Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Standing up to the medical establishment

I'm proud of sister for standing up to the physician who has been doping my Dad into oblivion for the past week. Dad was bed bound and in a complete drug-induced hallucinatory stupor when my sister and mother visited him this afternoon. The physician reluctantly agreed to speak to my family, and had the audacity to tell them that by the time my father is released from the hospital he will no longer be able to walk. Did she come to that conclusion using her empirical skills or because she gave Dad so many sleeping pills that he couldn't move if he wanted to.

But this is how the medical establishment wants him: a docile body they can control from a wheelchair. They have transformed him into a wheel chair bound person in one week. He is their creation in a way.

My sister demanded that the physician put my Dad back on his Namenda and held steadfast. She stressed this was, after all, the recommendation of his neurologist at the VA in Boston and the psychiatrist at an area hospital where Dad was first admitted. Of course, the staff physician insisted that Dad's Alzheimer's medication would do nothing for him at this stage of the disease. My sister persisted until the doctor agreed.

1 comment:

Medawar said...

With regard to medical dictatorships, the most brutal despot in modern African history was Dr Hastings Banda, formerly a GP in South Shields, NE England.

The Geordies actually found him warm and caring, which begs the question of what his predecessor was like...