By Manuel Laureano-Vega M.S.,M.D.
Hospital Care Fiasco
A month has gone by since this happened. I just got over the repulsion felt when witnessing this event. I was at a hospital that will go unnamed for now. We were there to make a checkup visit to a patient of ours that had been in there for 23 days due to a stroke. He was and elder man, beginning to live the sunset years as they call them. I say he was because he is dead now.
When we got there he was so happy to see us, this poor man lived alone here in Miami and had all his family in Peru, where he was born. He hardly spoke English and never had visitors at the hospital except for the neighbor that watched over his apartment during his hospitalization. Therefore, he had no advocates. He looked up and saw us walk into his room giving us a nice warm smile. At that moment, we found out he was transferring to a nursing home; his only additional comment was that he did not know if he could take it! Thinking that this meant he was getting better, we did not really understand what he meant, but within the next five minutes, we did clearly understand what he meant.
They came into the room smiling and happy. Both were addressing the client and did not even bother to ask us, who we were, and what we were doing there. They came in told the client that he was being transferred to his bed from the chair we found him in when we got there.
That was a most traumatic experience, not only for us. The client grabbed by his arms and pulled from the chair while ignoring his complaints of pain and unpreparedness. They hoisted him into the air and since his legs were not ready to support his weight, he was dropped. Catch him in midair so he would not hit the floor, the peace that was his temporary refuge was broken. We watched as the oxygen tubing was yanked off the wall and the IV drip threatened to fall to the floor. Screaming and complaining from the attendant nurse and nurse’s aide filled the air adding to the cacophony of the moment. It all culminated when they attempted to lift him from the position they had managed to get into and threw him on the bed, he landed like a sack of potatoes, I am sure he damaged something else in his frail body during that maneuver.
We were shocked, horrified! I only wished I had pulled out my phone and made a video of that scene. A compliant was lodged, that lead to anger and threatening looks on part of the attendants. The client was accosted in his room with angry voices saying, “we did not drop you did we? If they come to ask you, don’t you say that we dropped you? That did not happen!” I could hear that on the other side of the door. I also heard, “Make sure you change his dipper because he defecated on himself again.” The response from the other one was, ” Why should I change him if he is going to be dirty five minutes after I clean him up.!” Wow! Mind-boggling!
He died two weeks later, I can only imagine the torture he suffered. This is no way to run a health care system. The lack of caring for AIDS patients is appalling. Once again, they are scared of going to the hospitals and nursing homes they are terrified of being in the hands of health mercenaries that have no business caring for sick people. The caregivers do not have the skills needed, and this decrease in the quality of care is due to cost cutting, the bad economy, and inadequate screening of health care job seekers. Keep your eyes and ears open; don’t leave solitary patients unattended in health care facilities.