How DARE They!!??

Two days ago I received a letter in the mail that really pissed me off.   It was a solicitation from the hospital I recently visited, for a donation to their "foundation".   I couldn't believe it.   I posted recently about this particular ER visit last month.
My Very Unproductive Visit to the ER
ER Visit Follow Up
To sum the incident up, while I was in NJ for the holidays, I ended up in the ER with a severe bout of depression that I think was a side effect of some medication I was taking.  After stagnating in a psych ward screening cell for about eight hours, I was discharged without being treated or even being seen by a doctor.  The next day, still not able to leave my bed, I received a call from a psychologist from the hospital who apologized profusely and twice, tried to get me to come back to be admitted.

I don't have insurance and am currently unemployed due to my illness.  I spent thousands of dollars last year on doctors visits, blood work, medication and hospital visits.  I'm still paying for blood work I had done in 2010 and my credit cards are nearing their limits.

The fact that the hospital, after sending me huge bills that I'll be paying for years, would have the audacity to ask me for a donation is mind-boggling!  Something is really wrong in a country where health care costs are so high that the patients cannot afford to become ill and apparently even those sky-high fees aren't enough to keep the hospital running, even as hospital administrators are paid obscene salaries.

My hometown hospital does the same thing.  Every few weeks I receive a plea for money in my mailbox.  Every time I open the envelope it gets my ire up and I enthusiastically throw it in the recycling bin.

Does anyone else feel offended by these solicitations?  Ok, I'm stepping off my soap box now...

ER Visit Follow-Up

The day after my very disappointing experience in the psych screening department at the hospital, I received an interesting phone call.  The woman who called, introduced herself as a psychiatrist from the hospital's Mental Health Department.  She began by apologizing for the fact that I had not been admitted to the hospital the previous day.  She said she was very disappointed and that admitting me would have absolutely been the right thing to do.  She was concerned about me and tried to get me to come back in, saying that I wouldn't have to go through screening again, I would be admitted straight to the hospital.  I told her I was leaving for California the day after tomorrow and was just trying to wait out the sickening depression that had most likely been induced by the Prednisone.  I told her my family was here, aware of the situation and watching me very closely.  She told me she was still concerned and asked again if I wouldn't feel better just coming to the hospital.  When I refused, she gave me her cell phone number and said I could call at any time, even in the middle of the night.  I thanked her for the call and hung up.

I guess it makes me feel a little better that someone at the hospital took my condition seriously.  I don't know, I had felt really abandoned that day in the ER and that had only exacerbated my depression.  It's shocking that someone can go to an ER saying they're so depressed they'd rather be dead and not be admitted.  It's just another example of my asking for help with this thing and not getting it, although, in fairness, many have honestly tried. 

I'm back home in CA and feeling the same or worse than I did when I left seven weeks ago.  Dr. Podell wasn't able to help me mostly due to the fact that he was only in NJ for a short time.  He is an excellent doctor though who does know a lot about ME/CFS and Fibromyalgia and seems to be really up-to-date with the current research.  If you live in NJ, NY or PA and are looking for a good doctor check out his website:  http://www.drpodell.org/.  He considers himself a practitioner of "Integrative Medicine" which merges traditional western medicine with alternative approaches.  I'm not a big believer in most "alternative" practices so I was glad to find that he was sceptical as well and only used alternative approaches that had been thoroughly studied.  His website is a bit mis-leading in the section where he writes about treating Fibromyalgia with anti-virals (Valcyte).  Since that was written, he's apparently had a change of heart about that option.  I asked him about it and I got the impression that he hadn't gotten as good results from the anti-viral treatments as he'd hoped and wasn't prescribing them anymore.  

On to the next thing.....