Hospice of Humboldt

My late husband was enrolled in Hospice of Humboldt twice. His first enrollment ended when, without warning, they abruptly initiated his discharge at the start of a multi-day county-wide power outage. He was having the worst week he’d had since being enrolled, and was sick with an infection that required the ER shortly after the discharge was final. At the time, Hospice of Humboldt’s staff kept insisting that their medical director had found my husband to be “too perky” for hospice during a recertification exam two weeks prior at their facility. This made no sense. His condition had been alarming since his return. I later discovered in my husband’s records that the medical director had not been able to wake my husband up during the exam. He also noted increasing debility, an irregular heartbeat and diminished lung sounds. My husband was later re-enrolled after having a stroke. During this second enrollment, we were subjected to shocking incidents of outright abuse, bullying behavior, and neglect. It was a demeaning and very painful experience. Shortly after I was told my husband had “weeks, not months” to live, we had a week with no contact from them at all—no aide came, and no one even called to check in. At the end when I begged for help for him, their triage nurse told me they don’t send staff out for patients who are actively dying. They don’t provide oxygen on weekends either. I wouldn’t wish our Hospice of Humboldt experience on anyone.