Mom was visiting us and she got an infection in her legs, so on Sunday we decided that she should go to the emergency room and have a doctor check it out. We arrived there about 9:45am Sunday morning, mom had to wait in the triage line and then in the admitting line and then in the waiting room before they called her back into the emergency room. It wasn’t too long of a wait, she got back into the emergency room around 10:15am. I had to wait until they did the initial assessment before I could go back. It was about 10:55am when I went back to see my mom in her cute little gown sitting on a hospital bed. Mom explained that a doctor and two nurses had come to talk with her. While the doctor asked her questions, one nurse took her vitals and the other inserted the IV needles and took some blood. Mom said she was in a bit of a daze with all the questions flying around. She was also a little put off that no one really explained to her what was going on. She had just been asked to get into a gown, get on the bed and then a barrage of questions from the doctor and nurses. The gist she did happen to get was that they were sending the blood for testing and she would be sent down for an ultrasound to ensure there wasn’t a blood clot in her leg.
I waited with mom for a while hoping that we would be told something so we could decide if I should leave for a bit or if it was worth waiting around. It was about 12:00 noon when a nurse came to check her vitals. He quickly showed himself to not be the sharpest knife in the drawer. Mom had merely asked him if he had any idea what they were waiting for and when she could expect to go for her ultrasound. He make some wise crack about “if he knew that he would be a god” and they gave off this laugh that reminded me of Beevis and Butthead. Thanks for the help buddy!
So mom and I just waited a bit longer. We knew how busy emergency rooms can be and we didn’t want to be a pain and we just trusted that we would be told something soon. At 12:30 mom suggested that I call Dan and that we go out for a bit and she would wait at the hospital. I did, Dan picked me up at 1:00pm and we went and had some lunch and then did a bit of shopping. I hadn’t heard anything from mom while I was gone so I came back to the hospital around 4:00pm. They had moved her to a hallway area that had been set up with curtains, extra space for those non-critical patients. Dan went home and I went back to sit with mom. She explained to me what had happened while I was gone. A nurse came to move her to this new location, she tossed moms bag of clothes on her legs on the bed, pushed the bed to this hallway area, parked the bed and walked away. Didn’t say anything to mom, and didn’t even help her take the bag of clothes off the bed. Mom said that she still hadn’t been told anything about what was going on. The nurse who was watching over the patients in the hall area asked mom why she was there. Mom explained that she really wasn’t sure what was going on but the last she figured the nurses were waiting for blood test results and she was going to have an ultrasound. Mom noted that she was surprised that the ultrasound department was opened on the weekend and was wondering if maybe they hadn’t found someone to do the ultrasound, mom told the nurse that she is from a small town and normally the ultrasound isn’t operating on the weekend unless there is an emergency. Mom said that if it was going to take a long time she should probably just go home and book an ultrasound for tomorrow. Mom’s legs were sore, but she didn’t think she was an emergency situation and that she was just taking up space in the emergency room. Mom also mentioned that she hadn’t had anything to eat all day and she was starting to get hungry. She had been told she wasn’t suppose to eat anything. The nurse made some comment about small towns and how they would have just sent her home, and that the hospital does take ultrasound appointments on the weekend and that mom had to be slotted in between appointments that’s why she was waiting for so long, but the nurse said she would check. I arrived back with mom just after this conversation and I agreed that mom should just go home. I went up to the nurse myself and asked if mom could just go home and book an appointment for tomorrow. The nurse said no. I asked her why. She said if we come back tomorrow we could end up waiting 5 hours for the results so we might as well just stay. I said then, that mom was hungry and could she please have something to eat. The nurse said she would check. A few moments later she brought mom a sandwich and some juice. At 5:00pm the doctor stopped by to tell mom she would be going to ultrasound shortly, that he was off for the night and depending on if they found a blood clot would determine if she got blood thinners or just antibiotics for the infection. Mom was taken to ultrasound immediately after the doctor left. And we got a better understanding of what was going on. While mom was having the ultrasound done she mentioned to the technician that she must have been really busy today because mom was waiting for so long. Not the case at all. The technician explained that the ultrasound department is not open on Sundays. If the emergency room needs an ultrasound done immediately they need to let the department know and a technician will be called in otherwise they are dealt with the following working day. What had happened was the emergency room sent moms requisition for an ultrasound at 11am that morning but didn’t note that it was an emergency. Not until 4pm when someone checked into it was the requisition upgraded to an immediate ultrasound. This explained A LOT! It also explained why mom wasn’t allowed the option to go home and come back tomorrow. By the time she suggested that they had upgraded the requisition and if she left then there wasn’t a need for the technician to be called in. I am guessing that at least one other person was in the same boat as mom. She had been there just as long as we had and her ultrasound was right after moms. Once the ultrasound was done, we went back to wait in the hallway area. Around 6:30pm the new doctor on shift came to speak with mom and explained that she didn’t have a clot, so he was recommending a high dose of antibiotics be injected that night before we left through IV and that she come back tomorrow and see a specialist and continue with further antibiotics. At 7:00pm the hallway nurse came by again with the IV antibiotics. She set up the drip and told mom it would be about half an hour. After about 20 minutes I looked at the machine and was puzzled. The machine indicated a drip rate and amount and the time remaining was 1hour 40 minutes, much longer than the nurse had mentioned. I was going to ask, but figured she knew what she was doing. Especially when another nurse came by to check and said it wouldn’t be much longer. I just figured that maybe they weren’t giving here the entire bag of IV. We overheard hallway nurse #1 leave and pass of instructions to hallway nurse #2. At 7:30pm hallway nurse #2 came by and asked if mom was finished yet, mom said she hadn’t heard the machine beep. Hallway nurse checked the machine and was surprised, the rate had been set very low, she commented that mom would have been there all night. Hallway nurse #2 upped the volume rate of the drip and it showed now on the screen that there was only 12 minutes left instead of 1.5 hours. When that was done we packed up mom quickly and left the hospital at 7:45pm, 10 hours after we had arrived there.
I understand the shortage of bed space, but I question what the cause of this shortage really is. Mom was concerned about her legs, but we both agree she wasn’t an emergency situation that required her to sit there all night, taking up space from a more critical emergency. There was huge lack of communication, both between the medical staff and patient and between the medical departments themselves. I understand that the emergency room is a high stress very busy area, but if you can’t handle the job should you really be working there? And to be honest, the nurses that were there didn’t really come across as that stressed and overworked. I mean, no more than I am at work when it’s a busy day. There is a 24 hour emergency clinic downtown that takes walk in cases, I wish I had taken mom there. You have to really start to question the reasons behind all these problems in emergency rooms, like that guy a few years ago who died from appendicitis because he had waited so long at one hospital his family took him to another. It’s a big city and very busy but I am still not convinced the problem solely lies with lack of space. I am sure it is part of the problem, but does that problem then just give way for excuses for lack of care.