Posted on 12/14/2009 3:39:27 PM PST by KarenMarie
This is a story that I originally posted in a thread a while back and it was suggested to me to make my own thread. Sorry it took so long.... I was kinda busy ;) If this is in the wrong place or I have broken any rules, I apologize in advance.
UPDATE: Jack is home now and getting better IN SPITE of the NHS, NOT BECAUSE of it. I really felt the need to share this... it is not just a story in a newspaper or word of mouth tale. We are real life, down to earth people who are horrified by the ineptitude, negligence and epic failure in the UK NHS. Not to mention the dirt, filth and shortage of staff, equipment and qualified specialists.
Also, I would like to say that not all staff here are shamefully bad at their jobs. We have met some of the best health care staff we have ever met. Unfortunately, they were overwhelmed by the worst we have ever seen.
K noticed that Jack was not well and took him to her GP. She told him that Jack had diarrhea and stomach cramping for 4 days, weird nappies for 2 days before that and was being really fussy. He told her that she was just being a new mother and stop worrying. The next day she brought him back because in his watery diarrhea were streaks of blood. When we insisted, he called the hospital and told them that he checked the baby who he thought was fine but since K was a new mother, he was referring Jack to the hospital to be tested for intussusception. After waiting for hours in A&E, while being starved in case of surgery and three different drs took the history, Jack was tested for intussusception. When that came back negative, they did not test for WHY Jack had watery, bloody diarrhea or his severe stomach pain (which they called colic). They just sent K home, telling her that she is just a new mother, not to worry about it, just keep Jack hydrated.
After another day of projectile, watery, bright green diarrhea, 3 times Jack vomitted everything he ate. The out of hours service had J&K take Jack to a different hospital that was an hour away (since the first one was "too busy" when they rang there). Same exact thing happened with this doctor too. The following day, K had her 6 week check up with her doctor. She told the doctor her concerns about Jack and the doctor told K that she had been a doctor for 23 years, then diagnosed Jack based on what her oldest son had when he was the same age (colic and reflux). The next day, I had Jack in a swing in the kitchen with me and noticed he looked pale. I went to check for a fever and found him to be cold. His hands were kinda blue, and his finger nails were purple. K called the out of service doctors office (it is not open on weekends), and got an appointment to see yet another doctor. He took one look at Jack and told K to pack an overnight bag and take Jack back to the hospital that he was in the first time. When we got there, we waited and waited and finally a nurse came and asked for the history. After half an hour, a student doctor that I call the Doogie Howser doctor came in and asked for the history. He went away and then came back to ask additional questions; when a fully qualified pediatrician came in to ask the student doctor a question about another kid, she took one look at Jack and shouted... “get that baby upstairs, NOW!!”
So Jack was rushed to the pediatrics unit where the nurses were gabbing about pubs and B/Fs and etc while I stood in the hallway glaring at them and Jack was turning grey in J’s arms. (initially, I could not make a fuss because they would have kicked me out of the hospital). But Jack was starting to go grey and he was literally dying in his dad’s arms when the doctor rushed up and started screaming, wanting to know who Jack’s nurses were going to be. When they all started to look busy, the doctor grabbed the closest nurse and barked orders to her. They rushed Jack into a room where they flooded him with fluids and brought him back looking a lot better but still not well.
After a few days of negative tests for the most common things, a consultant came in and said that he would see how things went for a few days and if no improvement, then call in the gastro team and do more in depth tests. When I asked him why we had to wait, why not just get/do it all now.. why make the poor baby suffer... he said it was not hospital policy. After 3 days of being in the hospital, a jr doctor came in and told K that she wanted to do a lumbar puncture to rule out meningitis. She told J&K that they really needed to agree to it but they should discuss it while keeping in mind that there was a doctor shift change in 10 minutes and if they did not agree by then, who knows when it would happen. Then a student nurse put her head in the room to say that she would be assisting because all the nurses were on lunch but she needed a minute to go have a wee and then they could get started. They wheeled him out in his own bed to do the lumbar puncture so they ‘did not have to make up another one’ !!!
