Illora Boulley

Review of National Park Medical Center

Drs will either ignore you and hide your medical i...

Drs will either ignore you and hide your medical information from you, or yell at you that you are wasting their time and send you home to whatever fate.

I went in for pain in my side and stomach. They brought me back in the ED and got me approved for a dose of morphine. The pain lessened but didn't go away entirely. When the dr came he seemed to go through everything, but he was short with both me and my grandma with me when we we're trying to answer his question. He ordered a CT and that went fine but after that, it was over an hour with no word. That would be fine if we couldn't hear him in the office talking nothing about work for most of that time. When he finally came back, he said it was probably just my period pain and anxiety. I accepted it and didn't think about it until recently at my disability hearing when they said that this visit I am talking about showed that I have moderate diverticulitis. It was not in my notes, not in my discharge papers, and no one said anything to me. How long has this been going on with me? How many times could I have solved my "period pain" with a liquid diet and some antibiotics? And how many patients have had a problem like this hidden?

Just over a year ago my grandma came here for an emergency with heart problems and vertigo. She got a stint and found out that her magnesium had been the lowest that most of these doctors had ever seen. Magnesium being one of the things that helps your heart run. She was kept for nearly a week the first time. She needed magnesium infusions multiple times, including under an hour before she was discharged. 3 days later she was back with low magnesium. They kept her for 2 or 3 days and sent her home again, once again still needing to give another infusion right before she left because it was still classified as too low. The moment she tested in normal range, they had her sign discharge papers. The next time she came back was about a week later. Her diverticulitis was acting up, her magnesium was low, her bp was low, and she could barely walk. They found internal bleeding form the diverticulitis, and that once again her magnesium was dangerously low. This time she needed blood transfusions and more and more magnesium. Finally they thought to find out exactly why she was losing magnesium. They sent her a nephrologist for some reason. He was possibly the rudest person in this state. He sat down and started spouting off that she was wasting his time and that he had more important things to do. He disappeared and that may be the first time I've ever heard my grandma cry. When he came back some days later he said that there is nothing wrong with her and that she needs to stop wasting hospital time. She was there for 2 more days and as soon as they thought the bleeding was done, they started trying to discharge her again. They never found out why she was losing magnesium, and they flat out said they weren't looking anymore. They sent her home after another transfusion, still not knowing why she is losing an essential electrolyte. Our PCP let us in for several emergency appointments with her once she also realised the hospital basically sent her home to die. She set her up on about 1500mg a day plus slomag. For reference most adults need to take in 300-400mg. It was enough to keep her level, or losing it slowly enough that she could come in once a week for a magnesium infusion at the Dr office. Recently she came down to about 1000mg a day plus slomag with no weekly infusions. No one knows why she is still losing magnesium.