Anyone Think Their Parent Got Sub-Par Treatment?

[ESM]

In addition to having to deal with the horror of losing my mom, which doesn't seem to be getting any better, I keep going over in my head how, in retrospect, I think the treatment she got at the hospital was really crappy. I remember one instance of her pressing the red button to summon a nurse to help her go to the bathroom and no one responding for almost 40 minutes. There was the time I was with my mom from 12 in the afternoon to 6 in the evening and not only did it not a single doctor come down, not even once did a nurse stick his/her head in the room to see if she was okay or if she needed anything. There was the time my mom's IV popped out and blood was spurting everywhere and no one even seem to notice and they left her in her sheets filled with blood.

But the one instance that I look at now and realize that I should have raised hell over but didn't at the moment, occurred on her last day. She was not doing well and finally at around 2 in the afternoon the doctor came down to tell me that while her vital signs were okay she didn't seem very stable and we really should discuss issues of Reviving her or not. I was Jarred and taken a back and hoped to  he was just overreacting. He then went on to say that the Infectious Disease team should be down here this afternoon to give her some new antibiotics which hopefully might work on the infection that she had. I asked him if he knew what time they would be down and if you knew for certain if they would be here this afternoon. He said he's not sure when they'll be down but he hopes it'll be at some point during the afternoon but can't guarantee it. They never came.

Now looking back I realize the absurdity of what he told me. He's standing there telling me my mom has degenerated to the point where her life might be in jeopardy imminently. Yet he's also telling me that he can't guarantee that the medication she needs to perhaps make her well will get to her soon if at all, by the end of the afternoon.  

I mean, we're not talking about her needing an instant kidney transplant or something. We're just talking about getting her medication that she might need and you can't guarantee that a person whose  life is in Jeopardy will get the medicines they need by the end of the afternoon? And I just stood there and really accepted what he said. I should have said you got to be kidding me, we're in a hospital and you can't guarantee she's going to get the medicine she needs by the end of the afternoon. I should have screamed you make sure they get their asses down here with those medicine now or you're going to have a lawsuit on your hands. Or something like that. But I didn't say anything.

Making it even more bizarre is is that she'd been taken off the general floor and put into a step-down unit which is one step below Intensive Care. It's a place where patients are supposed to get a bit more intensive, personalized care. So what exactly was the point of putting her in this new unit if you couldn't even get her the medicine that she needed by the end of the afternoon?

I know it really serves no purpose to go over this in my head over and over again. You can't change the past. It's too late to file any kind of a lawsuit. It's just that the more I think about it the more it burns me up. I was wondering if anyone else had similar experiences with their parent was in the hospital in their final days or weeks and you felt that the treatment they were getting was just absolutely subpar if not downright awful?

[silverkitties]

The whole healthcare profession is money oriented. Sick in every sense of the word. We were discussing this on my thread since I mentioned it in my blog.

The doctors and nurses only care if you are white, rich, and powerful. Preferably male. Anything else, go to hell and rot. That’s their attitude. And since the elderly are so frail, they figure it’s not worth it.

Sonetimes I wonder if they purposely kill them. I know it sounds like a terrible thing to say, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they did so in order to save costs. 

[ESM]

I totally agree with you. I even forgot to mention another instance. The last week my mom went to the hospital, the hospital was supposed to send over their transport van  which is something like an ambulance to transport her to the hospital. They just never showed up. I don't know if they just never showed up or if there was some kind of a screw up but the bottom line is they never came. So my mom went in by 9/11, but if you use 911 you end up in the emergency room for 12 hours. So she was in the emergency room for 12 hours for no reason and I think that's where she might have picked up a bug or something. The whole last eleven days in the hospital was just an endless Sea of screw-ups and horrible care. The more I reflect on it the more I realize how bad it was. But you're right, the whole system is just obscene.

[reader]

Dear ESM,

I'm so sorry for your loss. I'm with you and Silver. It's horrible what families go through in hospitals with careless, thoughtless and incompetent staff. The lack of compassion and empathy is disgusting and only adds to peoples' grief.  It breaks my heart how many people have similar experiences. Like you, I feel like I should have been more assertive with the staff. One person was the coldest, rudest most heartless person caring for my dad. He was having a heart attack and she was telling him to sit up in bed and then he would feel better. I filed a complaint but it went no where.

We all loved our parents so much and only wanted the best for them. I still wish it could have been different for my dad and many others.

Thinking of you.

