skullaria wrote:
] flynn23 wrote:
] ] ] Emergency workers had to remove some sliding glass doors
] ] ] and lift the couch, with Grinds still on it, to a trailer
] ] ] behind a pickup truck. Removing her from the couch would
] ] ] be too painful, since her body was grafted to the fabric.
] ] ] After years of staying put, her skin had literally become
] ] ] one with the sofa and had to be surgically removed.
] ]
] ] wow.
]
] What I want to know is if this lady was ever denied adequate
] medical treatment for obesity as a disease. Something is
] dreadfully wrong here. This lady either was neglected by her
] primary caregiver and not taken to the doctor, or she had
] stupid doctors with the hermit crab attitude that obesity is
] ONLY a flaw in character. Another possibility is that her
] insurance refused to cover treatment like a trip to a
] bariatric MD, or refused her a gastric bypass for her
] condition. I would LOVE to know what went wrong here.
]
] The medical system, like most of America, needs to realize
] that overweight people, primarily woman, are NOT invisible and
] have worth and value as human beings. No one wants to talk
] about weight prejudice though - its so widely accepted that
] most of this country would not even think it is wrong to
] ridicule the obese or deny them proper treament. Indeed, many
] would not even consider it to be an issue.

It would be an interesting forensic mission to look at that, but it probably won't happen because someone's ass will get fired. A woman in her position was undoubtedly on Medicaid, but because she a) never left the house and b) probably didn't have a phone, then there's really no way that the system could triage her or treat her. I'm sure that even if she was on a commercial health plan at some point, it was most likely a brutal HMO and not a plan that would've even considered gastric bypass or any other means of helping her. Neither of these are necessarily failures of those systems. There will always be exceptions that don't fit, and there will always be people who refuse to cooperate.

While there is definitely a responsibility on her part for this, the journey would obviously highlight specifics on how it could've gotten this bad. I don't think anyone would pick this course on their own, but it's certainly impossible to rectify once you're down this road a bit.

What's really sad is that there are probably a hundred more people in this country (at least) that are just like her that you'll never hear about.

RE: 480-Pound Woman Dies After Six Years On Couch