In my last post I gave some statistics from death certificates in Henderson County NC. I returned to the Henderson County NC Courthouse. This time I went through the book immediately before the last one. I didn't get the exact dates but it should be between late August and the end of October.
Dr. Larry Joe Russell signed a total of thirty seven death certificates, of those, eleven "failed to thrive". There were eight at Hendersonville Health and Rehabilitation.
As I was going through them I noticed another doctor from Dr. Russell's office had been signing them also. The other doctor is Dr. Kevan Hansel, currently at Lamond Family Medicine in Hendersonville. Dr.Hansel had signed six death certificates. If you add those to Dr. Russell's that's a total of forty three death certificates in under three months. That seems like quite a lot in a County that has a population of under 110000.
As I was doing my research, I spoke to an employee of the registrar of deeds office. She told me that all they do is file the death certificates in the books. They are sent from the courthouse from the Henderson County Health Department. It became apparent that there was no one looking at them for irregularities. Just like everything concerning health care, each person that looks at something is looking at something specific.
The truth of the matter is that the doctors can write whatever they want on the death certificates as long as they fill in all the blanks. The health department is looking for contagious diseases, and the clerks are just making sure all the boxes are checked.
I would expect that someone might notice if a certain doctor was signing more death certificates than others. Or if a certain nursing home had an unusually high number of deaths. It seems that there is no real interest in how or where elderly people die.
This is quite suspicious, if you consider that Dr. Russell, is one of the owners of Hendersonville Health and Rehabilitation. If someone at Hendersonville Health and Rehabilitation, died because they did something wrong, Dr. Russell just has to put whatever he wants on the death certificate. Even if the patient dies at Margret Pardee Hospital, like Mom supposedly did, Dr. Russell still signs the death certificate. You would think that the doctor who pronounces the patient dead, would be somewhat responsible for determining the cause. That's not how it works, they refer it back to the treating physician of record. In Mom's case, there is not one record that Dr. Russell ever saw her. So he just guessed that since there was no reason for Mom to have died, it was an acute coronary arrhythmia. No contributing cause, or any further explanation necessary, Dr. Russell didn't even have to offer anything else. There was absolutely no tests done at the hospital to determine the cause of death. As long as there is no visible trauma to the body, no questions asked. They could have injected her with antifreeze, and no one would ever know.
I understand that elderly people do die, sometimes, there is no apparent explanation. However, the NC State Medcal Examiners office states that if a patient dies from something other than what they are being treated for, an autopsy should be done.
If that patient dies in Hendersonville NC, at Pardee Memorial Hospital, the decision is up to the medical examiner on call. If the patient is in the latter part of their life, and there are no visible wounds, they just ship them off to the funeral home, no further explanation necessary.
It seems to me that maybe if someone considered the treatment administered up until the point of death, they would be doing a lot more autopsy's. Nursing homes, and other care facilities, never have to worry about making mistakes. Unless they leave a mark, they are home free. That means if they accidentally give the wrong medicine to someone, and they die, they get a free pass. If they fail to read a dietary order and serve Bill a peanut butter sandwich, and he just happens to have a peanut allergy, another free pass. I could go on and on, but I think the point is clear, there is basically no accountability.
I guess this is the medical communities answer to population control. NC DHHS is the final authority on these issues, and they could care less. They are the problem, rather than the solution. They simply need to hold the others accountable for their actions, to make a difference. I can assure you that is not their goal, they don't question the doctors, or nursing homes. Again, they all get a free pass.
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