Oliver cited an interview with Facenda and his mother and primary caregiver, Joann, on the difficulties faced by people with disabilities as the state shifted to for-profit “managed care organizations”, leaving Facenda spending hours in dirty diapers.
Oliver played audio from Morley’s testimony at a 2017 administrative hearing, that aired as such: “People have bowel movements every day where they don’t completely clean themselves, and we don’t fuss over [them] too much. People are allowed to be dirty … You know, I would allow him to be a little dirty for a couple of days.”
Oliver said of the snippet: “Look, I’ll be honest, when I first heard that, I thought that has to be taken out of context. There is no way a doctor, a licensed physician, would testify in a hearing that he thinks it’s okay if people have shit on them for days. So, we got the full hearing, and I’m not going to play it for you, I’m just going to tell you: he said it, he meant it, and it made me want to punch a hole in the wall.
“If I absolutely had to put it into words, I guess I’d say fuck that doctor with a rusty canoe, I hope he gets tetanus of the balls,” he continued. “And if he has a problem with my language there, I’d say I’m allowed to be dirty. People are allowed to be a little dirty sometimes, apparently that’s doctors fucking orders.”
Oliver also added that legally, he was required to say that AmeriHealth Caritas restored the patient’s services, but called it a “disgrace” that it was disrupted in the first place.
The lawsuit argues that context cut from the show changes the meaning of Morley’s words, which they quote as thus: “In certain cases, yes, with the patient with significant comorbidities, you would want to have someone wiping them and getting the feces off. But like I said, people have bowel movements every day where they don’t completely clean themselves and we don’t fuss over too much. People are allowed to be dirty. It’s when the dirty and the feces and the urine interfere with, you know, medical safety, like in someone who has concomitant comorbidities that you worry, but not in this specific case. I would allow him to be a little dirty for a couple days.”
I don't see how the full quote meaningfully changes the meaning of the words
"I would allow him to be a little dirty for a couple days."
It's this sentence right here. It doesn't matter what comes before or after it, it's that sentence that makes Morley into a complete sociopath. Be a little dirty? A couple of fucking days? Get fucked. I wouldn't let my dog be dirty for a couple of days. I don't let my shoes be dirty for a couple of days. Leaving a person under your care with shit in their pants when they can't do anything about it for a couple of days means you aren't human anymore. You have forfeit your humanity. I don't think we are part of the same species. You are something less than me now, and I don't like you.
Yeah, I think it's really the timeframe. Days. If you cannot clean them immediately because of pressing things that prevent you, OK. If that takes 10-15 minutes, OK. If that takes an hour, maybe OK. If that takes any longer, we are getting slowly to a not OK. Days, absolutely not OK. How can that be medically safe according to this doctor?
It doesn't really matter if it's medically safe. It's just disgraceful.
Right, even if it was medically safe, it infringes on the persons basic human dignity.
Not disgraceful. Supervised neglect. And that is assault.