Woman is living proof that she's not dead
Rob Cibik
by Demian Bulwa
San Francisco Chronicle
March 19, 2010
Being dead can be a real drag, especially if you're alive.
Just ask Doris Temple, 85, a Navy veteran who learned in January that
the government had declared her deceased. Strongly suspecting an
error, she protested, but not before she lost her health insurance and
thousands of dollars in income - Social Security benefits as well as
private insurance and pension payments.
All the while, she got letters addressed to "the estate of Doris
Temple," some of which included condolences. And when she tried to
rent a Walnut Creek apartment last month, Pacific Gas and Electric Co.
wouldn't hook up her utilities because, as a corpse, she had a lousy
credit score.
By Thursday, after weeks of work by her and her son, much of the
damage from the mistake - which the Social Security Administration
eventually fixed - had been reversed. But Temple remained wary.
"It's been one kick in the pants after another," she said at the
Ygnacio Valley Care Center in Walnut Creek, where she is recovering
from a flareup of a lung condition.
Rebirth is hard work
As it turns out, not dying requires a lot of energy. Word of her
passing, Temple said, seemed to spread quicker than news of her
subsequent rebirth - particularly among those who owed her money.
"It's hard to bring someone back from the dead," said her son, Robert
Temple of Walnut Creek.
Doris Temple figures the error was related to the death of her husband
of 63 years, Charles Temple, who did not emerge from heart surgery
Dec. 15 at a hospital near the couple's former home in Vista (San
Diego County). That's the day the Social Security Administration had
her dying.
The couple was close, but not that close. They met during World War II
on the streets of New York City. He was a naval officer, she one of
that era's WAVES - Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service.
They raised two boys and traveled the world.
Doris Temple moved to Walnut Creek in early January to be near her
surviving son. But the mistake, she said, made it difficult for her to
fully grieve for her husband.
'Resurrection' totals
In a June 2008 report, the Social Security Administration's inspector
general called cases like Temple's "resurrections" and said the agency
could do more to help the victims, given their "serious hardships."
The report said Social Security officials had deleted 46,035 death
entries from their files from January 2004 to April 2007.
Lowell Kepke, a Bay Area spokesman for Social Security, said the
agency receives death reports from many sources, including funeral
directors and relatives. Married couples, he said, often receive
benefits under the same accounts, opening up the potential for a
blunder.
Regardless of whether the mistake originated with the government,
Kepke said, his agency takes the lead in helping the victim.
"When these errors happen, we put our energy into helping the
individual fix everything," Kepke said. "We know how inconvenient it
can be. And it's embarrassing."
Living proof
It was Robert Temple who first learned his mother was declared dead,
after receiving a letter from her health insurer. Soon after, on Jan.
28, he accompanied a Social Security official to see his mom at John
Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek.
Her status as a living and breathing person was confirmed that day,
and then memorialized in an official Feb. 26 letter from Social
Security. But in many ways, the bucket had already been kicked.
Doris Temple said she lost her husband's pension from IBM, which is
managed by Fidelity Investments, and her long-term care insurance from
Senior Health Insurance Co. of Pennsylvania.
Robert Temple has since persuaded the companies to restore benefits,
some of which won't resume until next month. Retroactive pay will be
included, he said.
But one more problem popped up: When the government corrected its
records, it listed his mother's birth date as Dec. 15, 2009.
"She's now an infant," he said. "She has 60-plus years left to
requalify for Social Security."
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/03/18/MNAI1CI0SC.DTL#ixzz0ieZOt278
Mrs Irish Mike
> Woman is living proof that she's not dead...
Strange and funny story; as long as it isn't me.
One sentence got me thinking, "Doris Temple figures the error was
related to the death of her husband
of 63 years, Charles Temple, who did not emerge from heart surgery
Dec. 15 at a hospital near the couple's former home in Vista (San
Diego County)." Why do we do heart surgery on people who are 85+ years
old? A complete waste of money, painful for the patient, and seldom
with good results. Not good for anyone involved except the surgeon.
Rob Cibik
i disagree.
my grandmother had a pacemaker implanted at 94 years, 3 months and
lived until she was 8 weeks shy of 100th birthday. she was active,
alert, mobile, sharp as a tack, and relatively healthy until the last
two weeks of her life. between her private health insurance and
medicare she had no out of pocket expenses. i saw the hospital and
doctors' invoices: worth every cent spent.
Mrs Irish Mike
I'm glad you were able to enjoy those additional years with your
grandmother. Implanting a pacemaker is not really a heart surgery,
that is, it is done with a local anesthesia and the patient is fully
awake. It is a matter of guiding wires through a small incision. What
I was talking about was heart surgery that involves cracking open the
rib cage and using general anesthesia. The healing time in lenghty
especially for the older patients, there is a high rate of
complications and substantial pain. The benifits of open heart
procedures are not well documented.
Brian
<wilm...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm glad you were able to enjoy those additional years with your
>grandmother. Implanting a pacemaker is not really a heart surgery,
>that is, it is done with a local anesthesia and the patient is fully
>awake. It is a matter of guiding wires through a small incision. What
>I was talking about was heart surgery that involves cracking open the
>rib cage and using general anesthesia. The healing time in lenghty
>especially for the older patients, there is a high rate of
>complications and substantial pain. The benifits of open heart
>procedures are not well documented.
I had IV sedation when I had it but it wouldn't compare to a bypass or
valve surgery.
Louis Epstein
Because the patients want to stay alive and have a right to.
-=-=-
The World Trade Center towers MUST rise again,
at least as tall as before...or terror has triumphed.