A Mom's Life (Or something close to it)

Sunday, October 08, 2006

Do they really treat the old and sick like this?

So, I went to Buffalo to see Grandma again today. I think that the quality of care she is getting is even worse than we thought. First off we didn't get out of town til almost 2:00 pm, but that is a different screwed up story. We got there around 4pm and she looked awful and was sitting up in a chair. She was all confused, telling us we weren't supposed to be there and that we weren't coming today. Mom said "remember I told you we were coming out today?" she said"oh right" . Mom asked how long she had been in the chair. The answer was since they took my lunch tray around 12:30. No one had ever come back to check on her. Mom went looking for the nurse to fine out what was going on and was told the nurse wasn't on the floor at the moment. So Mom said my mother was in pain and needed help. They sent down an aide. I guess that nobody reads charts or checks things out ever in this hospital. They were trying to get her to walk from the chair to the bed when the nurse showed up an wanted to know what the aides were doing. I guess Grandma was sitting on a pillow with straps that can be picked up with a lift to move the patient back and forth. They got her all comfortable and we never saw them again. About a half hour before we were ready to leave her machine started beeping. No nurses to be found. Mom finally went out to find someone and ran into a different nurse who was headed for our room with a medication bag for the IV. It turns out the nurse from the shift before left without leaving a report 20 minutes early. This left the poor nurse coming on duty to try and figure out what was going on. Alarms were going off on half the monitors on the unit and most of the patients had had minimal care all day. The new nurse was ready for blood as was my mother. Mom said "What is wrong with this hospital? Do they just leave their older patients and the people who can't ring the buzzers or take care of themselves to rot?" Things have been bad there but this is the worst. My Mom said not to let anything like that happen to her or Dad. I promised her that there are enough of us that we would descend upon the hospital like vultures and make sure they got decent care. Now on top of this it looks like Grandma probably won't be out of the hospital and going to rehab in the nursing home on Tuesday. She may have to stay there longer. We are all thrilled. Well it has been a long frusterating day, I must go. Will try to be back before to long.

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