Beware of this : Hospitals are generally profit-making.

This means, they are more interested in profit-making and their reputation than in your health. A natural healing of the body takes time and energy. These two elements are not profit-making. An operation is always profitable and always dangerous.

1. Do not let them catheterize you if you are continent!!!!

This is not supposed to be done according to the Florida stroke guide lines,

Yet it is one of the first and fastest procedures done at the hospital!

This endangers you. It is the beginning of your being automated for the assembly line.

It increases your chance of getting an infection. It gives them an excuse to say you need hospitalization.

Why is it done? Convenience for the understaffed hospital and money! If they tell you, they need it for accurate measurement, it sounds good, but the urine can be equally well measured without it. It just takes time, which the nurses do not have, because they have too many patients. In Zoe's case they did not pay attention to the urine values, anyway.

2. Make sure, you get the proper tests. If you are at the hospital, something is wrong. You want it fixed.

If you take the car to the garage, the first thing that is tested is water, gas and oil levels. Without proper fuel (levels of fuel) your car will not work right. Our bodies are similar.

You want a comprehensive test of blood and chemistries, and you want to get a copy of it ASAP. If you have a lot of out of range levels, maybe the doctors should get these imbalances fixed before contemplating a dangerous operation or other pharmaceutical treatment.

Giving you a mineral or vitamin to correct your chemistry imbalance is not as profitable as prescribing drugs. Almost all drugs have side-effects and need to be monitored! Also drugs will make you longtime patients.

3. Food - you need nourishment to get better. Check what they are giving you to nourish your body. Is it really what you need? Ask them what and why?

Zoe was allowed to stay in the emergency room without any hydration or nourishment for five hours. (This meant, she went without nourishment for almost an entire 24-hour period - one whole day. The patient was underweight and diabetic. She was alert, hungry and thirsty. This did not seem to bother the hospital. She was just an elderly Medicare patient - unprotected by Florida laws!

Later she was then put on normal saline for two days. The elderly patient received no nourishment - just 18 grams of salt per day and was being treated for high blood pressure? No food, just salt and water.

The doctors and nurses at this top hospital told me, she was getting all the nourishment, she needed.

Do you think, she may have needed anything else? If she was supposed to die, maybe not, but to get better? Do you want more than 18 grams of salt and water to keep you alive, if you are alert and hungry?

I HAVE BEEN TOLD THAT THIS IS PERFECTLY NORMAL AND THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THIS TREATMENT? By Florida's health control agency AHCA and one of the nation's "top 100 hospitals". Also Florida's Medicare Peer Review Organization, FMQAI found this treatment "to meet professionally recognized standards of health care." No one in Europe thinks so!

Stroke victims often show up at the hospital with weakened facial muscles.

The tongue may have been affected, consequently their speech may be unintelligible.

The patient has difficulty expressing their wishes. If the tongue is not working properly, it is obvious, the stroke victim will not be able to swallow normally.

The hospital will want the PEG (stomach tube) operation. The stomach tube operation is described as a simple operation. They make a few incisions, stick in a tube and you are automated for the assembly line. They can then pour in the food, and when you do not want or need the tube anymore, you can have another operation and they will remove it again. If you survived the first profitable operation, you may have a second profit-making operation compliments of Medicare.

What they do not tell you is:

1) the tube is not immediately useable - first the wound must heal.

2) if it was placed because of an "aspiration" danger, this danger will remain.

3) any operation is more dangerous for the patient, than the surgeon. There is no "safe" operation. That is why, you have to sign a consent form!

Stroke victims often have difficulty swallowing. The question is how much. If you want to care for your loved ones, you have time to feed them with care. Hospitals do not have time. This is not, what they will tell you, but this is the case. They want to make a profit and they do not have the time or the necessary staff to take time to feed the patient. If you want the patient to improve, you do not want your loved ones in a profit-making hospital in Florida. If "Zoe's" hospital is really in the "nation's top 100", you do not want them in any US hospital!

If the patient is alert - tongue is mid-line, and he is swallowing his saliva and not choking on it, and they have a cough reflex , you can try to feed him. If they give a swallow test using real food, it really can not be so dangerous to feed them. Do not let them talk you out of the barium video swallow test and get a copy and let someone else look at it, if they are still pressing for the operation.

The hospital will press for the nasal tube (KEO) if you refuse the PEG. The patient wants and needs real food. The KEO is another attempt to automate you. They will now drip the food to you all day and night long. Then they will press for the PEG, because you cannot leave this tube in long without complications developing.

Eating and drinking is normal. There are techniques for swallowing to get along with deficiencies.

These should be tried. Do not let yourself or your loved ones become automated without a necessity.

