At one time, he used to spend three to four hours a day off the ventilator, and last summer he was able to go home to Brooklyn to visit his wife. Occasionally, he went to Manhattan to see friends or to conduct business. But he has been getting weaker and now uses the ventilator full time. I always found ways to do things. For a while, he was able to get around the hospital in a motorized wheelchair with a portable ventilator, but since he started requiring supplemental oxygen, that privilege has been stopped.
Regulations deem it a fire hazard.
Now I don't know what I'm going to do. Though Coler-Goldwater, which started as a tuberculosis and polio hospital in 1939, has been treating ventilated patients for decades, most such centers in this area were started in the 1990's. Experts trace their growth to Medicare changes in 1983, when hospitals started being reimbursed based on each patient's diagnosis, rather actual treatment costs. Under this payment system, it was unprofitable for hospitals to keep ventilated patients in intensive care units for more than about three weeks. But some kinds of hospitals were exempted from this payment system, including long-term care centers, many of which started providing higher levels of care.