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Date: 5/9/2022
BELCHERTOWN – Austin Harthan, 21, of Belchertown, was traveling through rural Pennsylvania on April 8 when he got into a car accident and slammed into a tree. Harthan survived the crash but broke both arms and both legs. He was flown by Life Flight helicopter to Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh for emergency surgery.
“He was very, very lucky. It could have been much worse,” said Jessica Scruton. Harthan lives with Scruton and her husband in their Belchertown home.
“The crash left the car in two halves. They had to put them back together for the picture. The driver’s seat was in the engine compartment. It was pretty bad,” she told Reminder Publishing.
After three surgeries and a week and a half of intensive care, Harthan was medically cleared to leave the hospital and go to a rehabilitation center for therapy and care he can’t get at home. But Scruton said she can’t find a rehab center willing to take him.
“It’s insane. I’ve been working on this for almost a month. I’ve called more than 30 places and am getting nowhere,” she said. A social worker with the Pittsburg hospital has also contacted nearly 200 skilled nursing and long-term acute rehab centers in Massachusetts. None of them will admit Harthan.
Scruton said she’s called trauma rehabilitation centers, but they’ve told her Harthan must have two separate types of injuries to be admitted. Four broken limbs count only as one.
“They’re telling us he needs to have two handicaps like a brain injury or something else in order to be admitted,” said Scruton.
Non-acute trauma centers say Harthan’s injuries are too severe for them to handle. She said skilled nursing centers which are largely nursing homes say he’s too young to be admitted – pediatric rehabilitation centers say he’s too old.
Harthan is insured by Mass Health and a specialist there is trying to help Scrunton find care. It appears state laws or regulations aren’t the problem. The trouble is with the rules and policies at the rehab centers.
“There is no law in Massachusetts that said he can’t go into these facilities. My contact at Mass Health said that doesn’t make any sense. We have no rules like that in Massachusetts,” said Scruton.
Priscilla Ross oversees patient advocacy among other things at Cooley Dickinson Hospital in Northampton. She said she’s not surprised rehab facilities are turning Harthan away, in this post COVID-19 world.
“It is extremely difficult to find any kind of post-acute services because that world is suffering from the same situation as any other industry, which is poor staffing, reduced resources and the constraints COVID-19 places on them,” said Ross who is executive director of case management and post-acute services at Cooley Dickinson.
The policies cited may be a way for rehab centers to limit the number of patients they admit.
Ross also thinks if the accident happened in Massachusetts and Harthan was recovering in a hospital here, it would be easier for him to find local care.
“If someone is being cared for at Cooley and they need acute treatment for a trauma, we can get them where they need to go very easily because of our relationships and advantage of being part of Mass General Brigham’s health care system,” said Ross.
Allegheny General has no such contacts in Massachusetts and they can do little to help Harthan here.
Meanwhile, Scruton works full time and spends her lunch hour every day calling rehab centers in a never-ending quest to find care for Harthan. She tries again at night when she goes home.
After several weeks now, the clock is running out on her. The hospital said Harthan is ready to leave and Scruton isn’t sure how much longer doctors will let him stay. “It’s a big city and I’m sure they need their beds and if there’s nothing left for them to do for him, I’m sure they would like their bed back,” she said.
But with nowhere to go in Western Massachusetts, Harthan could be sent to a rehab center in Pennsylvania where the rules for admission are looser than they are in Massachusetts. Scruton said staying in Pennsylvania isn’t an option.
“This has pretty much taken over our lives. We just want to get him home. Every time we speak with him on the phone, he gets a little more down. He just wants to be home where he can see people. When we talk, you can tell he doesn’t want to end the call and hang up,” said Scruton.
Meanwhile Scruton isn’t giving up hope, spending day and night calling one rehab center after another.
“We just want him to come home. Nobody can go visit him because it costs so much. He’s nine hours away,” she said. “It can’t be that no one here can take him. It’s impossible.”
For anyone who thinks they can help Scruton find care for Harthan, she can be contacted by email at jmacy357@yahoo.com.