SIMPLE GREED

I am a mother and a grandmother. Psalm 127:3 "Children are a gift of the Lord, they are His reward." With that in mind, I am living under the assumption that the Lord deemed me worthy to have my children and my grandsons. All mothers are equipped with instincts. Those instincts allow a mother to understand her child's cries, his comforts and discomforts. They allow a mother to know when her child is healthy or not. Instincts allow us to know when we need to take our child to the doctor and when it's nothing serious. But what about the times our instincts just tell us things could be a little off, but when taking the child for a check up on the issue, the response is to admit the child to the hospital for four days just for blood work and a few tests. Something is wrong when a doctor does that, and all to determine a perceived legitimate explanation for the child being 14 lbs at 9 months instead of 20 lbs? That's what I've just been through with my son and his wife and my grandson Liam. He's a healthy, happy, highly active, growing, eating playing child and yet since he is skinny and not chubby there's all this hoopla.

Liam eats good and has no aversion to food. He will eat as long as you put it in front of him. In one day's time, he will eat 3 jars of veggies, 3 jars of fruit, 5-6 bottles of milk, a whole mashed up "big people" banana (and eats with complete gusto). Then when my son comes to pick him up bearing burgers and fries for mamaw, Liam will eat half of my french fries and only has two teeth to do it with. He is happy and healthy and certainly not sick to the justification of a 4 day hospital stay.

Everything in me is screaming "bilk job." I'm a prayer warrior and it doesn't take the Lord long to answer some questions for the sake of peace of mind or guidance. He revealed so much to me during these last few days that even my own instincts didn't pick up on. The hospital stay was already over by the time all questions were answered but that was for a good reason. Oddly enough, I just happened to need this Thursday off from babysitting. Liam just happened to be admitted to the hospital on that day. The situation was a ridiculous malpractice incident (in my opinion) but it worked "to the good for those who love the Lord," amen? The next question was, what in the world is going on for them to justify admitting a healthy child just because he could use 4 extra pounds, and besides, who says so? Who says that a child is supposed to be 20 lbs and if not, there are dire consequences or danger of any kind? That's ridiculous! You should admit a child that is throwing up, has diarrhea, can't hold it's little head up, isn't growing, is crying constantly, unable to be soothed....outward manifestations of sickness. There was none of that with Liam before they admitted him.

What is my point in all of this? Greed! Simple greed. It's as if the Lord stood next to me as a man with an inside position in that doctor's circles, and a mind reader to boot, to the degree ob being able to tell me what's going on. It's greed that prompts a doctor to admit a healthy child to the hospital, and greed that justifies keeping him there for 4 days. Insurance money is easy to obtain. All they have to do is poke the child with a needle, take blood pressure, apply a band-aid, provide a room and around the clock nurses and they've made 1,000s of dollars for it. 

They released Liam today and had no answers for the parents, my son and his wife. All they know is that if they run a feeding tube into him and start pumping food directly into him in the form of whatever substance it is, he will put weight on. Of course he will! If you pump sustenance into a human body around the clock, and the patient never gets a chance to burn off the calories faster than you're putting them in, of course it's going to add weight. The question is, what difference does that make and how is that supposed to be sustained after the tube is removed? It's nonsense and the doctor seems to have needed a legitimate reason for the four day stay. So, he devises a scenario that looks like follow-up care but I see that he's just continuing to bilk their insurance company and I'm disgusted. This post is about greed in our country, and how even those who vow to care from their hearts for another, actually appear to be in it for the easy money.

There should never be a scenario playing out wherein the person in the middle is a child. This is despicable, deplorable, unacceptable and I'm frustrated not to be able to have some control over this situation and this doctor's ethics. I feel he should be investigated for insurance fraud. He has opened Liam's little body and put a tube in him just to feed him around the clock and add a few pounds. And for no other reason except to say, "now he's fatter." It adds nothing to his health as he's healthy already. It adds nothing to his energy level for growth purposes as he's as active and busy as a little bee. One has to follow him nonstop to keep him from pulling a plant over, falling down after standing up by pulling himself up. It's a nonstop effort to thwart him from hurting himself because he's that happily active and busying himself with exploration of his world. He exhibits all the good signs of a happy growing, healthy active, well child. I have my own issues here at home to deal with but if I could, I'd take on that doctor and face off against him in court for this. Liam is coming to visit today, straight out of the hospital. That's how well he is. He's been in there for 4 days and yet he's so happy and active that they want to bring over so they can have some time off. If he was hospital-admitting sick, they'd have to take him home and get him into some after care.

The moral of the story is, beware of greedy doctors that find every little door into your insurance company's pocket. Beware of nonsense tests and invasive measures that aren't healing in any way but pose a real danger to your child. His body is now open. Any bacteria can get in. It could pose more problems than it's worth. This doctor clearly saw dollar signs in these two young insured parents. She is 20 and he is 23. There's no doubt in my mind that they've been bilked at the expense of their son. 

I will ask for your prayers that Liam suffers no long-term sickness, doesn't take in a bacteria and become infected through the pict line in his body, and that the Lord will judge this doctor as He sees fit.