Carmen, daughter, NICU nurse, lives in town (Time 1 hour)

Anyway, Mom called me Wednesday afternoon and told me she was sick and that she had gone to the doctor the day before. She said she was a little uncomfortable most of the time and she had these bouts of really, really bad pain in her stomach, but they came and went. She said she felt sick to her stomach, but that she wasn't vomiting. I went right over to my Mom's house to see her.

She was a bit flushed and breathing a bit fast, I took her her temperature because she felt warm it was high, like about 38.8. I couldn't talk her into going to the hospital, so I called Tony and we both agreed that I should take Mom into the ED and have someone look at her. My Mom still refused to go even when Tony told her he thought she should she is really stubborn, and never wants anyone to fuss over her. She doesn't speak very much English and hates being in situations where people are talking about her and she can't understand what they're saying. I feel so bad, I should have just dragged her to the hospital maybe then none of this would have happened and she wouldn't have gotten so sick. Anyway, I made Mom promise that she would go to the doctor in the morning if she wasn't better. I guess Mom was up most of the night and was in quite a bit of pain, but she wouldn't let my Dad phone me before he went to work. Mom finally phoned me at 8 in the morning on Thursday and I was at her house in about 15 minutes flat again she was refusing to go to the ED but I did manage to get her to agree to come to the medical clinic the doctor there saw her quickly and knew that she was a lot sicker than she had been on Tuesday. He even called an ambulance to take her to the hospital.

When Mom got to the ED she said saw the triage nurse right away nice woman, my mom liked her. Mom was sent to the waiting room and didn't actually get admitted into the ED until about 11:40 and a resident came to see her about 10 minutes later and he ordered some blood work and xrays. When the actual ED doctor finally came to see my Mom I think it was about 12:30 or so, she said they had called in a consult to surgical services. I was really worried then, I told her how worried I was. A little bit later, I decided I should call Tony, so I went outside of the ED to call him. I got back to the ED about 15 minutes later and my Mom was gone to CT.

About 2:00 or so what I thought was a doctor came in to examine Mom. I asked him what the CT scan showed and if they were going to do surgery, because my Mom was looking very sick by that time way worse than she did when she arrived at the ED. That was when I found out he was just a medical student a medical student! After 4 hours in the ED she was being seen by a medical student from surgery what was he going to do

I was almost beside myself by the time Dr. Chan came in around 4:00 4:15 or so Dr. Chan said that she was going to do emergency surgery on Mom, but even then Mom didn't end up going to the OR for another hour at about twenty after 5. I can't believe everything was so screwed up I wish I would have taken my Mom to the ED the night before, but I can't help wondering if they would have sat around and not done anything for her until she was really, really sick anyway.

Other Information

Questions regarding CT scan / consent form / Mother not speaking English well

When I left to go get Tony, I didn't know where they had taken her I didn't know they had ordered a CT scan, so I had no idea where my Mom was. I couldn't find the nurse to ask her so I went outside and made a couple more phone calls. My Mom came back from the CT scan, and she couldn't really tell me what they had done she said she had signed something for a test they did, but she didn't know what it was exactly. Since Mom doesn't speak or understand English very well, I can't believe they were comfortable having her sign a consent form when she didn't even understand what it was she was signing. She was feeling so awful when she got back, that I didn't really pursue the issue, and I didn't ask her any more questions.

Questions about arriving via ambulance or about the wait in the hallway prior to getting a bed in ED, or who she talked to at triage

It didn't seem to matter at all to the ED staff and triage nurse that my Mom came in by ambulance I thought she would be seen right away since she arrived in an ambulance, and it was the doctor that insisted that she be transported in an ambulance because of her blood pressure! Don't they talk to each other didn't they know that the clinic doctor thought she was really sick Well, she wasn't seen quickly at all, in fact when I got to the ED at about 9:40 I went in my own car my Mom was in the hallway with the EMTs from the ambulance with her. I actually went up to the triage nurse and asked her to get one of the doctors so that I could speak to them as I was really concerned about my mother and couldn't believe she wasn't sent right to a bed in the department I didn't think the triage nurse really got how seriously ill my mother was. The triage nurse didn't seem to care and just told me that my Mom would be given the next bed and that the ED docs were too busy to talk to me.

Questions about the care in the ED, or what Carmen felt was the reason for delays

I couldn't believe how long it took for something to be done for my mother once she was in the ED and I told Dr. Jordan how worried I was and that I wanted something done. Dr. Jordan told me that she and her colleagues have been telling the hospital administration for many years how unsafe it is for patients with serious medical problems to be waiting as long as they have to for a bed in the ED, but nothing seems to change and there is nothing the ED Docs can do about it. I couldn't believe that is what she said to me!

Questions about disclosure, or what she was told following her Mother's surgery

So once they finally got her to surgery, I was a little bit relieved, until I saw her after surgery and things still were awful. But then it kept going downhill, maybe the worst part is the run around and lies I got once my Mom was in the ICU, after her surgery. I had to ask the nurses to have a meeting with the doctor from the ICU, Dr. Witmans to talk about what was going on with my Mom. I asked him why it took so long for my mother to be diagnosed and treated for a life threatening condition and also why her kidneys had failed. He tried to explain what might have happened to cause the delays, but also kind of passed the buck by saying he wasn't involved with that part of her care. As far as the renal failure goes, he said he thought that it was most likely caused by her sepsis and low blood pressure. He was at least honest with me about how my Mom was doing and was very clear that she was extremely ill and her prognosis should be considered quite guarded.

The next day, Tony arrived and started reading the chart and discovered my Mom's high creatinine level that showed up way back on Tuesday and was really quite elevated before they did the CT scan on her on Thursday. Tony explained to me that you don't give someone with a high creatinine contrast for a CT scan because it could cause them to go into renal failure I went to Dr. Witman's about this and asked him why he never said anything about it to me when I asked about the renal failure he said he didn't say anything because it wasn't his place. So, Tony and I had a meeting with Dr. Chan and asked her about the decision to order a CT scan when Mom's creatinine was so high. Dr. Chan explained the test had been ordered by the ED physician and then Tony talked to someone in administration in the ED and found out how to get hold of Dr. Jordan from the ED she happened to be there that day, so she came and spoke with us. So then we asked her about the decision to order the CT scan and she basically said it wasn't me, it was the ED resident, then she had to go and talk to the resident I can't believe none of these people had even talked to each other to figure out what happened and why my Mom was so sick they didn't seem to really care. Anyway, Dr. Jordan came back to say that she talked with the ED resident and the only reason he ordered the test was that Dr. Fraser a resident from surgery told him to. So this whole thing was a mess and now my Mom had ended up really sick and no one was even looking into what happened. They took way too long to do anything for my mom and she was so sick and I kept telling them she was getting sicker and sicker and then, when they finally did do a test which I am starting to think never even needed to be done the xray and her symptoms should have been enough for them to take her to surgery they knocked out her kidneys.

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