Patient dies after hospital closes

[n2doc]

Michael Yanul lived at Oak Forest Hospital in Illinois for 17 years. He died after he was moved to a nursing home.

CHICAGO - A patient who predicted he would not survive a move from a now-closed Illinois charity hospital has died three weeks after his transfer to a nursing home, family and friends said yesterday.

The death of Michael Yanul, 58, who had muscular dystrophy and breathed with a ventilator, raises questions about how Cook County managed patient transfers while closing the hospital in Chicago’s south suburbs.

Facing a multimillion-dollar budget deficit, Cook County converted Oak Forest Hospital to an outpatient center in August to save money. Earlier this year, protesters opposed to closing the hospital took Yanul’s photo to several public hearings. They said they wanted officials to see the face of patients who would be most affected.

Yanul, who had been cared for at Oak Forest for 17 years, moved into a nursing home chosen by his family Aug. 31. Yanul’s brother, Tom Yanul, said he died Sept. 20 of pneumonia and a blood infection.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2011/09/29/patient-dies-after-ill-hospital-closes/a8nkXQL5ACk3JCVs11z7GL/story.xml

[KamaAina]

1. He should never have been transferred to a nursing home! They're dangerous.

Of course, it's Illinois, which is among the very worst when it comes to home- and community-based services, so I'm hardly surprised.

Here's the money quote: "Yanul, who had been cared for at Oak Forest for 17 years, moved into a nursing home chosen by his family Aug. 31.

The man was 58 years old, and he had a physical, not intellectual, disability. :wtf: was his family doing making decisions for him? Did anyone ask him what he wanted? I'm gonna guess No.

This is also as good a place as any to harp on the point that fully one-quarter of all nursing home resdients are people under age 65 who have significant disabilities. FREE OUR PEOPLE!!

http:///www.adapt.org

[dkf]

2. I bet it wasn't the transfer itself but the care afterward.

Ironically my uncle got pneumonia after he got in the hospital because when he was eating/ drinking fluid was going in to his lungs.

The solution for that is to thicken what he ingested. They said a lot of seniors die this way.

[hlthe2b]

3. Nursing homes in this country are frequently like hospice...

without the quality of care. Not always, certainly, but increasingly. Heaven help a younger person warehoused in one. The not-so-rare attitude is often not conducive with providing good quality of life for the long term (or even the short term)...

[patrice]

4. Effects of one-size-fits-all "health" "care". Individual differences in staff have no Real Value.

:sarcasm:

[patrice]

5. This is the result of systems that do not recognize qualities, only QUANTITIES. Similar to NCLB . .

such systems ONLY count THINGS.

The differentiating qualities of persons/places/events/... are ir-relevant.

[patrice]

6. There ARE also stories of persons who went from nursing homes to hospitals and died.

[patrice]

7. I know that face.

O8) Ernie O8)

:cry:

[patrice]

8. . . .

:cry: :cry: :cry: . . .