One day, K woke up to find out that he had not been fed all night and was trying to get him food. It was 15.5 hours before he finally got food, even tho Kristina was asking and asking and asking and no one wanted to take responsibility for why that baby did not eat. They just told her that he was still getting his IV so it was ok. While the IV kept him hydrated, there is no protein, no fat and no calories in it... so, it was NOT ok. the next day, he was scheduled to eat at 6:15pm and no one showed, so I went to the nurses station and was told they did not know where his nurse was. I kept going back, every 5 minutes and the nurse finally showed up to feed Jack at 6:45 with an attitude. She was a total b!t*h after that. (K could not nurse Jack as the current hypothesis included secondary lactose intolerance)
Jack did not throw up his food but still had diarrhea. They kept him on IV while trying a lactose-free formula (we don't understand the choice of formula, as we later found out there are kinder, easy-to-digest options which they should have tried). The next day, they came in and took away his IV, saying he did not need it anymore, and he could go home the next day. That baby looked like a preemie on chemo... gaunt, swollen yet sunken eyes that were greyish black around, yellow tinted skin... he was really not right. K&J kept telling them Jack was not right and should not be going anywhere and should not have the fluid IV taken away. Anyway... because they took his IV off (not weaning off or anything, just unplugged it and wheeled it out, along with turning off his monitors) J woke up with a start to find Jack had stopped breathing and was in cardiac arrest... he got so dehydrated that he went into cardiac arrest. CARDIAC ARREST!!
He was moved to Pediatric ICU on life support and about 9 different drips, inculding morphine. During this time, J&K had meetings with the top brass in the Pediatrics section of the hospital who were walking on eggshells because they were in CYA mode. They yessed K&J to death and promised them nothing and there was not a lot K&J could do, since they are supposed to be the best pediatric gasto team in the country and Jack did not have a passport to go to America for proper care. He stayed in Ped ICU for a few days and they moved him to the normal pediatrics ward in a room he shared with another baby who sounded like she was coughing up a lung and was crying all the time. The nurses just let her cry.
They insisted Jack needed to have a hickman line put it for TPN feeding but something happened during the surgery that caused Jack to bleed too much twice and they put him back on a respirator with morphine. (The only thing worse than watching a tiny baby go thru the DTs, is watching a baby go thru the DTs twice). He ended up only using the line for 8 days, most of which also included nasalgastric feeding (on an easy-to-digest formula first, then expressed breastmilk), before Jack got an infection.
The hickman line got so infected that it was oozing and Jack’s temperature shot right up. It had to be removed asap and Jack had a neck abscess that broke and bled and pussed. It is not a surprise that this happened, considering they make a big fuss about how breaking into the line is such a sterile procedure and put on gloves just to do it in the same bed they change his diapers in and don’t even ask anyone to leave. But.. if you see the filth in this place and the hygiene of some of the doctors... ugh. (I need to post about how filthy, disgusting the hospital is. About the blood spatter on the floor along the hallway that stayed there for almost an entire day, the layer of dead skin on every bathroom hand dryer in all the bathrooms. About the filthy plates in the cafeteria. About breast pumps that are so filthy that they should be trashed and have a cleaning log that reads May. (after we complained so many times, they went in and... they did not clean the machines but they did remove the book) About the intern doctors with filthy, wrinkled clothes, greasy hair and more. About the senior doctors who washed their hands, coughed in their palm or rubbed their eyes or put their fingers in their ears then went to touch the ICU patients. I have been making noise and raising a stink as much as I can without worrying that it will be detrimental to Jack’s care or getting me kicked out of the hospital.)
The entire time, K&J were fighting with the doctors to treat Jack correctly and to know what was going on. No dr wanted to explain what procedures and tests they were doing, what the results were, what they were considering, nothing. When K&J were asking questions and wanting to know what they were doing to Jack, often the drs got annoyed or were patronising, or just rambled on about something else to avoid the questions. A few drs got angry that K&J even dared to question what they were doing.
Here is the biggest kick in the ass of it all... the only way to get to a hospital (except by ambulance) or see any kind of specialist is to get a doctor’s referral. Once your children have been admitted, the only way to get them out is either referral to another hospital or being discharged. You cannot just protest and take your kid home. We have seen one young mother bullied and threatened if she did not agree to the treatments the Drs wanted her daughter to have, even tho the daugther was vomiting after each one. J&K have requested a copy of every piece of paper pertaining to Jack’s care and they are getting incomplete, missing pages or smaller pieces of paper cleverly clipped to the top of the notes page so they cannot be read.
