It is my most heartfelt belief Terri should never have been incarcerated at a hospice facility. Her condition did not warrant it. Her room should have been used for terminally ill patients that had 6 mos. or less to live.
It is a gross injustice to see a healthy disabled woman who only needed a little helping hand with eating via feeding tube to be starved to death and made to die before her time.
I heard the hospice spokeperson say today on CNN news that the hospice is not hastening her death and "she will die of natural causes".
I resent the spokesperson's insult to my intelligence with a statement such as the hospice spokesperson said as much as the relatives of patients resent being delayed when coming to see their loved ones before they die because an innocent woman has been ordered to die by court decree at the same hospice.
Everyones sensitivities are raw regarding this sordid and abhorrent idea that in America an otherwise healthy disabled innocent woman is starving to death.
Some cheer for her death, others are inconvenienced by all of the media focus and some are angry frustrated and disillusioned.
I work in the home health field and know medicare and medicaid regulations for hospices as well. The Hospice is guilty of medicare/medicaid fraud because they allowed Terri to be treated at their facility. A patient is eligible for hospice if they are diagnosed with a terminal illness - which the "official" definition is 6 months or less to live. The patients must be certified by a MD at admission and every 60-90 days. The certification must state that the patient is terminal (by the official definition). So there is fraud from the hospice, the physicians, the staff at the hospice, HINO, etc. The media has completely overlooked this as it is not a solution to Terri's plight. But I will be following up with the OIG and FL Medicaid System. Felos was involved with this agency when it was fined $$$$ for fraudulent hospice billing to Medicare several years ago so there is a history of fraud and abuse with this agency.