This is outrageous ! Please after you read this artical if you find it as
horrid as I do please take the time to write the people at the email
addresses at the end of the page .
A man’s life hangs in the balance, a man who is the sole custodian of his
2 young children.
Thanks,
Ayesha
By Carla McClain
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
A Tucson father who faces certain death without a new liver has been
kicked off the UA transplant list.
University of Arizona transplant officials confirm that David Rasmussen,
41, had been accepted for a lifesaving liver transplant but was taken off
the list for what they call “abusive” behavior to nurses.
The incident occurred while Rasmussen was hospitalized at University
Medical Center, after he tried futilely for 40 minutes to summon a nurse
to unhook him from tubes during an attack of diarrhea, he said.
Only words were exchanged during the incident, Rasmussen said, when a
nurse “yelled” at him for unhooking his own tubes so he could go to the
bathroom.
“I said something wrong when I was very sick, and now it’s a death
sentence,” said Rasmussen, who has sole custody of his two young children,
5 and 7.
“I had only one chance, and now I have no chance. It seems so strange to
me. I don’t know how one bad night can be enough to kill you.”
Nursing charts at the time of the incident confirm that Rasmussen was
plagued with diarrhea during his weeklong hospitalization for an extremely
serious liver condition known as hepatic encephalopathy.
The condition, which can be life threatening, is caused by hepatitis C,
the disease that has destroyed Rasmussen’s liver. He said he thinks he
contracted hepatitis C when he got a tattoo as a teen-ager.
The liver condition is known to cause disturbances of consciousness and
psychiatric changes in the patient.
Defending the decision to deny Rasmussen a transplant, UA officials point
to the extreme scarcity of donor livers.
“Livers are certainly scarce, and we have to make sure they go to people
who will benefit from this gift,” said Constance Glasby, UMC’s director of
transplant services.
"Success of a transplant depends on a patient’s willingness and ability to
comply with medical directions and on having a support system to help him
through the entire process.
"During this process, the patient develops a relationship with our team, a
relationship that is permanent. You just don’t get a transplant and then
go off fancy-free. They’re with us for life. It’s a serious commitment -
it’s a marriage.
"So the patient must refrain from causing any adverse relationship with
the team and must refrain from destructive behavior.
“I said something wrong when I was very sick, and now it’s a death
sentence.”
David Rasmussen
Liver transplant patient
“Mr. Rasmussen has demonstrated through specific actions or inactions that
he cannot make this commitment.”
Glasby added: “This is not just a single incident.”
But she declined to elaborate further, saying “UMC is not comfortable
discussing patients publicly.”
An examination of Rasmussen’s UMC medical records show only one
hospitalization, for seven days in February, since he was accepted for
transplant there in August 1999.
While he was in the hospital - both before and after the diarrhea incident
- nursing charts repeatedly describe Rasmussen as “pleasant,”
“cooperative,” “appropriate,” “social” and “agreeable.” His psychological
evaluation on the day he was discharged from UMC is marked “WNL” - “within
normal limits.”
It was only during one time period in the middle of his hospital stay that
nursing charts note “agitation” and “impatience,” as well as “grieving”
and “scared.”
Rasmussen said he was severely bloated - a symptom of the encephalopathy -
suffered severe diarrhea, was scared he might die and was worried about
his children.
It was that night that he could find no nurse to help him untangle his
lines and sheets and go to the bathroom.
“It seemed the nurses never had the time to be around. I could never get
help, when I was bleeding or vomiting, or with the diarrhea,” he said.
“This time, I pushed the button for 40 minutes, and no one came. I knew it
was going to be a real mess. I had to go very badly. So I unhooked the
heart monitor and broke one of the little plugs while I was doing it.”
When he got back to his bed, the nurse came in and berated him for
unhooking himself and breaking one of the lines, he said.
“She got very upset. She said I should never do that, no matter what was
going on. I don’t know what I said. I think I said she should have been
there to help. I was cranky. I admit it. I felt terrible, and I told her
she should have been there.”
He admitted he spoke “harshly” to the nurse, “as she had done to me.”
Rasmussen was also cited for throwing a small carton of milk across the
room the next morning. He said he was trying to throw it onto his food
tray. The nurses accused him of throwing it at a technician.
“That’s just not true. There was no one in the room when I threw it,” he
said.
Rasmussen also was cited for taking an over-the-counter antacid without
permission.
Nursing notes at this time say Rasmussen was “tired of waiting for his
milk,” “threw milk across the room” and “had concerns about plans for his
children after his death.”
Later that day, a UMC social worker told Rasmussen all of this “might be
enough to get you off the list,” he said.
"That shocked me. I had tears down my face. I said, ‘You can’t do that. It
took me two years to get here, and I’ve got to be there for my kids. I
don’t want to die.’
"I said, ‘Please, maybe I’m not acting my best, but I don’t want to die.’
"
A month later, UMC’s liver transplant surgeon, Dr. Paul Nakazato, wrote a
letter to Rasmussen’s primary-care physician saying Rasmussen was off the
UMC transplant list.
In the letter, Nakazato cited the February hospitalization that produced
“two major problems.”
"First, he does not have the standard support systems available for him to
be able to arrange clinic vis …[Message truncated]
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Mods, if I am out of line posting this let me know, I will apologise.