[Starsaligned]

I’m definitely in this boat, and absolutely so so sorry that any of your loved ones have had to experience terrible medical care as well as horrible bedside manner. I’m sorry for all of your losses and for the ridiculous, unnecessary experiences that could have been avoided.

My mom passed away on October 20th this year. What was supposed to be a “routine procedure” of cauterizing a blood vessel in her nose to stop a 2 day nose bleed ended up in her passing away due to “cardiac arrest”, which btw, she had just had worn a heart monitor weeks prior (due to MY request) and the results were that her heart was functioning well, even with her A-FIB. What I’ve been gnawing on is how much blood she could have lost prior to them even being able to even get her into surgery (there was no evaluation of whether she was even stable enough to go into surgery), and then the fact that I was very upfront (and VERY CONCERNED) with the anesthesiologist about how just a month prior to this surgery she did HORRIBLY after coming out of a thyroplasty surgery, which was a lighter sedation. As a background my mom also had COPD, and was most likely in the late stages of COPD, which I didn’t realize until after her passing.. I think I was in denial of how sick she actually was..but knew that she was very very weak from the prior month’s surgery, also done by her ENT doctor. She had other issues going into that surgery. For this last year she was constantly, month after month, dealing with health issues and it just seemed as if none of her doctors actually knew WTF they were doing. Thrush, contact dermatitis, her wounds weren’t healing properly, she was constantly sick to her stomach. I could go on & on, but the biggest piece I’ve taken from this is to question everything doctors say. I wish I could have gotten a second opinion or even asked if they could try to stop the nose bleed without sedating her.

My mom and I just days prior to that surgery were discussing actively finding her a new ENT because she wasn’t happy with how he was treating her, and I witnessed it as well, he was very condescending and sometimes wouldn’t talk directly to her but rather to me. I don’t ever want to wreck someone’s reputation but there is such a big part of me that wants to leave a horrible review for him. The thyroplasty surgery he did a month prior to her passing didn’t work either- it didn’t fix her voice, and he then told her that it was her responsibility to go to a speech pathologist so she doesn’t strain while speaking.

I know that I can’t go back and redo any of this, but only that I could.. I see so many things that could have been done differently.

Thank you for listening and sending love to all of you.

 

[ESM]

3 hours ago, Starsaligned said:

I could go on & on, but the biggest piece I’ve taken from this is to question everything doctors say.

I agree. I'm not anti-science or anything, but in retrospect I should have been more assertive in questioning things. When my Mom was diagnosed with Leukemia (AML) she was feeling fine. She didn't have a single symptom yet. She was cooking, doing her chores and felt really good. She went into the hospital with nothing bothering her. Then 6 weeks later she's gone. It will haunt me that I didn't question the doctors more. Wishing you the best. Thanks for the response.

[Starsaligned]

I think that it’s common to not question them. I hope that you don’t beat yourself up about it, but I know it’s easy to do. Even I do it. Most of us, I’m guessing, try to trust that doctors have best interests at heart, and that they genuinely do want healing for their patients, but I think it’s also quite obvious some of what they do is motivated by greed instead of what’s best for the patient. Or even just a matter of being lazy. Sending love to you, again, I’m so sorry for your loss. Be easy with yourself during this time.

[ESM]

22 hours ago, Starsaligned said:

I think that it’s common to not question them. I hope that you don’t beat yourself up about it, but I know it’s easy to do. Even I do it. Most of us, I’m guessing, try to trust that doctors have best interests at heart, and that they genuinely do want healing for their patients, but I think it’s also quite obvious some of what they do is motivated by greed instead of what’s best for the patient. Or even just a matter of being lazy. Sending love to you, again, I’m so sorry for your loss. Be easy with yourself during this time.

Thanks for the encouraging words.

[LGS]

I’m actually considering writing a book about the injustices my parents faced with the healthcare system. In New York State Senator Schumer I believe is looking more deeply into elder care as the population and demographics tend to point this is an area that is growing. As a single person who is an only child working full-time and taking care of both of my parents — at least until they died at the end of September was my mom and this past Friday was my dad — I can tell you the options I was faced with were limited. Most people told me I should be a good daughter and quit my job to take care of my parents. Even though financially I live paycheck to paycheck and it isn’t remotely possible. It was insulting. For me it was about the quality of my parents life. Please do not feel you are alone and have the courage to speak up because the only way any of this is going to change is if we all band together and fight it. Even though we’re all grief stricken tired and focusing on one minute at a time to one hour at a time to one day at a time.