[kaiserthrive.org editor’s note: Kaiser Permanente often defends repeat malpractice offenders — such as Dr. Death Jayant Patel — for years, resulting in many unnecessary patient deaths. Unlike medical care, where every penny is pinched, they spare no expense defending Kaiser’s negligence. The running joke is that KP will spend $1,000,000 to defend a $1,000 claim, and to say that Kaiser lawyers play dirty to win is unfortunately a gross understatement. Never forget who is footing the bill: that’s right, YOU, the members.
This article was originally published by the Bakersfield Californian, and is no longer available on its website.]
Negligence claims go to medical board
Doctor’s license on the line amid allegations of endangering patient
BY EMILY HAGEDORN, Californian staff writer
The state medical board is seeking to revoke or suspend a local physician’s license after her patient was not admitted to the hospital promptly and developed blood poisoning.
The state attorney general, on behalf of the medical board, says Dr. Degrasia Anne Howard committed multiple acts of gross negligence, in a report filed June 15.
Howard could not be reached for comment.
“We will be cooperating fully with the medical board, but we are defending Dr. Howard in this case,” said Cristy Cortez-Sackrider, spokeswoman for Bakersfield’s Kaiser Permanente, for which Howard works. Cortez-Sackrider wouldn’t comment on the specifics of the case.
On April 9, 2005, Howard saw the female patient, identified as “K.Z.,” in the medical board filing, and noted the patient had abdominal pain, bloating, loose stools and bleeding for five weeks.
After looking at stool samples, a colonoscopy and biopsies, Howard determined the patient was probably suffering from ulcerative colitis, a type of inflammatory bowel disease that affects the large intestine and rectum, the medical board’s report says.
The patient did not respond to medication and during the next three to four weeks continued to have bloody stools and as many as 30 bowel movements a day. She continued to see Howard, who tried different medicines, but to no avail, the filing says.
On May 7, 2005, the patient was admitted to the hospital for diarrhea, acute respiratory distress syndrome, pneumonia with respiratory failure, anemia and septic shock, which is a serious condition that occurs when an overwhelming infection leads to low blood pressure and blood flow and may cause the brain, heart, kidneys and liver to fail, the filing says.
She was in the hospital through May 19, 2005, and made a gradual and slow recovery.
“The accusation alleges negligent care of a patient with a history of bloating and bloody diarrhea and for not admitting the patient directly to the hospital,” said Candis Cohen, spokeswoman for the medical board.
Anytime there’s an adverse outcome with a case, it is reviewed internally, Cortez-Sackrider said.
Howard does not have any other public disciplinary actions against her license, according to the medical board’s Web site.
She is still practicing medicine, Cortez-Sackrider said.
Howard graduated from Howard University’s College of Medicine in 1978 and has had her California license since December 1982.
The medical board is seeking a hearing in which the board is advocating that Howard’s license be revoked or suspended, her authority to supervise physician assistants be revoked or suspended or that if placed on probation, she is made to pay the costs of probation monitoring.
According to the Office of Administrative Hearings Web site, a hearing date has not been set.
What? You mean someone at Kaiser is going to be held accountable for their negligence? This deserves a news flash on CNN.
Oh, I just LOVE their domain name at
“healthcarereformnow.org”
Do you think they’d take $15 for it and then I could put it to better use?
You get a “sneek peek” at Halvorson’s new book here:
http://www.healthcarereformnow.org/…
This “mini version” looks and sounds more like a Jr. High School student’s essay, but his closing statment is….well…priceless:
“Be well — and if you are not well — be careful.”
George C. Halvorson
Oh My God. You mean, we are all supposed to go to Kaiser now for Universal Healthcare? Let’s just sink the ship now at lightening speed.
Halvorson is out of his ratty little mind. Who does he think he is kidding?
“healthcarereformnow.org”
Kaiser has always been the “poor man’s insurance” and now that the universal health care train has finally started rolling they are trying to jump on by misrepresenting themselves as the philanthropists that they aren’t. Image is everything after all.
