CBS News
July 18
Ethics and Hospital Care
Carmen Foucault, 47, is a woman who not only grief is her son’s death but also accusing of the local hospital for engaging in a heartless behavior with her and her son who died there.
The woman contacts me to give her testimony, and we agree to meet at a local restaurant for an interview. I see a mixture of anger and sadness from her expression as she describes her son to me.
Her son’s name is James Foucault, a young man who just turned 24, a vet who served in Afghanistan who loved his Harley. “I hated Harley, and I told him he’d kill him someday,” she said.
The police ringed her doorstep on Wednesday and broke the news to her that a car had hit his son, and he had been admitted to Mercy Hospital in Costa Mesa but he died, though she was not sure about it.
The nurses in the hospital claimed that he suffered a flicker of the brain activity, and they were keeping him alive. She did not understand why they were keeping him alive while they claimed that he was dead.
The report she got was that his son had serious brain injuries and therefore, could not regain consciousness. She said that they had butchered his son, without informing her that it was going to be that way.
After that, they sent her the hospital bill without thanking her. The bill came to $41,000 and that was for keeping him alive for an extra day. Sadly, Carmen was not sure if she was told anything about that extra cost.
Carmen does not remember being told anything about the bill, and therefore, she was not sure about it for she was not understanding anything that time. She could only remember when she was told that her son was dead.
Since Carmen was not able to settle the bill, they put a lien in James’s estate. That meant all his money and the estate he had left behind. Later the hospital informed the Carmen that they were re-examining her bill.
“It’s bad enough dealing with my son’s death without having to deal with this too,” she said. Her son was buried on Saturday, and on Tuesday, she got a notice that the hospital had put a lien on the estate for $41,000.
The email that arrived at her on the day of the interview gave details of what the hospital had done to keep her son alive. She was in shock because as they kept him alive, they removed her organs and later asked for extra money.
She also received letters from the donor bank describing how his organs had helped five lives, and his eyes giving sight to someone else. At the moment she is pursuing a lawyer to follow her case, and she had appeared on TV.
Carmen further explained that James had medical insurance cover, but it might not be enough to cover all the expenses. The joint saving account they have has only $8,000 and it was not enough to pay for the funeral.
Christina Snyder, the hospital’s representative, claims that the donor bank would pay most of the bill, but the lien would cover James’s initial treatment. She ruled out the allegations that James was kept alive for his organs.
Irwin Greenhouse, the Hospital administrator claimed that the bill was to be sent to Division for Transplantation for review and not Mrs. Foucault, and apologized assuring that mistakes like that would never occur.
Finally, Mrs. Foucault said that the hospital was falling over themselves, and though she was assured that she was not going to pay the bill, they had not removed the lien. “The whole thing is sickening and outrageous,” she said.
© The CBS Morning News
Works cited
"Do U.S. Hospitals Push Organ Black Market?". Cbsnews.com. N.p., 2016. Web. 17 July 2016.