His gastro team said just enough to scare J&K, who then feel they cannot refuse any procedure the Drs want to do. Luckily there is one Dr they trust, who is from another team and was called in to test for rarer diseases as they cannot figure out what was/is wrong with Jack. They brought in a gastro team, a microbiology team and an endocrinology team to look for things to explain Jack's cardiac arrest when it was obvious what caused it. The head of the endocrinology team even admitted as much.
We’re still not sure what was originally wrong with Jack. Jack was in hospital for almost 4 weeks. We believe it was originally a case of gastroenteritis and if it would have been taken care of quickly, it would never have ended up as it did.
I am an American. I do not have medical insurance. I cannot afford medical insurance... but I STILL would not want our system turned into this. Please... we need to not let this happen in our country.
Everyone in Congress who votes for this should have to use it if the legislation passes.
This story needs to be told to Fox News
I am an American. I do not have medical insurance. I cannot afford medical insurance... but I STILL would not want our system turned into this.
What a frightening story!
I do hope Jack is fully recovered. What a terrible thing for him and his parents to go through.
‘Tis true that she won’t be dunned for any of this mis-care.
But our system has a lot of defacto charity in it. They would not have been able to simply kick Jack out of a US emergency room.
I originally posted a prayer thread, when it all first happened. then I posted the entire story in a Mark Levin thread, I know he is huge on medical.
Also, there is another point about the NHS that I forgot to mention...
If you want to move your kid to a private hospital, you will be allowed to do so as long as the current doc oks that the kid is well enuf to travel. Or you can use your private insurance in your current hospital if you cannot be transported.
My son-in-law has private insurance. And it works like this...
But ... if you choose to go thru private insurance, you will be given a bed in a room in the same hospital. Same bed, same room, same docs, same nurses. And if, in case of an emergency they need that bed... they will move your child into a room with other children and you will continue to pay privately. you see... you are paying for the bed, not the room, so no matter where in the hospital that bed is moved, you are going to be charged for it. and once you pay private, you can never switch back to the NHS. That goes for adults as well as children! Nice, huh?
What I’m wondering is, where is the pride gone in the British system? Some problems can be blamed on short handedness, but a lot from just plain it-ain’t-my-yob-man goofing off. There should be an ironclad provision in any American social healthcare plan that SEIU and its ilk are persona non grata.
yeah we have this too. it´s just not possible to kick anyone out of a hospital (or whatever) if he/she is not 18 years old. if they are older you can be kicked out but only if you have nothing life threatenig. if so they are “forced” to help you.
I would not rather die, I never even eluded to that.
Sorry but would you want to turn our entire medical system into the nightmare of the NHS and make every person in the country have to deal with that? Just for a few?
There are ways of getting aid without putting the entire country thru what we just went thru.
:)
Sorry but would you want to turn our entire medical system into the nightmare...
no i won´t! but it really looks like some americans have a wrong impression what “socialized health care” really means. first this differs from EU country to EU country. sometimes good sometimes bad-but for example i have to say the system we have here really works. is it the best? well i hope not but it really works most of the time...
just for example let me explain “our” model of “socialized medicine”. does this mean the state controlls it? answer NO.
The stae runs his own insurance company. this is true, so everyone who workes is forced to pay in some money (based on his peronal income for this insurance. but then again you are free to drop out of this “system” anytime you want. the moment you have a private insurance you won´t pay a single cent anymore to the state owened. but the major difference is you have to be insured. feel free to do it on your own but if not the state will ensure you even against your will. the only factor which is really paid from tax money is that kids or youth are insured untill they are 18 years old. for the rest ... you work you pay taxes so the state will use a fixed amount of money to pay for your health insurance of course untill you feel to drop out of this system. if you have no job or you are maybe not capable to pay the “fines” for your “private insurance”any more the state will jump in and will pay for you. this means you will just return to the state owened insurance no matter what you have been done before. so this just ensures that every one who is covered by an insurance can enjoy his “right” for medical threatment all he/she wants without fear any costs
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