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MARIN COUNTY'S NEWS
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Media Frenzy Over Sara Nome Story
All Her Visitors Monitored By Kaiser
"I Feel Like I Am a Prisoner On Death Row"
By Jim Scanlon
Reporters
Milling Around Hospital
ANSWERING MACHINE: "Mailbox One. You have one new message:
SARAH: " Jim, This is Sarah Nome, You know they have taken away my
television and they don't give me my newspaper. I don't know what is going on!
The nurse just came in and told me that there are reporters milling around
outside the hospital and they won't let them in! And especially, they don't
want them to have my picture. They don't want me to be interviewed. What in
the world is going on? I don't know? Haven't seen any stories, nothing. Hope
you can find out. Goodbye."
ANSWERING MACHINE: "Fri-day-five-four-tee-five-end of messages"
Nome told the Coastal Post on Monday,
February 21 that she was very upset and doesn't have a clear memory of what
happened Friday night. She referred us to her daughter who was there at the
time.
Sarah said that she does remember that a public relations person tried to
prevent reporters from speaking to her and remained with her at her bedside all
the time. Yesterday, Sunday, three old friends came to visited her and a Kaiser
official insisted on being with them as a monitor. She said she believes her
telephone conversations are being monitored which is probably a violation of
federal law. "I feel like a am a prisoner on death row"
Media Frenzy
Administration officials at Kaiser Hospital may have removed Sarah's television
set from, and stopped providing a newspaper to, Room 502, but on Friday night
February 18, television cameras and newspaper reporters crowded into Room 502
under near riot conditions!
Janie Sands, Sarah's daughter said that she was frightened and upset when
she got to Room 502 Friday night and found a loud noisy crowd including two
security guards and an apparently disturbed woman shouting "Sarah
Nome" "Sarah Nome" repeatedly into her cell phone while emptying
the contents of her purse on the floor apparently looking for a pen. She never
was able to determine who the woman was but from the way the security guard
reacted to her she seemed to be a Kaiser Hospital Official. Others were
shouting as she elbowed her way into Room 502 to find her mother on camera.
She was told that Kaiser Hospital would monitor all interviews with the press and and also
that sever news organizations had complained because they were not allowed to
interview her mother.
Sands also said she had heard that the reason so many reporters had gathered
outside the hospital earlier was that there had been a rumor that her mother
would be evicted that evening, which, of course, did not happen.
A Google search for Sarah Nome on Sunday got no hits. A similar search on
Monday 2/21 got 227,000. Although some like "The Nome Nugget" from Nome Alaska clearly
are not relevant, most were. From all over the country and Singapore and Scotland. The media does feed off itself! Sarah said that she
received a telephone call from someone in Davenport Iowa who had seen the program and one
from Chicago and another from the East Coast.
One caller from Indiana said she was involved in a similar
case and the Attorney General of her state got involved. She promised to have
the Attorney General of her state call the Attorney General of California.
A Key Question
One article in the San Jose Mercury News quoted a Kaiser attorney saying
that Sarah was originally admitted to the hospital for psychiatric evaluation.
This point is extremely important as it has never been revealed who in the
nursing home Sarah was suing called the ambulance to have her taken to the
hospital and who was the admitting physician and what was that physician's
diagnosis.
If she was admitted for psychiatric reasons, and this information was revealed
by the attorney, that would seem to be a clear violation of law and if there
was some other reason for the admission, such a statement might constitute
libel.
The saga of Sarah Nome and Kaiser Hospital will obviously take a long time to
work itself out.
Our Media At Work
Here is a sample of 10 or the 177 results of a refined search, within Google
News.
Woman refuses to leave hospital Discharge papers issued a year ago ...
Whittier Daily News, CA - Feb. 17, 2005
Discharge papers issued a year ago By Brian Skoloff, Associated Press It's
been more than a year since Sarah Nome was deemed healthy and given her discharge
...
Woman still occupies bed at Kaiser after eviction ruling
Marin Independent-Journal, CA - Feb. 17, 2005
... its San Rafael hospital. But the patient, Sarah
Nome, still occupies a bed as she has for the past year. Kaiser officials say they
...
Marin Woman Refuses to Leave Hospital
KPIX-TV 5, CA - Feb.
18, 2005
Sarah Nome is a woman without a home. ... In the meantime time ticks away for
Sarah Nome, sitting in her bed at a cost of over $3000 a day.
Doctors win eviction order
Scotsman, UK - Feb. 17, 2005
A Superior Court judge has ruled that Sarah Nome, 82, who needs no medical
attention but who has run up a care bill of $1.15 million (£600,000) ...
ABC News
Woman Overstays Hospital Stay by a Year
ABC News - Feb. 16,
2005
Sarah Nome, 82, from San
Anselmo, Calif., writes in bed in her room at Kaiser Permanent Medical Center in San
Rafael, Ca...
Electric New Paper
In hospital for a year
Electric New Paper, Singapore - Feb.
18, 2005
MORE than a year after Ms Sarah Nome was deemed healthy and given her discharge
papers, the 82-year-old woman stubbornly refuses to leave her hospital bed. ...
Woman Overstays Hospital Stay by a Year
ABC News - Feb. 16,
2005
Feb. 16, 2005 - More than a year after Sarah Nome
was deemed healthy and given her discharge papers, the 82-year-old woman
stubbornly refuses to leave her ...
Woman refuses to leave hospital after being discharged a year ago
San Jose Mercury News (subscription) - Feb. 16, 2005
It's been more than a year since Sarah Nome was deemed healthy and given her
discharge papers. Yet $1 million in unpaid medical ...
Patient: `I just have nowhere to go.'
Woman refuses to leave hospital even though she's fine
WCNC (subscription), NC - Feb. 16, 2005
It's been more than a year since Sarah Nome was told she could leave the
hospital. But she says she has nowhere else to go, so she remains in her
hospital bed...