One needs to look no further than Kaiser’s Hawaii region for evidence of their deceitfulness, where every time universal health care is discussed Kaiser is first in line to oppose it:
Note that in two sentences Kaiser has dissed the successful — and much-loved by its citizens — Canadian universal health care system AND tried to scare people into believing that not handing over every last penny we have to the insurance industry would be un-American and lead to our demise. The problem is that our greed-infested health care non-system is far from a “success”, and folks are finally starting to catch on.
Why the hypocrisy? Because Hawaii has a mandated employer insurance law that discourages competition, and which allows the few insurers willing to do business there to practice their extortion unfettered. Even with employer-paid insurance Hawaii’s uninsured rate is 10% and rising, and Kaiser couldn’t care less about THAT.
“…a universal health care system similar to Canada’s, which critics have panned for providing insufficient care, would not be accepted by Americans…”
Critics have panned Kaiser for providing insufficient care, but that hasn’t stopped them from doing it!
Justen Deal has some interesting things to say about Halvorson’s book here.
Have you seen the list of positive reviews on the book’s website?
Ian Morrison
Pete Stark
Alain Enthoven
Helen Darling
Jeffrey McGuiness
Let’s go down the list.
Ian Morrison is regularly paid by Kaiser Permanente and lists them as one of his clients.
Pete Stark’s largest contributors are (coincidentally enough) “health professionals.” KP has contributed thousands to his campaigns.
Alain Enthoven regularly writes for The Permanente Journal and recently cowrote a book with a KP executive (which was coincidentally published by the same firm that’s publishing Halvorson’s book).
Helen Darling works for a firm which is paid thousands of dollars every year by KP.
Jeffrey McGuiness also works for a firm to which KP also pays thousands of dollars every year.
Obviously these people all loved George’s book on its merits, not because he paid them Kaiser members money.
Well it’s all just one big incestuous clusterf*ck, isn’t it?
Hey, a quick note about the Canadian health care system (and yes, they really DO have a system)… just last night I met a woman from Canada and I asked her how the health care system was and her response was “GREAT!” She said it really is true. She lives in the states temporarily and said that her employer here offers health insurance for $400. a month. She’s 27 and has decided to go without health insurance for the time being. So much for the American health care “system.”
I am STILL blown away by Kaiser and halvorson’s “healthcare reform.” I think that’s the funniest thing i’ve ever heard.
Well I held my nose and visited Halvorson’s site. After the nausea passed I took a look around, and ended up on his Contact page. Check out the drop down list of “topics”:
1. Press inquiry for George Halvorson
2. Questions about the book/ordering
3. Comment on health care reform
4. Comments/questions about our web site
How nice of George to provide us with an ordered list of his and Kaiser’s priorities. Media manipulation first, sales second, and “health care reform” somewhere near the bottom. Someone commented on our last post (the one about Kaiser’s continued dumping of homeless patients on skid row in violation of the settlement agreement):
How very, very true.
I encourage everyone who reads this to head on over to George’s home on the net to drop him a line. A few questions you might ask:
1. If he’s so interested in health care reform, why does Kaiser Hawaii actively oppose universal health care, when 10% of its citizens are uninsured?
2. Why is health care reform 3rd on his list of priorities after “press inquiries” and “book sales”.
3. Why does Kaiser always defend negligent doctors no matter how egregious the offense?
4. Why does Kaiser ration health care, while at the same time spending unlimited amounts of member money on advertising, public relations and legal fees?
5. Why does Kaiser (and George personally) always opt for smearing critics rather than correcting the problems that lead to the criticism?
6. Why are members and employees never treated fairly in disputes?
7. Why do Kaiser lawyers pull every dirty trick in the book to deny due process to patients and employees that have been harmed?
That ought to get you started, and I’m sure everyone has a few questions of their own for George.
What I want to know, is, if Kaiser were to be appointed and contracted as the provider for our Universal Health, will they go along with sloppy science theories in order to prevent diseases that have been shown as genetically caused? What will they do about genetically caused illnesses that are not wholly lifestyle caused?
There’s an article making the rounds about an older Kaiser researcher whose theory about preventative care is that diabetes, smoking, obesity, addictions, (just about any illness) all come from negative events that happen in the person’s childhood. He suggests *parenting classes* as prevention for these diseases!
I just heard on CNN that the Republicans’ stance on health care for the coming election will be **prevention.** Like it’s all our fault that we need health care. Looks like they are joing Kaiser in putting some big guilt trips on a lot of unfortunate people.
