David Rector has been my friend for over 25 years. He took me under his wing when I was a radio newbie. He taught me how to cut tape (yes, you used to have to physically cut it to edit it; no digital wizardry back then). Over the years, he let me borrow equipment, encouraged my fledgling efforts, debated politics with me at lunch.
And now he's dying in a dump in San Diego, lying in his own filth, neglected and abused in a so-called health care facility. And hardly anybody -- including colleagues with whom he worked for 30 years -- gives a shit.
18 months ago, David suffered an aortic dissection and stroke. It left him brain damaged and briefly in a coma. At first he received excellent care. His fiancee Roz -- who has been by his side constantly, from the moment of the attack in their home, through all the initial surgery and rehab -- kept me updated regularly. He was treated at UCSMDC (University of California San Diego Medical Center). Then he was moved to a Long-Term Acute Care Facility called Kindred, where he also -- initially -- received excellent care. His trach was eventually removed, and he started, slowly, to regain function.
Let me stop you right here -- don't ask "why?" I know it's a logical question for logical minds, but we're not dealing with logic here. We're dealing with a family member who suddenly feels powerful and, for whatever reason, is determined to wield that power. The power over someone else's life. Ask any lawyer or judge -- the smart ones will tell you, wearily, that they long ago stopped asking why people do what they do; they just accept it. And in cases of family relations, they categorically accept it.
Cousin is being an asshole, harming David every step of the way, denying him the care he needs, denying Roz the power to make decisions in David's best interest. David is under "conservatorship." A judge has appointed him someone called a Guardian ad Litem. Who has then hired a conservator who has in turn hired a lawyer. The legal bullshit is enough to make your head spin. All of them, of course, are being paid out of David's pocket. David's COBRA benefits and life savings have long since been depleted. He was getting some Medicaid and Social Security Disability payments, but those, too, are all being sucked into the legal maw.
David has since been moved to a hellhole called Care With Dignity (yeah, the irony). The photographs Roz has been sending me all along have changed from images of progress and hope to images of filth and despair. Anything Roz has brought in to help David has been stolen. Radios, TVs, CD player, iPod, headphones, earbuds, computer with language-assisting software, you name it. David gets no rehabilitation anymore. The progress he made early on is rapidly eroding. He's being neglected and abused, just like hundreds of thousands of other patients in similar hellholes around the country.
Roz continues to spend every day with him, cleaning him up, especially around his colostomy bag, which she's not allowed to change, even when it's overflowing, communicating with him -- orally as well as in writing, on a chalkboard -- doing all the things the staff refuses to do. She has been spending gobs of money trying to fight this in the courts, she has contacted every legal, policy, and advocacy organization out there, every elected official, every everyone who might possibly be able to help, and has been stymied at every turn by the legal system.
Bottom line: she's not a blood relative. She doesn't count. Her evidence of David's abuse doesn't count. Her evidence of his progress -- stunning given the circumstances, and thanks only to her efforts -- doesn't count. She's screwed. He's screwed. He's being killed.
I've kept quiet about this for the past 18 months, out of respect for David, who's always been intensely private, and Roz, who requested that I not tell anyone. But now she's given me permission to tell David's story. She's afraid he's going to die in there. So am I. The latest word is that the dump has placed him on "hospice care." As if his death is imminent. This is despite his continual answers to her questions, written on the chalkboard, about who he is, who she is, and who he wants to care for him.
This could be the fate of any of us, or any of our loved ones. David is solidly middle-class, with all the trappings. But it doesn't matter. This is health care in America, and this is how it could end for any of us.
I have tried to get members of the press interested in this story. I know there are thousands of others like it. I know David's is not the only one. It breaks my heart to see this kind, gentle, generous man being treated like this, to know that there's nothing I can do, and that, so far, no one in a position to do something cares. Maybe somebody out there reading this will care, and will be able to do something, anything.
