So, the mighty Rush is out of the hospital and possibly out of the woods. And he calls a press conference to tell the world how great the American health care system is. I'm happy for him that things worked out.
We're experiencing the opposite end of the spectrum with my mother. She's seriously ill with lung cancer. This after surviving a bout with colon cancer 4 years ago. We've been in and out of the hospital and doctors' offices since Thanksgiving and while every one is doing their jobs, unfortunately there have been instances where they haven't been done all that well. I'll cite three examples here.
On one hospital visit as Mom was being given her morning round of medications the nurse wheeled in the computer terminal with the meds. She scanned my mother's wrist band, then preceded to scan my mother's meds. She noticed for one prescription that she only had one pill and not the two that were ordered. No problem, she exclaimed. She scanned the one pill twice and said she would be back with the second. Mom downed the meds. 40 minutes later, I went looking for the nurse and reminded her about the second pill. At first she seemed confused. Then she said, "good eye" I would have forgotten. Intriguingly, the computer wouldn't have. It thought all was well and good.
Example two. As Mom was being checked out of that hospital visit, the nurse forgot to return the DNR order she had signed to her. We had to go back to get it. She was none too happy that she had let this slip or that we had caught it.
Example three. When Mom was first admitted to the hospital at the beginning of this journey, she was having some swelling in her legs. Some of her current medication was changed to try and take care of this. That caused other reactions, which led to more changes in medication. To make this long story in this example shorter, we still don't have a solid answer for the leg swelling and we're still playing hunt and seek to try and resolve it with cardio pulmonary guys, kidney guys, her oncologist, all of whom are talking to each other, or so the theory goes. This is where the example comes in. Mom started chemo on New Year's Eve. As the nurse practitioner was preparing the dose she said that this could cause a reaction in her kidneys. My sister but the brakes on at that moment and reminded the NP that Mom was working with a kidney specialist. This brought a halt to everything. They went back to Mom's file, found the pertinent info, were surprised to see it, called the oncologist, re-issued the dose of chemo, and finally all moved on.
I could cite a long list of these kind of events over the last month or so. I don't completely blame the people involved. In my conversations about these events, the individuals involved all express frustration with the system(s) they are working with. Sure, there are good doctors and nurses and bad doctors and nurses and every stripe in between. Mistakes will happen, which is why it is important that no one ever surrenders up to any health care provider and always has an advocate/family member/friend close by when instructions are being given or reports are being made.
Unless you're a big shot like Rush, or have someone on your side paying attention, you do run a risk with our glorious system every time you become a player within it. But then we've politicized this entire issue to the point now where it has become either a great system or a lousy one with no gray area in between. The sad reality is that the gray area in between is where most live and die with decisions that get made. But talking about the murky complexity with the gray areas don't make for great press conferences or sound bites.
