Recounts the quest of a San Diego mother for justice after her troubled teenage daughter commits suicide while on medication in a psychiatric hospital run by unethical administrators out to turn a profit at any cost. 35,000 first printing."
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Kirkus Reviews
In this riveting account of how one child died at the hands of the health-care system that would save her, Bing brings to light a mechanism gone wild with greed and obscured by the silence of knowing collaborators. In the preface to her account of the Scheck family's disastrous encounter with a for-profit psychiatric facility, journalist Bing (Do or Die, 1991; Smoked, 1993) makes it clear that, having worked for a while in a drug-rehab program, she has firsthand knowledge of just how two-faced, how lacking in facilities, and how poorly staffed that system can be. Christy Scheck's hanging death while interned at a facility owned by National Medical Enterprises (NME) began with a system that made its diagnosis based on the bottom line: the availability and extent of the patient's insurance. The tomboyish 13-year-old, whose close relationship with her father, based on her athleticism, was being disrupted by her maturation, claimed he had sexually molested her-- a lie which became the currency that bought her needed attention once she was cut off from her own family by the facility's undertrained staff. Incorrectly prescribed drugs, the encouragement to embellish her lies, and inadequate staffing all culminated in Christy's suicide. Her case was not unique. NME finally fell in the early '90s--suffering roughly $80 billion in losses--brought down by lawsuits by the Schecks and other families and patients who had suffered from NME's corrupt practices at facilities from coast to coast. Bing makes clear how human damage can be perpetrated by any institution that sees profit before real care. This is a devastating account in which facts fall like dominoes. It should alert us to the dangers of centralized institutions that have taken leave of their senses. Unforgettable. (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Review
...Bing has the instincts to let the agony of Christy's parents speak, eloquently, for itself. And she tellingly reaches past the Scheck family's tragedy into the broader problem that her death underscores: the existence of veritable psychosis mills. -- The New York Times Book Review, Michael E. Ross
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A must read for anyone who cares about kids.,
By A Customer
This review is from: A Wrongful Death: One Child's Fatal Encounter with Public Health and Private Greed (Hardcover)
Kafka lives and her name is Leon Bing. But the truly scary thing is that Bing's report on society - "A Wrongful Death: One Child's Fatal Encounter with Public Health and Private Greed" - is NON-FICTION. This could happen to any troubled teen - and it did. But what's even more interesting than how and why this 13 year old girl committed suicide while under professional medical care is how and why this book isn't getting reviewed! Attention authors and investigative journalists everywhere: you may have a story worthy of a Pulitzer or Nobel Prize - but how's it going to effect change if no one reads it?
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
How Those We Trust Exploit Us.,
By A Customer
This review is from: A Wrongful Death: One Child's Fatal Encounter with Public Health and Private Greed (Hardcover)
One of the altruistic characteristics of Americans is our willingness to do whatever we can to help our troubled children. This book is a chilling yet passionate document of how a greedy callous medical corporation exploits our inclination toward good. If you've ever wanted to do something to help a disturbed kid, the first thing to do is read this book.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The HMO did it, in the teen psych ward, with meds.,
By A Customer
This review is from: A Wrongful Death: One Child's Fatal Encounter with Public Health and Private Greed (Hardcover)
In "Do Or Die," Leon Bing took us to America's grittiest streets to reveal the world of gangsters. Now, she takes us to America's poshest -- and most lucrative -- hospitals, where 13-year-old Christy Scheck met an untimely end. Greed got us here. Bing recounts with a journalists eye for detail and motive how entreprenurial medicine rewards recruiters for putting "heads in beds" of teen psych wards. Private insurance, which pays top dollar to treat troubled yong people, is systematically exploited by medical speculators. Huge medical firms have refined the art of raising hysteria in parents, encouraging them to committ their adolescents for "symptoms" which are often only signs of growing up. What they neglect to do is properly train the "psych tech" staffers who monitor these kids in situations which can make them actually compete to appear the most pathological, whether they actually are or not. This is what happened to Christy Scheck. Bing traces her admittance for depression and hostility towards her parents. Since her father had military insurance, Christy got top-dollar billing, but not equvilant care. Placed on a dangerously high dosage of mid-altering drugs, this child may well have been driven to suicide by those paid to make her better. Christy's parents fought back, and the medical company fought dirty -- a tale of corporate crime Bing tells with riveting detail. Raising a troubled teenager is difficult. Losing one to an incompetent HMO is unbearable. Bing's cautionary tale is required reading for all parents, and for anyone worried about the direction of the modern American health care system.
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