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I missed it the first time.....this took place in a "giant city." I think that is short hand for NYC!! I know the place well. It is the best in the world for healthcare and those same great hospitals are among the world's worst for patient satisfaction. I don't think it is a mere coincidence that the nurses are unionized.
BTW, if this did occur in NYC, having an advocate is not enough. You need a New Yorker to deal with another New Yorker. You have to be New York pushy to get by.
Well, no, not that giant. On the size of Seattle, SF, LA, DC etc. I just meant a big city that attracts great doctors.
I had an exemplary surgeon. I assumed that the "boutique" hospital he worked out of would also be excellent. Or at least: good.
Keeping it short: the nurses and their helpers were scary, snippy, not friendly. Awful about sums it up.
I'm in a giant city and this is a famed hospital with a name known around the world.
Three nights and four days in the hospital with my husband visiting here and there (we have kids at home) meant I didn't have a care advocate. Not smart.
In a nutshell:
Occupational therapist and physical therapist: Just fine.
Food people: A
Xray folks: A
Check in person: the one thing she was supposed to do -- explain how to order food -- she didn't do.
Nurses and their helpers: Mean to each other and irritable w/ me. (And I was trying very hard to be agreeable and easy. I'm not a princess. I must have sounded like an idiot saying thank you 100 times, but I didn't know what else to do. I couldn't really move after surgery.)
Takeaway: don't go to any hospital without a caring, yet assertive family member, friend or medical doula with you. Don't do the hospital alone. Trust me on this one.
And don't let your friends and family go alone either. Spread the word.
Alley
While I agree with you in general....You probably don't know this but ironically you DID have an advocate. BESIDES your husband, I mean, who, for some reason you think didn't have to be involved.
It's a position in the hospital called The Advocate. They are typically RNs who are in the physicians' branch of the Medical department. Here in FL our local hosp. has a HUGE sign on the ER wall disclosing that information and giving out the Advocate's number.
All you do is call and give them your problems and they resolve them.
I've used The Advocate who are always very professional and effective for DECADES for various issues every single time a loved one was in the hospital or ER pre admission. The position came about I think in the 90's with quality measurements etc.
Well, except for the time my BF was in ICU for months and as it happened, he was life long friends with the Hells Angels NYC HQ old guys from back in the day.
They showed up in twos and sat guard outside his room for at least a month 24 hrs a day.
NO PROBLEMS with the hospital THAT time LOL.
And of course, if the nurses being rude and not being told how to order food while PARALYZED were your only issues, you did pretty well.
Heck when I was 15 in the hospital for wisdom tooth removal I threw my bloody gauze I was choking on at a nurse reading Glamour Magazine ignoring me trying to get her attention.
I guess some of us are more assertive than others.
PLUS patients are very emotional after surgery. They told me tooth patients are the worst LOL.
Last edited by runswithscissors; 04-09-2016 at 08:20 PM..
Good grief, it's a hospital, not a hotel with concierge service. The staff aren't there to wait on the patients, they're doing a job, to patch you up and discharge you asap -- which is generally as soon as you can walk yourself to the bathroom.
I had gall bladder surgery by my lonesome... discharged same day. All in a city where I knew no one... 2 week recovery at home. I survived. Wasn't that bad. I've had longer hospital stays following surgeries when I was a kid... gone to the hospital for a cast and stitches by myself, survived it too.
Unless you're being seriously abused or left with irreparable physical injuries by neglectful medical staff, then what's there to complain about? I'm used to a public health care system. Maybe if I paid through the teeth for private health insurance in the U.S., I'd expect better "service"... maybe pillow fluffing.
No. I think they were speaking in some language from the Caribbean. There was ONE of the workers--I don't know what they were, maybe nurses aides, who was one of them but was the exception. I asked her why the others were so mean and lazy and rude and she said she just didn't understand why. She told me how she and her father had helped people back in their native country. She was very kind and when it was time for me to leave and no one would come and get me--I waited there, dressed and ready, sitting in a chair in my room for hours with my husband, finally she came in and was so sorry that no one had come to help me.
She helped me up and out of the chair, even helped carry my belongings, and wheeled me down to the car where my husband was now waiting. I thanked her profusely for being so very kind. Nice people like her did all the work while those lazy, rude fools either stood around laughing or were off somewhere being invisible.
Back then I had an advocate: my husband. He even brought me food--it was just as the surgeon had warned. Often you didn't even get food or if you did, it wouldn't be what you'd ordered or were allowed to eat. And if you rang the cord for help, there was never any response. The surgeons were great; the hospital was terrible. It was NYC.
