I am Vickie Travis and I have done what I could to help Ron Panzer spread the word for 20 years. He has kindly asked me to write something for the HPA newsletter. I wanted to share my Dad’s story again which I now understand better than I did 20 years ago. Like many family members whose loved ones were killed in hospice, there are many twists and turns in the evil that was done to end my father’s life.
I could have included many more details but to make this less lengthy than it already is, have left some of those details out.
Like so many, we trusted those we should not have trusted and were manipulated, lied to, coerced, intimidated, and eventually victimized by those who were supposed to care for our loved one!
On September 11, 2000 my father, Adam Wesley Arnold, who had been signed up with Kaiser Permanente to undo damage caused by a physician who was committing Medicare fraud, instead of being helped, my father was killed in the process!
Our father had been illegally forced into the Kaiser hospice program based upon false information. Kaiser was formally sanctioned for their part in this. We were never notified if the health insurance company or the original physician responsible were investigated or not.
The original doctor had initially prescribed a heart medication for our father claiming he had a terrible heart problem that caused tremors and extreme panic attacks. Knowingly, the doctor then falsely diagnosed Parkinson's disease based on that medication’s adverse effects: tremors and other symptoms which then the doctor falsely diagnosed several other non-existent diseases. The insurance company refused to locate another doctor for him.
My Dad had made it clear to my husband and I that he had fired that physician because he knew that she was causing him to be ill with her false diagnoses and medications that were harming him. The next day, a series of horrible and criminal things were done to him.
The following day he needed help getting up after he fell. Our Mom then called the paramedics for help. They took him to the hospital where he was examined and released to go home. Even though he had been released to go home, this doctor showed up and had him intubated! The doctor claimed that all of a sudden our Dad was dying and was whisked off to the ICU and then we were told he needed a pacemaker placed at another hospital (which didn’t make sense).
The ICU director told us that our father did not need a pacemaker, but he was transferred to that other hospital where the same doctor added more completely false diagnoses and at one point was caught attempting to transfer our father to a nursing home 50 miles away without medical cause, without notifying the family, and without any legal authorization. This was planned to happen after visiting hours when the family would be at home. The doctor referred to it as "her nursing home." I only learned about it because the staff openly talked about it in front of me. They thought I was a nurse and actually handed me the medical records at one point.
At the hospital, as the physician refused to allow our father to leave. Our father at one point attempted to get up and just leave. He was beaten so severely by the staff for doing this that you could see hand prints outlined in shiny black bruises all over his torso. No one did anything to investigate, nor protect him, or to do anything to help him. We attempted to have him transferred to another hospital and the doctor said that the only way she would release him was if he had a fatal dose of morphine in his body. Of course, when we called the police, they did nothing effective to help him.
My Dad was tied to the bed, had food withheld and was over sedated with 10 different psychotropic drugs at one time. Experts who did examine him in this time period expressed disgust at the poor medical care being provided but would not intervene on our father's behalf.
The doctor at one point claimed our Dad had leukemia and needed transfusions from the hospital blood bank. We all held out our arms and said we would donate. So finally the hospital did test us and those that had compatible blood were set to donate. Our Dad suddenly recovered from that diagnosis after the hospital was caught in that lie and they suddenly did not want our blood. We never did donate blood for our father. Our Dad suddenly was cured of leukemia after our testing. They never said they made a mistake. They claimed a cure.
The doctor then said that she would release him from her care and he could leave that hospital in three days if we allowed her to perform a tracheotomy on him. She also claimed he needed a permanent ventilator to breathe and he would not recover from his so called COPD. We felt we had no other option at that time but to allow it so he could be transferred somewhere else. I personally spoke with the doctor and indeed that is exactly what she stated. So we agreed to allow this. The doctor's husband who worked at another hospital performed the operation that evening.
Three days later the doctor again claimed he needed to have a PEG tube placed in his stomach since the previous operation made it so he could not eat any longer and if we allowed that she promised she would release him, again in three days. She still refused to allow him to leave after that and we were told if we helped him leave they would have us arrested.
At one time they actually did force us to go outside the hospital under threat of arrest, then they pulled the curtains to his room shut so we could not see him and again the police were called by us to no avail. We complied with the doctors demands and she had the PEG feeding tube placed in his stomach.
All these operations and procedures made money for the physician and the hospital but they were not at all necessary for my Dad!
To add insult to injury, they then had staff pretend that they couldn't use the feeding tube and made a big mess to demonstrate their incompetence. It was an obvious scam that we could not stop.
The lies and manipulations became even more blatant and ridiculous:
Incredibly, the doctor claimed that our Dad had what she called, “abnormally long lungs,” and that they didn't have an X-ray machine that could cover the area. How ridiculous! But that’s what she said. That is why she claimed my Dad needed to be on a ventilator which turned out to be unnecessary nor was one actually used. I don't know if they thought we were stupid, but we did know they were committing fraud. We just couldn't do anything about it legally at that time.
