FOX News 5 reports:
Holding manila folders filled with pages of her handwritten reports, Dr. Anna Konopka insisted her for keeping track of her patients' medical conditions and various prescriptions works fine. But the New Hampshire Board of Medicine disagrees. It is challenging the
84-year-old New London physician's record keeping, prescribing practices and medical decision making. system
Part of their concern is her remedial computer skills, which prevent her from accessing and using the state's mandatory electronic drug monitoring program.
The program, which the state signed onto in 2014, requires prescribers of opioids to register in an effort reduce overdoses. Konopka surrendered her license last month and went to court Friday in an effort to regain it. Konopka doesn't have a computer in her office and doesn't know how to use one.
Two file cabinets in a tiny waiting room inside a 160-year-old clapboard house hold most of her patient records. The only sign of technology in the waiting room is a landline telephone on her desk. "The problem now is that I am not doing certain things on computer," said Konopka, who emigrated from Poland in 1961 and has decorated her office with family photos and symbols from her homeland. "I have to learn that. It is time consuming. I have no time."
According to the state, the allegations against Konopka started with a complaint about her treatment of a 7-year-old patient with asthma. She's been accused of leaving dosing levels of one medication up to the parents and failing to treat the patient with daily inhaled steroids. Konopka, who agreed to a board reprimand in May, said she never harmed the patient and the issue was that the boy's mother disregarded her instructions. Four more complaints have since been filed against Konopka.
The board in September voted to move forward with a disciplinary hearing on those complaints. But before the hearing was held, Konopka agreed in October to give up her license - something she said she was forced to do.
Konopka has built a loyal following in New London, (New Hampshire) population 4,400, and surrounding towns because she brings a personal touch that is attractive to patients weary of battling big hospitals and inattentive doctors. She often attracts patients who have run out of options, many with complicated conditions, such as chronic pain. She also draws patients who have no insurance and little means to pay. She takes anyone willing to pay her $50 in cash. "I'm interested in helping people. I didn't go to medicine for money , and I didn't make money," she said, noting she works alone and can't afford things like and administrative assistant or even a nurse.
Her ongoing fight with the state has prompted scores of patients to write letters on her behalf and call her repeatedly to check on her case. Several of Konopka's patients attended Friday's hearing, some admitting they had struggled since she stopped seeing them. "It stinks, but you have to find a new doctor, and it's a rat race," said Stanley Wright, who saw Konopka the past year for chronic back pain. "The doctor I had before was over-medicating me, and she gives me a lot of herbal stuff and I was doing a lot better. Now, I'm back to being screwed. I don't know what to do." (
At the hearing, Konopka told Merrimack Superior Court Judge John Kissinger that her inability to practice is putting her patients at risk because they are having a hard time finding another physician and getting drug prescriptions. "If I close my office, they will be without medical care," she told the court. "Some of them need medications. Who will prescribe for them if I don't have a license? I worry what will happen to them." Kissinger did not rule Friday on Konopka's request. Assistant Attorney General Lyn Cusack said Konopka's request should be denied, arguing the doctor has been given plenty of time to close her practice and help patients find other doctors. She also said Konopka hasn't provided any evidence she was forced to give up her license. If she wants to get her license back, Cusack said, Konopka could file for reconsideration with the Board of Medicine.
RW comment: Note Well: This is about patients of their own free will who want to see this doctor, who are being stopped by the state. EVIL.
Today’s doctor is a medical serf who is forced practice his or her trade according to the dictates of a bunch of state paper shufflers. The rest of us are at the mercy of the docs or the black market.
ReplyDeleteMany of you are probably aware that prior to the 20th century any adult American could purchase and consume any drug they desired for any reason without the approval of the state or a doctor. Heroin, morphine, opium and cocaine were bought and sold openly and freely; and several wine coolers, as well as Coca Cola were spiked with cocaine and competed on the open market.
One was called Vin Mariani, very popular in its day , and according to Wikipedia it was used and endorsed by Pope Leo XIII who awarded it a Vatican gold medal. Other well knowns who enjoyed the concoction: Queen Victoria, Pope Saint Pius X, Thomas Edison, and Ulysses Grant. A time when women were women and men were men and were treated as such by a relatively noninterventionist state.
This is pretty disgusting and evil I hope Konopka prevails. It should also be noted that medical boards led to the death of mutual benefit organizations that helped bring affordable health care to people
ReplyDeletehttps://tomaszkaye.liberty.me/animation-how-government-solved-the-health-care-crisis/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benefit_society
Since the early days of government interference in the medical industry the goal has been to eliminate from practice those doctors who charge too little for their services. It continues to this day.
ReplyDeleteLicensing is the single most important evil at the root of medicine. So long as Parasite A is able to point a gun and tell Customer B and Provider C that they may not trade, the result will be the slow destruction of medicine as those with licenses grow rich and use their wealth to buy legislation to eliminate not only financial competition but intellectual competition as well - all in the name of protecting their customers, of course, from the horrors of free (unlicensed) medical care.
ReplyDeleteExtortion (taxation), counterfeiting (fractional reserve banking), and competition-limiting (licensing) are the great evils that are looting and wrecking civilization, while the public is distracted by hyperventilating "journalists" reporting lurid stories of humans touching one another and referring to THAT as "predation".