If liquids are a danger, why not Jell-O, why not ice. Protein and water in a solid form - cool and slippery on the palate.

Get the swallow evaluation immediately, if no clot-busting procedure will be attempted (usually only available within the first three hours after a stroke) or no operations are necessary.

Make them explain and show you, exactly why there is such a danger. Do not let them scare you with terms like "aspiration pneumonia." This is something, which happens when the patient is comatose. If the patient has a cough reflex and is alert, his body is tuned to survival.

In Europe this operation or placement of the nasal tube is seldom used for stroke victims. The profit motive is missing, and they know care is more important than invasive procedures. Feeding a stroke victim with care is normal and natural. Tubes and pegs are not!!!!

4. Watch out for iv-fluids (intravenous fluids).

If the patient is able to eat, the reason for an intravenous fluid should be questioned. Is it being used as an excuse to keep the patient in the hospital and to scare you into thinking, you would not be able to do these procedures yourself at home.

Fluids being pumped into your body must be monitored carefully. (More fluid going in than coming out or vice versa herald dangerous health developments - in the elderly life-threatening)!! Monitoring should be done by both the doctors and nurses. It is very often not done at all!

Fluid overloads are common in hospitals because of this. In Zoe's case, it resulted in pulmonary edema and congestive heart failure (CHF) and the cure for this brought on near renal failure. That the patient was in highly critical condition, that she went from alert and walking to near death lethargic and bedridden did not seem an indicator of poor care to AHCA. Before this hospital stay, the patient never had any fluid retention problems. Her stroke did not affect this bodily function - non-care did. AHCA document this as being normal: Their argument: The patient was old and extremely sick.

That the hospital created the extremely sick condition did not bother them.

None of these complications were necessary and none of this is documented in the medical records, except a few remaining tests, which indicate these life-threatening conditions. The patient survived and therefore Zoe documents the "excellent care", she received at the hospital.

Most iv-fluid medications can be given as a pill, but then they would have no excuse to keep you in the hospital or send you to a nursing home. Profit-making dictates prescribing an iv as opposed to a pill.

5. Watch out for heparin!!!! Heparin is a blood thinner. It must be monitored very cautiously. As already explained in profit-making, understaffed hospitals it is often not checked carefully. An overdose thins the blood too much and can cause internal bleeding. In stroke victims, who already have a clot in the brain, this could cause hemorrhaging. This means the clot stroke becomes a bleeding stroke. Bleeding strokes are much more dangerous than a clot. They are often fatal. Heparin does not dissolve the clot.

Heparin is again an excuse for keeping the patient in the hospital. Heparin is dangerous if not monitored carefully. Even with monitoring, it can be administered improperly and may cause worsening of the stroke or some unexpected reaction, which could kill you.

In some international tests, aspirin has been proven to be better than heparin and in any case it is safer.

Aspirin can be given at home. It does not require intensive monitoring, because it is not as complicated or dangerous as heparin.

So it they want to give you heparin, ask them why, you cannot take aspirin (and make them put it in writing). Heparin will justify them keeping you in the hospital for Medicare - aspirin will not!!

In European nursing manuals heparin is ruled out for use with strokes. Aside from ICH (inter cranial hemorrhaging) strokes, it appears to be common in Florida.

It appears Zoe had a reaction to the heparin (whether caused by the nurse or the physician is unclear, because the records appear to have been fraudulently manipulated) which damaged her heart, possibly CPR was given. The HMO hospital and the responsible doctors attempted to cover it up. AHCA approves of their actions. Florida's PRO, FMQAI, does, too.

In Zoe's case it was contraindicated because of the large size of the clot (olive-sized), because the patient had recent eye surgery, and because the patient had been hospitalized for over-thinned blood previously (thrombocytopenia). This did not bother the hospital neurologist from prescribing it. He mentioned no side-effects or alternatives. According to the hospital records, an aspirin had already been given, which influences the effect of heparin.

Heparin was the only treatment, which could justify keeping the elderly patient at the hospital. At the time of the prescription, the patient was in stable condition. Medicare does not allow admission to the hospital if the patient is in stable condition and can be treated elsewhere. Aspirin could have been given at home.

6. If you are a non insulin dependent diabetic, do not let them start you on insulin. This, too is an attempt to justify a hospital stay. Zoe was insulin intolerant, the insulin injections were no improvement over an oral medication.

7. Watch out for the proposal of a neuro psychologist. This also appears to be a way of milking Medicare. If you review the problems, which the elderly seem to come down with, almost all these conditions are worsened by psycho drugs. Sometimes they will really make a mental case out of the patient.

