John Deeth Blog

These nurses deserve thank, not reprimands

Gazette site is pay to play so I'm posting the whole article. Things have sunk pretty low when nurses get fired for helping patients.

CORALVILLE -- Simone Grace wouldn't risk going a day without the anti-rejection medicines she's taken since her pancreas transplant 2 years ago.

But when a snafu between Medicaid and Medicare left her without the expensive drugs, she turned to the nursing staff at University Hospitals in Iowa City, where her surgery was performed.

Grace, 39, of Coralville, said nurses provided what she needed for a couple days until payment for the two drugs -- costing $2,245 and $383 per month -- was rectified.

"These people are a godsend," she said of the staff who oversee operations from pre-transplant, on. "They are a lifeline. Whatever you need . . . they bend over backward for you. They care about us."

Grace said she was heartsick to hear that two nurses in the UI transplant organ program were fired for the longtime practice of "recycling" anti-rejection drugs donated by families after a patient died or changed medications.

Four or five other UI Hospitals employees received written reprimands.

Hospital officials have said there was no evidence any patients were harmed by the "irregularities" in handling prescription medicine.

But Grace wonders how many patients will be harmed if the nurses can't provide them with the crucial anti-rejection drugs in emergencies.

The family of a 17-year-old Missouri girl killed in a car crash donated the pancreas for Grace's transplant, a four to six hour surgery that cost $110,000.

A diabetic since age 5, with life-threatening complications, Grace said the operation changed her life.

No longer did she have to meticulously count every carbohydrate she consumed, which included grilling waiters and waitresses on the ingredients of anything they served her, down to the sauce. Nor did she have to continue to stick needles from an insulin pump into her body or fear passing out from low blood sugar levels.

The pancreas, an elongated gland behind the stomach, is instrumental in producing insulin, a hormone that helps the body use sugar and other carbohydrates.

"There's so much more freedom now," Grace said of life with her donated pancreas. "I can eat whatever I want, whenever I want."

But for the rest of her life, she will need to take anti-rejection drugs. Grace also takes 10 other prescriptions and five over-the-counter supplements daily. The cost per month for the prescriptions is $3,700. Because she only receives $947 in monthly Supplemental Security Income, she relies on Medicare and Medicaid to survive.

Her life is a turnabout from the one she had been living after graduating from the UI with an engineering degree and landing a job with a small local firm.

Her three-year stint with the company, where she earned more than $40,000 annually, ended when she was injured and went on disability.

But Grace doesn't have time for self-pity.

Instead, she is concerned for the nurses who were fired for helping people like herself and for patients who will no longer have a safety net to obtain their needed anti-rejection drugs.

Grace hopes to mobilize transplant patients and their families in a letter-writing and call-in campaign to UI administrators, in the hopes the nurses will be re-hired.

Hospital administrators made no comment on the situation Monday. Public safety director Chuck Green said UI police began an investigation Monday.