Patrice Berlinski

Review of Genesys Regional Medical Cente...

I am pretty disappointed in my recent experience a...

I am pretty disappointed in my recent experience at Genesys. I have had good experiences there but the last 2 times have led me to search for alternatives.

If the hospital staff had taken any time to discuss my daughter's history of nut allergy exposures and explained to us what to expect and what to watch out for the entire experience could have been better.

I am aware that the staff deal with nut allergies often, most likely, however I have dealt with my daughter's experiences for 12 years. It is therefore important to work together.

My top concerns from this past experience include:
1. My daughter was not given any epinephrine even though they knew she had not had any. In the past she's always had epinephrine. Instead they gave her a steroid shot after we'd been in the ER room for awhile. My concern is that Biphasic anaphylaxis will occur which is more common without receiving epinephrine. In the future we will be administering the epi pen as we have now learned of the importance of doing so.

2. At one point when we asked for help because my daughter, who is not at all dramatic or over reactive, felt her throat was closing. The PA shine the light of his phone into her throat and showed me that her throat was not closing. He then glared at her and told her, with an attitude, that if she wanted they could do an x-ray of her throat to prove to her that her throat was not closing. I then explained to him that since I am not a physician I did not know how the throat would look - maybe it closes further down, out of view, and asked him to give us signs to look for that would be concerning so we'd know. He then did that.

3. After going to the bathroom my daughter violently threw up in the restroom toilet. There was allot of vomit. The nurse then scolded my daughter as she flushed the toilet (thus flushing away my daughter's retainer) and told her "allot goes on in those toilets, use one of these" as she handed her a small green vomit bag. Perhaps the bag expands but the point is that she was in a situation where she didn't know it was coming and the toilet was right there. Like who WANTs to throw up in one of those?

4. Finally, when we were discharged paperwork was handed to us and no one so much as peeked at my daughter to see how she was. We were not asked or offered anything.