So, the OP had an experience she found disagreeable and now this becomes an absolute to have someone with you, generalized to all hospitals everywhere? What is even more remarkable about the whole complaint is that the worst thing that happened was the RN's were snippy, rude, and not friendly. There were no actual problems (at least none reported by the OP in the original post). News flash: This world offers no guarantee against encountering snippy, rude, and unfriendly people.
Now I would agree that having someone with you in the hospital is probably a good idea in most circumstances. What I am saying is the OP seems to be having an emotional over-reaction. I have been in the hospital for hernia surgery and found absolutely no need to have someone with me. The RN's were not rude, snippy, or unfriendly.
I read the OP as, you can't predict when things might go pear-shaped, so yes - always have someone with you. Not an over-reaction at all.
Yup! My mom went in for surgery and they didn't set up her hospital room for handicapped. She just had back surgery and nothing was prepared. I had to call for the nurses and point out they needed to accommodate her. Then they kept giving her medication that she was not supposed to get. Really scary.
When I gave birth to my daughter a nurse came in to try and give me an IV. I asked her why, she didn't know was just following directions. I refused to get it until she found out why. Turned out she was in the wrong room!
Hospitals are poorly run and understaffed. They are not all equal, but I think it is necessary to have someone look out for you!
Well I'm glad it was just some cranky nurses, I though they took out a wrong organ or something.......
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Ally, i do hope you write some form of complaint (feedback), being descriptive of what actually happened and giving your opinion of the treatment you received fromt he staff- and how it made you feel. Hospitals should hear from people who are feeling mistreated, just in case they MIGHT consider a need for improvement.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Alicia64
I had an exemplary surgeon. I assumed that the "boutique" hospital he worked out of would also be excellent. Or at least: good.
Keeping it short: the nurses and their helpers were scary, snippy, not friendly. Awful about sums it up.
I'm in a giant city and this is a famed hospital with a name known around the world.
Three nights and four days in the hospital with my husband visiting here and there (we have kids at home) meant I didn't have a care advocate. Not smart.
In a nutshell:
Occupational therapist and physical therapist: Just fine.
Food people: A
Xray folks: A
Check in person: the one thing she was supposed to do -- explain how to order food -- she didn't do.
Nurses and their helpers: Mean to each other and irritable w/ me. (And I was trying very hard to be agreeable and easy. I'm not a princess. I must have sounded like an idiot saying thank you 100 times, but I didn't know what else to do. I couldn't really move after surgery.)
Takeaway: don't go to any hospital without a caring, yet assertive family member, friend or medical doula with you. Don't do the hospital alone. Trust me on this one.
And don't let your friends and family go alone either. Spread the word.
My wife was in the Hospital and was having some issues with meals and lack of attention by Nurses . They went for hours without coming in to check on her and took a LONG time to respond to her call button .She was unable to get out of bed without help , etc. I took a stroll down to the Hospital Administrators office and told the nice lady about our issues . By the time I got back to her room there were two Supervisors sitting there talking to her . A third walked in shortly after . Problems solved !
Good grief, it's a hospital, not a hotel with concierge service. The staff aren't there to wait on the patients, they're doing a job, to patch you up and discharge you asap -- which is generally as soon as you can walk yourself to the bathroom.
I had gall bladder surgery by my lonesome... discharged same day. All in a city where I knew no one... 2 week recovery at home. I survived. Wasn't that bad. I've had longer hospital stays following surgeries when I was a kid... gone to the hospital for a cast and stitches by myself, survived it too.
Unless you're being seriously abused or left with irreparable physical injuries by neglectful medical staff, then what's there to complain about? I'm used to a public health care system. Maybe if I paid through the teeth for private health insurance in the U.S., I'd expect better "service"... maybe pillow fluffing.
I couldn't agree w/ you more. I wished I'd had a surgery where I was in and OUT of the hospital in one day. The dr. wanted me to stay for 3 to 4 days.
Also, initially I was hooked up to an IV and catheter. Later when the catheter was taken out, I still had on leg things that were attached to a unit on my bed that prevents blood clots. I couldn't bend in the right place to take them off.
I was repeatedly told not to get up. (Lawyers.) I thought about going on my own, but the nurses and their staff would have been fried if they'd found me out of bed. Also, if I did fall, someone might not find me for an hour.
The type of hospital experiences you had were in and out. I'm talking more about longer stays. If you don't have anyone to be w/ you at the hospital, medical doulas are on the scene now.
A four day stay and gall bladder surgery are not the same -- I had a gallbladder surgery years ago and was also in and out same day.
My husband was crazy busy with his job, being on call, and taking care of our kids. And I'd assumed that being in the hospital would be fine on my own.
I'm not wanting to argue, I just want people more aware than I was.
Alley
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