As a Medicaid patient in Rhode Island, I'm not entitled to having my bed held in any for-profit nursing care facility automatically. If I go to the hospital for an emergency, such as my kidneys not working or my nephrostomies leaking or no longer allowing urine to drain or an infection or three trying to kill me as they are wont to do. Even if I'm gone for barely over 24 hours, I can have my bed sold out from under me. That has happened to me twice since January and my life has been turned upside down and I can't bear to have it happen again. It's too much and the thought of it happening again just because I need to go to the hospital is overwhelming.
No nursing care facility is perfect, but for-profit facilities and the people who own them are more concerned (in my opinion and in my experience) with making money than actually caring for resident patients. One ownership group in a facility I used to be in even failed to pay for their employees' health insurance for six or more months while continuing to take money out of their checks every week.
This Spotfund is for me to have an emergency fund I can access in a timely fashion that will let me pay bed-hold fees if I end up in the hospital because of an emergency for two or three nights. Having such available will make me feel safer and more secure. It's terrifying to be in the hospital while very sick and find out you're not going back to the place you'd been being cared for. It's unfair. It's wrong on so many levels. It's amoral. It's avaricious. It's CRUEL. It's dehumanizing.
People in nursing care facilities lose much of their personhood and free will as soon as they go into such a place. You can refuse medications but you can't choose when to take them (per proper directions, of course). You rarely get to choose your meals. You seldom get to choose your roommate, if ever. Your autonomy is stripped from you. So losing what little security you have because you got to the hospital in an emergency? That's beyond awful. I know that from my own experiences.
If you can spare a few dollars without causing yourself hardship, please help me raise money for my emergency fund so I don't lose my bed in my current facility the next time (and there will be a next time) I end up having to stay overnight in a hospital. I like where I am. As I said, nowhere is perfect, but this place is very pleasant and the staff are lovely.
Thank you for reading. I appreciate your kind attention.
Virginia Lee Bollinger
