Medicare

I am 87 years old, handicapped by severe spine and hip deterioration, and suffering from a hernia. My physician and a surgeon recommended surgery as soon as possible. The surgeon explained the procedures related to hernia surgery as follows:

Preparations for surgery before going to the hospital have to be performed at home. “You will arrive at the hospital in the morning. Surgery will take approximately 1 1/2 hours. Then you will rest in a recovery room and will be dismissed later on.” I begged the doctors for admission to the hospital for at least one night. “No way, Medicare and the supplement insurer (premium $1,000 a year) refuse to pay even for a single night after surgery.”

What if complications arrive at night? “You call the ambulance and come back to the hospital.” After surgery, will I be brought home by ambulance? “No way, the insurers do not allow for an ambulance. You will be put in a wheelchair to your car.”

It seems clear to me that I will not be able to deal with this situation. To postpone the operation can endanger my life. Going through surgery--complications cannot be ruled out--and then go home, to be left all by myself, is also risky. Following his professional ethics, the surgeon would put me in the hospital for one or two nights.

I am not the only old and handicapped person to whom proper care is denied by Medicare. Nobody knows how many people have died because of withholding of needed hospital care.

The brutality of the Reagan Administration cries to heaven. The rules have to be changed in order to save lives and to prevent sick and old people from taking high risks in no-way-out situations.

WALTER WICCLAIR

West Hollywood