Monday, October 21, 2013

Warning, rant approaching...


Pssst....Pssst... Hey, Covidien, and my local home health equipment dealer, and New York State.  Wanna know a secret???  These new food pumps?  THEY SUCK.  OMG. They are awful. Seriously.  What is wrong with you people???
                    Actually, I know what's wrong. And since this is probably the only way any of you are gonna ever listen, I am gonna tell you.  First of all, the pump (not going name names but it rhymes with schmangaroo schmoey) is AWFUL. The old pump (The Ross Patrol pump) was not perfect but it could be managed.   The new pump SUCKS.  Its annoying.  It tries too hard to be idiot proof and ends up being idiotic. Its like going from a pc to a mac. (and  I HATE macs.  I'm a pc girl allll the way.)  It does not understand the difference between a continous feed and a truly intermittent one. If you follow the badly written manual's instructions, when it gets to the end of a feeding IT JUST BEEPS ONCE AND STARTS ALL OVER AGAIN.  That's effing dangerous. It took my computer tech husband an hour of monkeying around with it to figure it out. And it's not at all like the manual says. Also, you cannot properly clean these new food bags without taking forever.  With the old Ross bags, you could break the safety band and let hot water rinse through.  With the new bags you have to hook it to the machine and HOLD the button down while the water SLOWLY drains through- at least 10  mins per feeding with Feisty Pants very thick formula.  And since my hands are busy holding down buttons and standing still, that's 10 minutes six times a day- an HOUR of my day YOU waste and I cannot get back. Your suggestion of emptying the bag out and then  just rinsing what is in the tube itself is ludicrous.  CHOP (Children's Hospital of Philadelphia) did a study a few years back- bacteria begins to grow in food bags even when "properly cleaned" after just four hours. Which is why they use a new bag every four hours.  My daughter's insurance pays for one bag per day.
                      Also, when I got stuck with this pump I despise, I called every home health company in my area.  They are all using this ONE pump.  No choice to consumers. WTF is wrong with you???  I was told by several vendors that NY says that if you deal in durable medical equipment you have to have a technician on staff well versed  in said piece of equipment.  And you are all apparently such cheap twits, umm, errr, money conscious managers that you will train your techs in one maybe two machines of any type.  Exactly what made all you companies decide this was the ONE pump you were willing to offer? I suspect all sorts of shenanigans on this one. (Note to any up and coming companies out there, I have no loyalty to any company that has no loyalty to consumers-  first DME company willing to actually be flexible and use more than one machine, I will drop the old company faster than a hot potato.)
                        Soo, to all three of you, since you did not give me any choice in the matter, please be advised of this. If my immunocompromised daughter come down with ANY kind of illness I can trace back to this awful awful pump, I will sue the living hell out of everyone involved with making us use it.   Just so you know.

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