Maybe they can cut costs by revamping kaisers broccoli campaign BS?
A little too much kaiser influence for me. It’s making me sick at my stomach.
I think i’ll go eat some fruits and veggies, get myself feeling better again.
President Cheney and his lap dog Bushie-boy have so thoroughly destroyed the reputation of their party, I don’t think we have much to worry about from the Republicans in the next election. Unfortunately most of the Democratic candidates aren’t very likely to support any meaningful health care legislation that will actually help people, either. Too busy cashing the checks from big pharma and the insurance industry.
So far John Edwards has the best plan for health care reform, and everything else in my opinion.
Great! Thanks Admin, i’ve been wanting to find out more about John Edward’s Universal Healthcare Plan. So far, if he keeps talking and doesn’t get starry-eyed
over any insurance $$$$ then he’s definitely got my vote but we had better seriously see some action on the healthcare front. And i’m not talking the kind of BS that Halvorson is dishing out. That’s just bogus and phony crap (and that’s being polite).
I just signed up to see John Edwards talk on Tuesday. I wonder if he would like to see a picture of Lehna, no wait, perhaps Halvorson would like to see a picture of Lehna to assist in his healthcare reform plans.
Edwards’ plan isn’t perfect either, but at least it doesn’t feed us to the insurance industry against our will.
I should have mentioned Kucinich, who supports Medicare for all (really THE best way to go IMO). But I don’t know much about him otherwise, and I don’t think there is a very good chance that he will win the nomination.
http://www.dennis4president.com/
Pingback: Wolf in wool. : justen
Hello Kaiser haters…How many of you have or will read George’s book?
Hello Kaiser employee…are you taking a survey for George? If he is having a hard time selling his pack of lies about health care reform, maybe it’s because he can’t even reform his own organization.
And if you’re going to resort to name calling, please get it right: make that Kaiser Victims. You know, people who have been maimed by Kaiser; had family members killed by Kaiser; been re-victimized by Kaiser lawyers in rigged arbitration; perhaps even had their medical records tampered with to cover up yet another scandal at Kaiser Permanente. THAT kind of victim.
How many people did you victimize today?
Hey there WhyYouGottaHateOnKP? Kaiser Victim here…
Wanted to respond to your question regarding George’s newest comedy piece, his umm, book.
I’ve got lots of time on my hands now to read since Kaiser did, in fact, kill my baby. I don’t have my baby here to raise so I guess, for entertainment purposes, i’ll give George’s book a read. I expect it to be quite an entertainingly funny book though cuz I imagine NONE of it will be true. It’s another feeble attempt to make KP look great which any Kaiser Victim can attest to, is SIMPLY not true. Maybe while George is trying to jump on the healthcare bandwagon he’ll fall and scrape his knee and have to go to Kaiser for care. Now that would be funny.
George had the good sense to have his heart attack in Minnesota.
He must have known what he was getting himself into, heading off to the golden state of Ca to make his riches.
Someone mentioned I was name calling. When did I do that? Perhaps reacting to the name I chose to use. That was a stupid thing to call myself. I see and hear why you gotta hate on KP. It is just that I think sometimes the hate and rage is not a very good emotional starting point to udnerstand the issues going on in healthcare today. So..I only ask that you work towards some objectivity to listen what leaders (and yes George is a leader in this field) have to say about it. So, if you could give the book a read in this fashion…I would like to hear what you think about it.
It was a reaction to “Hello kaiser haters…” because it is Kaiser’s policy to marginalize and discredit critics, rather than address the very valid complaints reported here and elsewhere. It’s a frequently used bully tactic, but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt that you didn’t mean it that way.
I will read George’s book if I can get it free at the library, or when people start dumping their copies on eBay for a quarter.
I was at a KP employee meeting the other day and they were giving these Halvorson books away for free…heard they’d been literally giving away hundreds…made me wonder who paid for them? Last time I checked, not-for-profits weren’t supposed to spend their money purchasing books to boost sales to make their CEO look good–they were supposed to spend them on patient care. Bet you won’t see that regulation written into Schwarzenegger’s reform bill either. Go figure.