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March 16, 2006
A hard death
On today’s Monitor Forum page, Mike Green, president and CEO of Concord Hospital, responded sharply to the Monitor’s editorial on the death of John Arsenault. In a letter accompanying Green’s “My turn,” June Williams, a cousin of Arsenault’s from Boston, wrote that Arsenault was not homeless, as reported in the Monitor. Rather, she wrote, he was living with family.
Arsenault is the man whose death we first reported on March 7 under the headline “For homeless man, a mysterious end.” Sarah Liebowitz, the reporter who wrote that story, was working on a series on Concord’s homeless population. When Arsenault came into the emergency shelter at the First Congregational Church, where many of the homeless sleep on cold winter nights, Liebowitz just happened to be there.
This was on March 3, a Friday night. Arsenault arrived at the shelter by taxi from Concord Hospital. He had been released from the hospital, apparently because he did not meet the hospital’s standard for inpatient care, medically acute. He could barely walk when he got to the shelter, and his condition rapidly deteriorated. About six hours later he had become so ill that an ambulance took him back to the hospital, where he died.
Our editorial last Sunday was headlined “Homeless man shouldn’t have died this way.” The editorial quoted a spokesperson as saying Arsenault “was cleared to leave because his condition was not considered acute.” It went on to say: “That diagnosis was obviously wrong.”
The editorial also criticized the hospital for not being more forthright about the details of the Arsenault case. “The hospital may be blameless, but no health-care provider should be allowed to bury its mistakes behind a wall of privacy,” the editorial said. “The public policy issues at stake are too great.”
It was these issues to which Green responded in today’s paper.
He also wrote: “The Monitor seems to believe Concord Hospital should become a housing facility for the unfortunate frail. This is not realistic.
“At the inception of the predecessor organizations to Concord Hospital, the role of the hospital was to provide housing and compassion along with clinical care to the sick, oftentimes at the end of their lives. Today the role is oriented much more toward the healing of the sick and injured.”
I’m glad Green clarified the hospital’s role. But if the hospital’s policy is no longer to provide care and compassion to people at the end of their lives, surely the hospital must have a strong policy in place to make certain that those who are very ill do not end up going straight from the hospital to an emergency homeless shelter.
At this point, I cannot answer some of the questions the Monitor’s critics raise about the Arsenault case.
Sarah Liebowitz is working on a follow-up story that I hope will give readers more details about his situation at the time of his death. She will also attempt to learn why, if Arsenault was a repeat patient at the hospital, as Green’s piece implied, he was put in a taxi and sent to First Church.
Please stay tuned.
Posted by Mike Pride at March 16, 2006 05:02 PM
Comments
Mike Green's "My Turn" is the worst piece of public relations I have seen in a long time.
His supercilious attitude is quite unbelievable. I am shocked. He obviously no longer has a heart!
Mike Green has wheedled millions and millions of dollars out of Concord and the surrounding communities for his palace on the hill. And this hos he thanks us all? Maybe it's time for Mike Green to go be the hospital czar in some other community.
Posted by: Sandra F. Smith at March 16, 2006 08:09 PM
Hi - I think it might be helpful if Sarah Liebowitz also spent an evening in the Concord Hospital Emergency Room. I am a nurse at Concord Hospital and I think her story didn't portray the essence of caring that I see at the hospital. What this story really points to is the lack of places/funding for folks like Mr. Arsenault. There is a dearth of placement options in NH for folks who may not be acutely ill, but have: mental illness, are withdrawing from drugs or alcohol, have not had regular medical care, or who are homeless when they come in to the hospital. Concord Hospital has a department devoted to financial assistance for indigent folks and works with the Family Health Center to ensure follow-up care. The hospital certainly provides great care and compassion; is providing housing now an expectation too?
Posted by: Elizabeth R. at March 17, 2006 06:53 AM
This has been a most tragic situation. I am fortunate enough to be in contact with this most wonderful family who cared for John Arsenault in a extremely supportive way. They certainly were taken back, and rightly so, by learning that a "homeless" man had died as for them they knew that he was not homeless. For most of us though, he was only given that identification, albeit wrong, as a result of being sent off from a hospital, in his pajama's, by taxi, and in a most grave condition, to a "Homeless Shelter"
No one in todays world expects hospitals to take care of the ill for days and weeks and months, but there is a profssional expectation of responsible discharge planning and also of quality care to each and every patient. Perhpas his was done, but we are in the dark about that at this time, so can only follow John's journey that evening from what has been reported.
This situation begs official investigations, and that is one reason why I have requested this from both the Department of Health and Human Services and from the AG's office. I must also say that the Department thus far has been most cooperative and I truly believe, regardless of certain issues of "confidentaility" that there is a higher public good need here and that we will eventually find out what really happened to John Arsenault and that we will be able to ensure that these events will not happen again. At that point and only then, do I believe, that we will be able to begin to bring a dignified closure of this matter for John and for his family.
Tom Donovan
State Rep
Posted by: Tom Donovan at March 17, 2006 11:58 AM
Cecie Hartigan did an admirable job in her "My turn" letter in the Sunday Monitor about caring for Mr. Arsenault in his last hours at the shelter and in addressing Mr. Green's callous remarks.
This case has brought back memories of the circumstances of my own mother's death in which her needs were clearly not met after surgery and she went on to die from complications. Our family was also the recipient of Mr. Green's flippant, defensive, and angry tone when we tried to retrieve our mother's medical records from the hospital. It makes me wonder how many other families have fallen victim to his degrading remarks at a time when what they needed most was compassion, kindness, and most of all humility.
I hope the publicity that this sad event has attracted will mobilize hospital staff and administrators to end the hubris, and instead take a good hard look at the quality of care they are claiming to provide.
Posted by: Lori Nerbonne at March 20, 2006 04:19 AM