{"id":13879,"date":"2018-05-16T07:08:36","date_gmt":"2018-05-16T11:08:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/?p=13879"},"modified":"2018-05-16T08:44:25","modified_gmt":"2018-05-16T12:44:25","slug":"proceeds-of-settlement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/?p=13879","title":{"rendered":"Proceeds of Settlement"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Some of you may remember that on May 31, 2016, I had the first (and hopefully only) on-road crash of my motorcycle<\/a>. I was taken by ambulance to the hospital for evaluation of injuries.<\/p>\n

I arrived at the hospital at 0550 and given an exam by the attending physician (called a “hospitalist.”) After X-rays and a CT, it was determined that I had…
\n
\n…broken three ribs. The pain was growing more and more intense. I was given a narcotic for the pain, but it did nothing for me.<\/p>\n

I had called The Spouse, but since he can’t drive and doesn’t handle emergencies well, it took him two hours to come to the hospital.<\/p>\n

While waiting for The Spouse, I had gone through the imaging exams and was being treated for the pain, with careful attentive care in the E.R. Only one other patient was there.<\/p>\n

By about 0800, the doctor told me that I should wait until the pain was under control, and since “we aren’t busy, just stay here for a while.” I was given another dose of another drug for the pain. It also wasn’t working. I was in agony.<\/p>\n

The care remained gentle. That is, until The Spouse arrived.<\/p>\n

Once they figured out that my Spouse was a man, the care I received changed from attentive to ignorant. (Did I say, by the way, that this was a Catholic hospital?) <\/p>\n

At 0830, the attending physician came in to say that there wasn’t anything else they could do other than help me get the pain under control. Then she disappeared.<\/p>\n

Another nurse who I had not seen before came in and said, “you have been released. Sign these papers.”<\/p>\n

Under drug-induced haze, I signed the papers and accepted two prescriptions for pain drugs. The nurse said, “okay, time to leave.”<\/p>\n

I meekly said, “the doctor said that I should get the pain under control. Can I wait here until at least he (pointing to my Spouse) can get these prescriptions filled at the hospital pharmacy?”<\/p>\n

The nurse said that she would check and let me know.<\/p>\n

She left the room, then was back in a minute to say, “The Charge Nurse says that you have to leave.” That was it.<\/p>\n

I tried and my Spouse tried, but I could not get out of bed. The pain was too intense. The nurse found a wheelchair and two orderlies who yanked me out of bed and dumped me in the wheelchair. A hospital volunteer wheeled me to the lobby and left me there.<\/p>\n

The Spouse went to the pharmacy to get the prescriptions filled. I was left there, alone, and crying. The pain was beyond belief.<\/p>\n

Somehow, we made it home. Days later, I wrote a complaint to the hospital President, who replied in a couple weeks defending her staff and the hospital’s actions. She said that “the emergency room was busy, and incoming ambulances required us to have beds available for new patients.”<\/p>\n

That statement didn’t ring true. When I was rolled out of there, the emergency room only had two other beds (out of at least 12) occupied. There was only one person in the waiting room.<\/p>\n

Being very engaged with my community, I knew who to ask for records of ambulance runs on that day, so I obtained the records. My suspicions were proven correct — the next ambulance arrival at that hospital’s emergency room was at 1500 that afternoon<\/em>. The hospital President’s statement was proved to be a lie.<\/p>\n

Reluctantly, I engaged an attorney and threatened a lawsuit for discrimination against me as a same-sex married man, as well as for pain and suffering.<\/p>\n

I had the hospital dead-to-rights. As the investigation continued with more letters between the hospital’s attorneys and mine, along with depositions of on-duty staff of the E.R., my case was made.<\/p>\n

The hospital pled nolo contendere<\/em>, meaning no admission of guilt, but they offered a substantial financial settlement.<\/p>\n

I wasn’t out to bankrupt the hospital or make money. I accepted the settlement, even though my attorney said that I could probably get ten times that amount if we went to court.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, I wanted to teach the hospital a lesson. That was done. The hospital staff were required to participate in training about fair treatment of gay people and same-sex marriages that I made a requirement of accepting the settlement.<\/p>\n

The settlement check arrived last week. I paid the attorney, then last night, I donated the remaining proceeds to a local, Maryland-based charitable organization that protects and defends gay men and women from cases of discrimination. Look at that — proceeds of a settlement for a lawsuit against a Catholic hospital going to a gay rights non-profit.<\/p>\n

Life is short: teach lessons, even if it is distasteful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some of you may remember that on May 31, 2016, I had the first (and hopefully only) on-road crash of my motorcycle. I was taken by ambulance to the hospital for evaluation of injuries. I arrived at the hospital at … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gay-issues"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13879\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}