all of this on record is still important for when you talk to your elected officials. Remember this is about MONEY! This has nothing to do with you as a person. The Board of health and Welfare needs to know how the health care dollars for welfare and government employees are being squandered on things like Versed, which is only used to generate cash, number one, and it doesn't hurt that they can abuse patients physically as well, counting on the amnesia to prevent lawsuits. You know those lawsuits that they claim are driving up health care cost?

The next "board" you need to contact is your state nursing board. Chances are the cretin who jacked you with Versed is a nurse. You can find this nursing board on-line. In my state I had to call them, they sent me a form, I filled it out, they investigated.

Now you need to contact your "State Board of Medicine." Now you can go after the Doctor who failed to tell you about the risks associated with your surgery. Such as; did you know that a simple cataract surgery can destroy your eye? If your anesthesia provider is incompetent and you get nauseous on the operating table, you eye can be destroyed. Since nausea is a common side effect of pain medication, shouldn't this little tidbit be revealed?

If your eye is damaged, all your Doctor has to say is "patient moved." Of course "patient moved," patient was trying to vomit while strapped in place face up. Can you say aspiration of vomitus? So you lose your eye and maybe get vomit in your lungs. Did anybody tell you about that? If you got Versed you will wake up with a damaged or destroyed eye with only your doctor's word about what happened. Basically, you moved you jerk and this was unavoidable. Really?


Naturally the "Nursing Board" found that my CRNA was without fault in all of this. Are you seeing a pattern of abuse yet? My CRNA claimed that once in the OR I "didn't object" to general anesthesia. Well my goodness the fact that I was heavily sedated also in defiance of my wishes didn't matter. The fact that there was no informed consent didn't matter. I gave my permission by being unable to move or object once I was in the operating room. How's that for compassionate care?

I said no very loud and clear, but I was unaware they had a zombie drug like Versed! However I now have it officially on record that my CRNA did an end run around me by forcibly injecting me with a brain disabling drug in order to gain compliance. This looks good when you show it to your legislators.

The "Board of Medicine" will also probably side with the medical practitioner. This is how we got into this mess in the first place. No matter how egregious, no matter how many laws were broken, no matter how incompetent the people are who are involved in your care, nothing will happen. Legislators who are supposed to represent US, THE PEOPLE, are our last hope to rein in the medical profession. Get all the ammunition you can to show how callous the "Boards" are and how little they care about patient complaints.


Remember that right now our legislators are looking at the runaway cost associated with health care. It is my belief that Versed, in conjunction with the tort reform and all the rest of the protections for the poor little Doctors who are so afraid of malpractice has caused the pendulum to swing way too far in the Doctors' favor. We need to be able to say NO and have our wishes respected. If you don't contact these legislators and tell them what is going on with their constituents how would they know?

There is an excellent post on http://www.versedbusters.com/ by somebody who states that lawyers don't get Versed! I'll bet that legislators get to say NO as well, so it's up to us to let them know what is happening. Money is the main reason Versed is used and MONEY is the main way that we convince legislators to help us get this drug off the "standard of care" list and put in the "optional" list, just like sedation in dentistry!

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