The CVS representative popped into Lisa Trumble’s third-floor Berkshire Medical Center hospital room in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, to announce that everything was arranged for Trumble to return home, where she relies on IV nutrition because of severe intestinal problems that leave her unable to eat.
That was on Oct. 8. The next morning a social worker and a doctor woke Trumble to say her discharge was canceled. CVS would no longer provide her home nutrition, and she had to stay in the hospital. A week later, “I’m still here,” she said by telephone Wednesday. “I was dropped between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning with no care for my life or my health.”
Trumble is not the only one in crisis. She’s among 25,000 U.S. patients who depend on parenteral nutrition, or PN — IV bags containing life-sustaining amino acids, sugars, fats, vitamins and electrolytes…