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Nursing Homes Can Refuse To Accept Drug Addicts That Need Care
My daughter is waiting for a facility to accept her
This is what my daughter has in her arm. It’s called a PICC (Peripherally inserted central catheter)line. She needs this to receive intravenous (IV) antibiotics for the next 6 weeks. She has MRSA(Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus). It’s a very virulent type of staph infection that resists many of the usual antibiotics that fight staph. She got it from using a dirty needle to shoot heroin.
According to Medlineplus.org, once the staph germ enters the body, it can spread to bones, joints, the blood, or any organ, such as the lungs, heart, or brain.
She has had MRSA for 4 years so her heart is already damaged. She just had surgery and there is a drain in the incision in her low back where the infection manifested in her lower spine. She can’t walk because of nerve damage. She stands and falls down. Less than a month ago she was walking just fine.
She needs to go to a nursing home for continued antibiotics and physical therapy to help her walk again.
Due to her history of drug addiction, only certain locked facilities can accept her. Out of a choice of 12 that take her insurance only one is considering taking her.
She is a liability.
Four years ago when she was in a nursing home under the same circumstances there were plenty of drugs smuggled in. Patients with direct intravenous lines right into the bloodstream can get high very easily.
The first time I went to visit her I felt like I was at the county jail (yes, I have been a visitor there many times). I practically had to strip and then I had to leave my purse at the nurse’s station. So how do others smuggle drugs in for their friends?
They accused my daughter of getting drugs there too. Of course, she vehemently denied it. I believed her. I always believe her. They didn’t.
I was her #1 enabler.
I December she was missing for 9 days. Those 9 days included Christmas. We all thought she must be dead somewhere. But there was no way to trace her because she lives in different hotels all the time. In different cities. We couldn’t…