The doctor still would not allow him to leave to be treated at any other hospital. Finally an authority from another hospital examined him and declared that our father had been placed on an air pump, and not on a ventilator as the doctor and staff had claimed. Apparently that was enough leverage to arrange a transfer to another hospital with the intent to undo the damage this doctor had caused.
Still, yet again, the doctor dragged her feet. It ended with the hospital providing a professional sitter in his room for protection while we had family members also sitting with him and attorneys and the police finally got involved to monitor what was going on. With all these people present, this physician actually made another completely false diagnosis and all the family members burst out in laughter at her statement.
Around this time, the hospital staff would disconnect the air pump so it would beep indicating a patient emergency. They then did what’s called a “slow code blue,” where very slowly, staff would walk to the patient’s room and then stand around doing nothing. We pointed out that they intentionally pulled the plug and that stopped the problem for a while.
We spoke to other patient families and learned we were not the only ones going through this madness that only increased the patients’ and our suffering while racking up tens of thousands of dollars for the physicians and hospital owners.
All this was done solely done to maximize their revenue and was Medicare fraud.
Our Dad was finally transferred to yet another hospital to undo the damage that had been done. Unfortunately, the nurses there went on strike and not much was accomplished. The tubes never were removed and he was neglected and abused in several ways including giving him medications that again, he didn’t need and actually harmed him.
My Dad later came home and had home care nurses to “care for” him, but they did not treat him properly and did not do much at all. Eventually a Kaiser Permanente Health plan salesperson came to the door and another family member signed him up with Kaiser. We thought that nothing worse could happen. We were so wrong!
Kaiser Home Health assigned a physician to our Dad but that physician never actually examined him. At first the home health care was decent and kind but was not curative as he was never examined nor were his medical records ever reviewed.
A few months into this maintenance care Kaiser decided to move our father into hospice and a new nurse was assigned who made things worse. We later learned that there was court documentation that showed this nurse had abused patients so badly that they died.
The care under Kaiser then mostly disappeared. When we asked this nurse why he was hurting our Dad, he readily told us that he was intentionally killing our father! He explained he received a bonus for getting rid of our father one way or another. Kaiser didn't care how he did it. We demanded that Kaiser provide another nurse after explaining what he had told us. They refused and the nurse simply refused to come to the house again. He was upset that we gave our father real food and provided physical therapy. He did not want any of that to be allowed.
By this time the only medication other than vitamins our father received was potassium, and we did not understand at the time the danger of giving that to him. By this time, we knew that he did not have any of the previous misdiagnoses the original physician had made.
This nurse who caused our Dad's demise was sent out one more time and told us he was there to, "act as a closer to "close" the account for hospice, such as would be done to “finalize a car sale." By this time our father had a urinary tract infection intentionally caused by unsanitary practices by this same nurse using “dirty technique.”
My Dad was almost ready to walk again. No nurse showed up for three weeks after this. We did have access to other physicians who explained to us what our father was going through and what we could do to help him. They did not offer to personally help him though.
Finally two Kaiser nurses came to the house to change the trach tube and did something else to weaken him terribly. They forced me out of the room when they did this so I do not know exactly what they did. One nurse also went through the cupboards in the kitchen looking for something that I never did understand. I also was ordered out of the kitchen.
They left the trach tube and bloody gauzes next to him on the bed. The next day they demanded we give the tube and gauze back to them when I called and asked them what to do with it. They also asked us to provide assistance with an investigation into the other “closer” nurse that harmed our father which was not a problem.
My Dad’s feeding tube had never been changed and it leaked all over. They did not fix that and they claimed that the test results for his urinary tract infection had not yet come in after three weeks. We later learned that was yet another lie.
The night our father died we learned that he had been listed in the Kaiser computer system as deceased for two weeks. We had tried all day to get him help but none was available. When we finally reached the evening call nurse who would talk to us, she advised us to take him to an ER immediately. Kaiser hospital staff made it clear that whatever hospital anyone took him to would turn him away because Kaiser would refuse to pay for any care even if we offered to pay cash, even if we handed money to them in advance. They also advised that they would refuse him any and all medical care if we brought him to any Kaiser hospital. They then openly laughed at us for trying to get him help and told us to not bother them again while we begged for help. It was a terrible night.
A non Kaiser physician later reviewed the records and determined that our father died from a Potassium overdose and a urinary tract infection – that they never treated – and therefore had turned into a fatal septic infection. It also was proven that someone at Kaiser had also attempted to alter the computer medical records but they were unable to make their attempt disappear. They could not remove the template and it was still time and date stamped.
When someone dies from an intentional potassium overdose it is an evil thing and is quite painful. The patient’s heart and lungs can stop while the patient knows exactly what is happening. It is a form of torture and should never happen to any patient, ever.