I still do not understand the pressure put on Zoe's surrogate to allow a psycho evaluation of the patient.

8. If you are able, get out of the hospital with home health care. The doctor can prescribe it immediately (after 3 days hospitalization, in any case). Care at home is superior to any at the hospital or skilled nursing facility.

The facilities are overworked and understaffed and consequently prone to make mistakes.

The hospital helps cover-up their mistakes, so consequently you really do not know what is going on and what is happening.

In Zoe's case the doctors and hospital knew more than she and the health surrogate. An adverse incident within 12 hours of admission was apparently covered up. Not having been informed of this generated problems and complications, which may have been worked out, had the patient's rights to this information not been violated. (Apparently the unethical doctors under the auspices of the "top 100 hospital" denied Zoe necessary medical treatment and continued a contraindicated therapy to keep up the show, that no mistake had been made)!

At home, they cannot hide these things as well, because the patient is being watched by family or friends or one responsible party.

9. If you have the feeling something is wrong, you are probably right. If the hospital has made a mistake, they will probably try to cover it up, at least in the case of Florida's top hospitals. They apparently know, AHCA will never find anything even with proof shoved under their noses. I believe an HMO hospital has an easier time of this manipulation than a non-HMO hospital. The HMO seems to have total insider control.

You have a right to your medical records. If they forbid you to see them, they are violating federal and state laws, and there must be a reason for it!

The Florida AHCA apparently thinks it is perfectly all right for the patient's rights to be violated. Zoe's case documented it.

If the lady at the desk starts asking if the doctor will allow it, you can also be sure, something went wrong. She is versed in the laws and knows the problems the hospital faces - what Medicare allows and does not, what the controlling authorities will look for. She will not always be honest and will not be on your side, no matter how friendly, she may be. (I base this on the experience, I had at a "nation's top 100 hospital" in Florida. I was even told, no facility would accept my mother without a PEG-operation - untrue. I was not given the choice of taking Zoe home with home health care and therapy, because, I would have jumped at it. The hospital wanted control of Zoe and her records, especially after the adverse incidents. These critical conditions were never documented by the doctors, so they never happened, right?

10. If the patient has a living will (DNR = do not resuscitate status), make sure they will honor it. Medicare should not pay if any attempt is made to continue your life after the patient stops breathing or your heart stops. All treatments should be considered Medicare fraud and not be paid. We now have the issue of when will DNR be honored: in the interest of the patient or in the interest of the hospital. DNR is a tricky issue!

I believe, Zoe was given CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) to keep her from documenting a hospital ADE (adverse drug incident). That the person was 88 years old, and had had a stroke, which would probably affect her quality of life was already known. That not breathing would have worsened the stroke further, would have damaged her brain further and apparently had damaged her heart, was known by the hospital. Yet her living will was not respected here. (This event was hidden from the patient and surrogate). Somehow a dead body, which can be linked directly to a medically induced incident does not look good. A damaged patient is preferable to the hospital.

I am not sure, now that I am aware of the apparent medically induced adverse incident (probably an ureported code 15) if Zoe would not have been allowed to die in the "hospital- wanted" PEG operation. This non-emergency operation was scheduled when the patient was highly-critical without our consent.

In the nursing home, Zoe had an apparent arterial embolism, which was left untreated for almost two whole days. After the patient, who was in extreme pain, finally stopped breathing, then CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) was ordered and an order was given to take the patient to the emergency room - after death not before . By this time the patient probably had "dry gangrene" and would have never ever walked again, would have been a semi-vegetable.

I know of another case, where a 98 year old with a living will stopped breathing. He had many heart problems, which had debilitated him. He was intubated and kept alive against his and his daughter's wishes for two weeks to the tune of $170,000. This man could have died at peace - just having stopped breathing- but was kept alive by jamming a tube down his throat against his living will, and tortured for another two weeks at this age. His daughter is still suffering the knowledge of this violation of her father's patient's rights! Medicare paid the bill.

Patients have a right to die with dignity.

My own grandmother was put on kidney dialysis in her 105th year. Medicaid paid. At least her doctor allowed to have it discontinued without a court order. She was ready to go; she did not deserve this violation of her right to die in dignity.

These battles should not be necessary. Unfortunately, they occur too often. Profit seems to dictate, what is done, not the patient's desires or rights.

Death is as natural as birth. Where money interests are involved, the patients' rights appear to be massively violated. If you stop functioning in old age or even younger, the world goes on without us. Dying is part of life. We should learn to accept it.

The medical profession seems to accept death as natural, when they are malpracticing and being negligent. As long as there is a profit to be made, they believe in extending life. It seems paradoxical.