When I was
making payment arrangements with Ms. Landau she mentioned that the judgment had been entered on my credit report at the
various credit bureaux and that she would have them removed when the judgment was satisfied. It crossed my
mind, momentarily, that I was being pressured. But again, preferring
to think the best of people, I decided that Ms. Landau, who is actually a very nice lady, as an officer of the court
and a member of an honorable profession, wouldn’t demean herself by such an ignoble action and mentioned it only
from a desire to be helpful. I regret the original thought.
I didn’t
know anything about credit reporting bureaux until Ms. Landau mentioned them. I
am a retiree on a fixed income and never buy anything on credit anyway, so a comment on my credit report is of little or no
consequence to me. However, when I looked into it I found that if a negative
report is placed in one’s credit report then, by law, one is allowed to place a rebuttal statement therein. So that’s what I did. I sent a letter detailing my experiences
at the hands of the Mayo, together with photographs, with the statement that was to be included in my credit report file to
the three credit reporting companies. Two of them have included my statement
but the third one decided to remove details of the judgment from my record.
So why did
the Mayo do it? Surely it couldn’t be for the money? The Mayo must have lots of bean counters who work there, or maybe their bean counters are as incompetent
as is their surgeon who punctured my stomach? Anyway, if the Mayo’s overheads
are even equal to my local mechanic’s or computer shop, then on a time spent basis they must be well out of pocket.
Was it a desire to muzzle me? If so then it didn’t work because a lot more
people now know about their incompetent treatment of me than if they had just said that they were putting in procedures
to try and make sure it didn’t happen to another patient, zeroed the bill and let it all die a natural death.
So was it
just vindictiveness or somehow related to the way they constantly pump up their image and had to try and prove something? Or are they so self righteously arrogant that they really do think that puncturing
a person’s stomach in two places by mistake and as a result nearly killing him, is normal treatment for which
they should be paid? Who knows? If you have an opinion I'd like to hear
it so please contact me by clicking the graphic on the "Home" (first) page.
But
the Mayo did get a judgment against me. However, they didn't get the amount they wanted and neither did the judge
award them any costs. And the judge did agree with me that the Mayo had been ungentlemanly. Given what it
must have cost ACR/Mayo to get the judgment was their "victory" Pyrrhic? I'll let you decide. Pyrrhus inherited
the throne of Epirus in Northern Greece around 306 B.C., and as a young man proved his generalship on the battlefield many
times. Seemingly Pyrrhus had great strategic skills, but he also had the reputation of not knowing when to stop.
In 281 B.C. he went to Italy and defeated the Romans at Heraclea and Asculum, but suffered very heavy losses. He made
his famous statement, "One more such victory and I am lost." Hence the term "Pyrrhic victory" for any costly victory.
In my opinion
the Mayo's PR techniques and image polishing isn’t too subtle. E.G. In
the spring of this year (2006) there was a sycophantic “editorial” by a local TV station (WXJT Channel 4) about
the Mayo: “The Mayo is committed to patient care, research and education.” The “editorial” also mentioned that the Mayo was responsible for bringing
$2 billion a year into the Jacksonville economy. To me the "editorial" sounded
more like one of those wretched late night an infomercials that masquerade as a program.
I wrote the TV station with details and photos of what the Mayo did to me.
On a previous occasion when commenting on an editorial I was invited to appear and make my statement on the air.
Not this time though.
Readers who have bought into the American Medical Association’s (AMA) propaganda machine’s message
that American medicine is the best in the world may want to skip the next two paragraphs.
It's interesting to note that out of 191 countries, the World Health Organization (WHO) ranks American medicine
only 39th in efficacy. They take into account factors such as longevity,
live births per thousand, pre-natal care, incidences of infectious diseases, hospitalizations etc. But guess who is number one in cost? Yep - that's right - the good old USA.
Click this link: http://tinyurl.com/akdzd to see a précis on the subject. I also thought it interesting that
although the AMA has been very successful in demonizing socialized medicine, most, if not all of the countries in the
list that are ranked ahead of the USA, have socialized medicine.
Do you know that a major cause of death in the US is said by some to be medical errors? Do a quick Google on medical errors and prepare to be astonished.
Am I bitter? Not at all. Other than the pain and the loss of two years or so of my life it was all
very interesting and I learnt a lot. And I never met anyone connected with the
Mayo/ACR that I disliked; they and the judge are all very nice people. But
I do find it disconcerting that no one from the Mayo ever expressed any regret for what they did to me. But one of the things I have learnt in my life is that there is such a thing as perfect universe and
things always do come full circle. Or maybe someone up there really is keeping
a balance sheet of the way we behave and treat others. One day, the people
who stuck it to me, medically and legally, will have a similar thing happen to them or a loved one. It may take twenty, thirty or more years, but it will happen and when it does they will be reminded
of what they did to me.
So why am I telling my story? I suppose for the same reason pre-historic cavemen painted aspects of their
lives on cave walls, some people keep a diary or have personal blogs, carve their initials into trees or whatever, it is to
leave a record. Sort of the "Kilroy was here" syndrome.
The next three pages detail what I and others have found helps some common health problems.
