Woman had to wait months to have skull replaced

[JayS]

May 13, 2004, 1:45PM
Woman had to wait months to have skull replaced
Associated Press
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/2567757


Briana Lane shows where her staples were removed last Friday in Midvale, Utah, following a car accident which resulted in part of her skull being temporarily removed.

The 22-year-old woman was injured in an auto accident in January, and doctors temporarily removed nearly half her skull to save her life.

But for nearly four months afterward, the piece of bone lay in a hospital freezer across town -- and Lane had to wear a plastic street hockey helmet -- because of a standoff with Medicaid and the hospital over who would cover the surgery to make her whole again.

The surgery finally came through after an excruciating wait, during which she suffered extreme pain just bending down and would wake up in the morning to find that her brain had shifted to one side during the night.

*SNIP*

[belle]

1. AAUUUUUGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!

fuck, that's it, i'm moving to Canada. Scandinavia, where-EVER.

[KT2000]

2. Another Medicaid incident

A woman I know was in her last days of dying from brain cancer. The nursing home that took her at first said they could not take care of her increasing needs so she was sent to the hospital on a Friday night. The doctor said he had to release her to a nursing home the next morning but the office of the nursing home was not open on the weekend.
Dr. said he would try to justify her stay until Monday but he would be receiving a call from medicaid demanding to know why she had to spend the weekend in the hospital and get her out. (There is probably a demerit for doc and hospital as far as medicaid is concerned)
She was moved Monday morning to another nursing home that had a Medicaid bed available. She died on Wednesday.

Her last days were spent being shuffled around and her loved ones spent hours on the phone looking for a facility that would take her.

This sucks.

PS She ended up on medicaid because she was poisoned by chemicals in the workplace at a large aerospace comapny. They never paid her a dime for the brain damage and subsequent brain cancer - they just dumped her on the state.
She did not deserve this.

[Mel]

3. this is insane

I tell you if I was a Dr. I would not of let that go I would of done the work for free or payed for it myself that's damn inhuman! What the hell is wrong with this country that we let some 22 pretty much still a kid suffer like this over money to pay for it?????? Who's her US House Representative (Midvale Utah)? I know who her Senators are it's Hatch & Bennett. Meanwhile the right-wing radical stinking repukes are yapping in the house this week about helping people that don't have insurance LIARS!

[SoCalDem]

4. Damn that VAIN woman.. How dare she expect to have the state

pay for a "whole" skull.. If the medicaid officials can do their work with "half a brain", why should she expect to have a whole skull..and on the state's dime too:)...Hrrrrumphhhh!!

[redqueen]

5. Universal Single-Payer Healthcare NOW

Join Kucinich in calling for this to be added to the party platform.

Call your senators & reps and tell them we need this more than we need permanent tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans!

[Pithlet]

6. That's life in the good old US.

We have the greatest healthcare in the world! Universal healthcare would just ruin that. </sarcasm>