| Loveda Powell was 80 years old and needed anyone in the medical industry to find out why she was not swallowing her food and drink. Mother lived in the Springfield, Oregon area and the hospital there on 2/08/02 saw her, but they allowed her to leave in her condition, which was pneumonia and just sent her home. Mother's sister cared for her over the weekend, but saw that she was getting worse and needed others to take care of mother.
We already knew how her medical health was being untreated in that area, so we quickly got her to Salem, Oregon. I am her daughter and my twin sister and I took on this mission to help mother's health to get treated. My twin got her to live with me on 2/11/02 and by 2/11/02 I had her admitted to my local hospital and they saw that she had pneumonia. Mother was there until 2/23/02 and released back to my home with Home Health Services following a pneumonia patient.
By the 26-27 of February I saw that mother was changing her eating, slowing down and then not eating hardly at all. I asked her if this was something she has been dealing with and it was, but no one would help with her swallowing problem. A lot of testing had gone on, but no answers, just excuses for an old lady with many other medical conditions.
I had to have mother seen at out E.R. on 2/27/02, but they saw nothing wrong, but they gave a referral for an outside clinic, for mother was waiting for her new doctor on 3/8/02. This clinic saw nothing and sent her home.
I had to have mother seen again at E.R. on 3/4/02 and they saw nothing wrong. Mother was losing weight, not swallowing and had some bowel changes. Mother was so fatigued and had left quadrant pain, for it was new to her and very bothersome.
Now mother see's her new doctor and he does one x-ray of her tailbone area, ook blood and gave flu/pneumonia shots and sent her home. He would tell us about the results of x-ray. Mother was not getting any better daily, so I had her seen again on 3/11/02 at E.R. and they now admitted her for a Urinary Track Infection. Mother was there for almost 10 days, still not swallowing well, eating little bits of food, had supplement drinks for her light liquid diet only. Mother was still losing weight, malnurished, dehydrated and had developed a bedsore and they had to discharge her by 3/21/02.
They wanted her out and either back to me as is or to a nursing home "as is", so we opted for the facility due to other issues medically that had to be helped. Home Health Care is not good care to help mother from what I saw earlier with their services after pneumonia episode. Mother's new doctor was on vacation during her UTI and she had his on-call doctor that released her, because she had to be dumped out of the hospital. This is their rules and Medicare's rules. It is patient dumping of the worse kind.
Mother was transported to the nursing home on 3/21/02.
This is where the nightmare begins and lasted for 19 days.
We ended up taking mother out to die at my home on 4/10/02.
Mother lived for another 5 days and passed on April 15, 2002.
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