“I’m not a doctor.”

“We know that. But you are a nurse. And from the quick check I made on you, a good one. I work in a newsroom, I called your local newsroom. She has confidence in you and that counts a lot. She wants to know what you would do if she was your daughter. I’m scared for her. She is so sick. I think they have her addicted to pain meds. Her overall health is worse than it has ever been. I am afraid I could lose my sister. She is the only family I have.”

Sandra watched without saying anything.

Sally pulled a pile of papers out of her briefcase. “These are copies of the consent forms for the surgeries except the first three procedures. Sandra kept them and gave them to me. The first three disappeared from her nightstand during the procedures. After that she started hiding them in her Gideon Bible when they went out and I picked them up. She put a “NP” behind a names on them if the person wasn’t there when they had her sign. If her lawyer wasn’t there she marked it “NL”.”

Joan started leafing through them. “We need a lawyer.”

“Why?”

“Firstly. Removing any article belonging to a patient from a patient’s room without permission is a crime. We are very careful about that. Secondly. Removing patient’s records without permission is a federal HIPPA violation. If a patient leaves these forms when they check out we mail them to them registered mail. Thirdly. Conspiring to do any of these or to deny a patient the best care is a federal crime. There are people in jail for everything they did.”

“You don’t want to put them in jail?”

“No. But when you want to have someone do something they don’t want to do it is nice to have leverage. Offering to forget felony charges can be an extremely heavy lever. Can you see if you can arrange the lawyer to meet with us sometime during the weekend?”

“I can try now.”

“Now let me look at these papers. If you don’t mind I want Jim and Amanda to look at them too. You know Jim is an EMT and Amanda is a nursing student. Let’s call it a second and third opinion.”

“Sure.”

Amanda started to protest. Joan stopped her. “A good nursing student is a good consult. Anyone who will look to see if you have made a mistake is a good consult.”

Jim and Amanda had sit quietly during the discussion. As Joan looked at each form she handed it to him, he handed it to Amanda. When Amanda looked at the last one she handed the pile back to Sandra. Jim spoke first, “Unless I am missing something she is getting great medical care.”

Sally looked up, “Really?”

Amanda’s head turned toward him like it was on a spring. She gasped, “What?” Joan wrinkled her nose. “What do you mean?”

“The medical care is not good, it is between excellent and superb. The nursing staff is doing a super job. If it weren’t the surgeons would have killed her long ago.”

Sally looked up. “Isn’t that harsh?”

Joan broke in. “I’m surprised she is alive.” Amanda nodded.

“What?”

“They have assaulted her body with one procedure after another without giving it time to recover and they have loaded her with drugs. I would not want to be the nursing staff that is handling this patient. Her body could just quit without any warning.”

Britta lowered her head. “I can get into trouble for this so forget I said it after you think about it. I would have asked off her care but I know what the score is and I don’t want some nurse who doesn’t getting sandbagged and her paying for it.”

Sally got out her PDA, got a phone number and made a call. When she hung up she told them the lawyer was out of town but could see them late in the afternoon.