Had a friend that almost died from peritonitis from a pucture during surgery similar to this.
In my own experience, even with good hospitals and good staff, the process for the impaired is unbelievable. My dad had a massive stroke about eleven months ago and I have spent about 500 hours in hospitals, emergency rooms, and skilled nursing units in the last 11 months. Having a family member there is very important if you are impaired in speech, motion, or by medication and/or pain.
The least breakdown in management controls or staffing can turn an otherwise good facility into the worst in little time.
I arrived at one ER near his nursing home to find him in a darkened exam/triage room, curtains drawn, freezing and unable to move. A momentry oversight after arrival and first exam, but still, you are totally at the mercy of circumstances.
I am sorry what your dad and some of the others here (including Glenn Beck) have had to endure. Watching the end of his show tonight actually brought tears and a flood of memories.
I had major surgery four years ago. It was such a nightmare that I am terrified of ever going to a doctor again, thinking I might have to go back into hospital.
I was left on a porta-potty in the middle of the night, with no buzzer available, the night after surgery. I could not move or scream for help. I sat there thinking I was going to die, for over two hours. (They ‘forgot’ about me.)
In the five days I was there, I was never given a toothbrush. My face was never washed (nor was any other place.) My hair was not brushed once. The food was inedible.
I did’t get a shower for five days, and then (after begging and crying for a shower), was pushed into a storage room with a shower head, left in the wheel chair for over an hour - alone, and not strong enough (and too medicated), to move out of the cold stream of water hitting me. (’Forgotten’, again.)
My sheets were changed only once in those five days.
There was a sign on the door to my room (put there by my request), that anyone touching the patient must wash their hands first. Only two times did I ever see anyone wash their hands.
This treatment cost the insurance company almost ten grand a day. Guess what kind of place I could rent for $10,000 a day? I would have servants everywhere, food made by the most perfect chefs, my own hairdresser and stylist. I would be catered to like a queen.
But at the hospital, I couldn’t even get a toothbrush.
Family members and friends have to be there cuz in a hospital or nursing home setting, things change daily: the patient, the staff, germs in the place.
Without outside eyes, an institution exists in a vacuum and unfortunately, the patients who have no one, suffer even more.