The Health Care system in our country is the worst – but that’s no secret.

Last Saturday, we brought my father to the hospital. He had hurt his leg. About three weeks before he fell and ignored the wound and after awhile, it got infected. So we, or I should say, one of my brothers drove him over to the hospital. And he is still there! They are keeping him captive, it’s like he is in prison.

When they arrived, they waited 12 hours for a bed, there’s a bed shortage in hospitals all over the US and today, over a week later, he is still taking up a much-needed bed, because of incompetence at the hospital and the insurance company.

I won’t name the hospital or insurance company, but the people there are idiots and the insurance company would rather pay for his over-a-week stay at a hospital than pay for a wound vac, which is what he is waiting for. He should have gone to a better hospital, one our family has used for years, but he said he wanted to go to somewhere closer to home. But this is maybe 10 minutes closer and he wasn’t in an ambulance, it wasn’t an emergency, he didn’t need to go to the closest place.

I went yesterday and tried to speak with his case worker at the hospital, who was in hiding and refused to come out of her office. All the nurses on that floor lied to me, to my face – telling me she was busy, she was on the phone, she was in a meeting – she wasn’t – she was just avoiding me and the situation. At one point I heard someone say, “Get security,” meaning, throw me out of the hospital!

I can get loud, but I wasn’t loud, I was just insistent and demanding. I had many legitimate questions.

Finally the case worker came and said the wound vac would arrive yesterday afternoon and he would go home, but that was the story for the past week. Nothing came, he is still there today. I don’t believe the case worker is working on the case or pushing to have him receive the wound vac and have him released. I know hospital workers are overworked these days, so maybe that’s her attitude – pure exhaustion.

It’s so frustrating thinking that he is perfectly healthy and could be at home while his leg heals. But he’s stuck in a bed. Every time I go visit, the bed next to him is taken by a different person – those people are in and out, but he lingers.

Bed are scarce during this time of pandemic, is it any wonder when they are giving beds to people who don’t need it?

He is in prison. It is literally as if he is jailed. He isn’t hooked up to any machinery, he is just there – in bed, taking up space. Waiting.

I won’t go there today, I get too upset, more than he apparently is; my brothers and other family members will visit. But it’s such a foolish thing – he is just captive. What really bothers me is that this it the hospital where my mother and brother died. I want Dad out – released today.

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