This past Monday and Tuesday, the Fresenius Complaint people contacted me regarding my letter to their CEO, Helen Giza. Their interest was strictly limited to ascertaining the nature and extent of my complaint(s). This arm of Fresenius has nothing to do with the resolution of any shortfalls but only acts as a fact-gathering, independent agency within Fresenius.

During Monday’s call, the  complaint-gathering person made a statement that is really bothersome to me as a patient. She stated that Fresenius bears no responsibility for the cassette fiasco in that it was perpetuated by a vendor and they had nothing to do with it. I cannot explain all the ways this does meet any smell test. The CEO of Fresenius is a bean counter – background in accounting and finance – it is a given that the C-Suite is under the gun to keep costs down. Given price pressures on vendors, their response, much like we see at the grocery store and reduced amount of product in a package at the old price, is to cut corners to maintain their margins. How this took place without recognition by Fresenius continues to be a mystery.

In that Fresenius is still in the “fact-gathering phase” of resolution, I don’t see any merit to rumors on such places as PatientHub that Fresenius will be going back to the former cassettes in the short term. Perhaps this is based on wishful thinking.