Posted on 11/06/2002 11:08:03 AM PST by GeneD
Filed at 1:33 p.m. ET
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Country music legend Merle Haggard believes he may have been one of the patients who received unnecessary procedures at a Redding hospital, which FBI agents raided last week.
Federal authorities are investigating whether Dr. Chae Moon, director of cardiology at Redding Medical Center, and Dr. Fidel Realyvasquez Jr., chairman of the center's cardiac surgery program, ordered costly surgeries for healthy patients and then billed Medicare. Neither physician has been charged.
Haggard, 65, returned home to Redding after being on tour and found the town in an uproar over the allegations. The musician said he had a pair of heart stents put in by Moon and was suspicious of the operation at the time.
``I suspected when it was done to me that I didn't need'' an operation, Haggard told the Los Angeles Times for Wednesday's editions. ``The whole thing has made me mad. I'm just waiting here for the FBI to contact me.''
Haggard, whose hits include ``I'm Gonna Break Every Heart I Can,'' said he underwent angioplasty in 1995 in Nashville, Tenn., to open his clogged arteries. Afterward, doctors gave him a clean bill of health, so he was surprised when he went to Redding Medical Center two years later and Moon told him his heart was failing.
Haggard said he had emergency surgery the same day he consulted with Moon but always felt something was amiss.
``It just didn't hit me right,'' he said.
The musician said he talked again with Moon, who told him he should be placed on blood-thinning medication, and said he'd be a candidate for open-heart surgery in five years. Haggard declined to take the medication.
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