Thursday, September 23, 2010

Every single breath you take costs

We've just been informed that my son doesn't use enough oxygen.
Yes he does - he uses what he needs and sometimes we have to help him with more.

But the meter readings on his oxygen concentrator mean the paperwork for the firm that supplies it have persuaded them he doesn't use enough to justify it - so they rang up wanting to take it away. We said no ... and we rang the oxygen clinic who said - 'oh yes he does need it, but not steady, high all the time'.
Because we check his oxygen saturations and only give him oxygen when he needs it, and then give him what he needs rather than lots all the time, the overall amount is low. But this doesn't fit the paperwork. (On this argument, no-one needs a stomach as they don't eat all the time.)
Eventually, after multiple phone calls and metaphorical head banging on virtual brick walls, sanity - or a crude approximation of it - prevailed. We can keep things much as they are and get rid of some stuff they supplied that we don't use. If we hadn't argued, they would have turned up and removed the concentrator - some people aren't as bloody minded as us and might have let them - please let this not have happened.

We don't need this. This is paperwork driving treatment. But we now have to justify the air he breathes.

PS This is what happens when health services get contracted out and it makes me very cross. We could have avoided this 'problem' by simply letting the oxygen run unused - but in our innocence we thought that would be wasteful.

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