Although the drug is commonly used beneficially, when misused to overdose a patient it can easily kill someone. Potassium was also used on death row in California for many years. It can cause paralysis and also mimic symptoms of Parkinson’s disease.
After my Dad died, the Los Angeles police department confirmed it was a murder. The DA's office confirmed it was a murder. They told us that our father's case was one of over 250 other medical murders by Kaiser medical personnel done to patient cases on hold waiting to be prosecuted. They could not prosecute though due to political issues and political concerns!
Until the political issues were resolved they were prevented from prosecuting any of the cases. HHS did find fraud and did demand the return of all Medicare monies to them received by Kaiser. The nurse confessed and no one did a thing about it.
The Director with the L.A. County Health Department, contracted with HHS who conducted the two week on site investigation was fired the day the HHS Sanction was made public.
It was a confusing and horrible time. Our family had no experience with any of this and certainly knew nothing about Medicare fraud at the time. We tried very hard to save our Dad but were unable to do so! We also showed exactly what was done to him and why.
When you are providing the best care that you can to any patient you simply do not have the luxury of spending hour after hour researching anything to become informed. Instead you spend all of your time taking care of the patient and trying to hold your family together. You do have the luxury of time to do research after the fact. That is how I met Ron Panzer and some attorneys and doctors who explained what had happened and why.
With the assistance of Ron Panzer, my father's story as we knew it to be at the time was presented to Congress, was read during an Elder Abuse Congressional Hearing, and was televised with his photograph on C-SPAN. The government honored him. Kaiser apologized formally. The government apologized. It didn't bring our father back.
Ron Panzer validated this story which helped us heal. He also helped prove this story so there is no question that it is accurate. Ron asked me to help spread the word, and I did the best that I could for 20 years and did so while standing against more obstacles than you can imagine. To tell you about all the obstacles Ron and I and others faced would fill books!
Most important, Ron Panzer listened when no one else would. He followed up and called to make sure we were fine. He did not abandon us when everyone else had. We were just another family damaged by crooked doctors and it is so common that the authorities “burn out.” I can't call them uncaring because they do care, but they cannot carry the burden of listening to the thousands of these cases and remain effective in their work, so they become callous.
No human can stand up to that and still be called human. What we experienced and what many experience exists in the realm of evil. Most people can only take so much and don’t wish to listen. We even had one of our daughter's husband and his family come to us and rudely say "We are sorry for your loss. We don't want to hear about it." Then they walked off.
This act of kindness and generosity on the part of Ron Panzer is why he is allowing this lengthy writing to be presented here. He understands the pain that is not going to ever go away and he understands what needs to be done to continue the healing.
Do not be misled and believe that this pain goes away. It never does. It will dull because other things happen in life that cover it, but it does not go away. That it will go away is a fallacy. It does not happen ever if you loved someone. What does happen is that you come to terms with yourself and learn to live with it and vow to try to never allow it to happen again.
People do not understand that their profound grief going through this is used by corporations to distract us from the truth. They want us to just put a big smile on our faces and get on with life, leaving all the horrible things that were done far behind us all. That doesn't really happen but a lot of people try to make it happen. Eventually the grief and anger will burst out in their lives and at probably the most inconvenient times. It is better to face it head on and learn as much as possible about it while ignoring those that know nothing about it but claim to.
It has been an honor serving the public alongside Ron Panzer. I have met many wonderful and loving people who value and understand the sanctity of life through this advocacy. I also sadly have met numerous criminals who brag that it is fine to kill for money. I spent two years interviewing law enforcement personnel, and criminals who do kill for money, and have learned from private detectives, college professors, physicians and nurses that there are thousands of people who are dirty and will kill for money in this country.
The easiest money to be made this way is from killing the weak and vulnerable. What happened to my father is not a rare series of events. We just happened to document it as we went through it. I did this study in an effort to disprove what I had been told by professionals but I failed. It is true that they intentionally kill patients, and as much as I wish it was not so, I had to face that truth and so should everyone.
I believe with all my heart that now it is time for everyone to speak the truth for it will overcome and defeat the great evil that has been unleashed on society with the intentional killing of vulnerable patients and the overall lack of enforcement of the laws that would protect them.
All people must now be strong and steadfast in continuing this mission of preserving the sanctity of life. All people must stand firm when facing the abominable lies and tricks that evil-minded staff use to manipulate families and patients to facilitate yet another medical killing.
All people need to put one foot in front of the other with this mission and never waver when the enemy places the illusion of a wall to try to stop you. The Truth Prevails. People know the truth when they hear it whether they want to admit it to themselves or not. The Evil wants you to believe that it is impossible to stop. The Evil is wrong. The Truth eventually always prevails.
I am attempting to retire. If you would like to contact me my email address is: vickie.travis AT gmail.com
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