Judith Brooks

Review of Cedar Park Regional Medical Ce...

My daughter who was admitted to Cedar Park Hospita...

My daughter who was admitted to Cedar Park Hospital yesterday, called me up this morning, hysterical for me to come pick her up. She signed herself out against doctors orders (she had been there since the day before) and walked out to meet me in bare feet. I tried talking with her but she was too upset so I called to talk with the doctor or nurse who had worked with her. She had given permission for them to talk with me.
The head nurse, Jason Benny, spoke with me in detail regarding her diagnosis up to that point and what had transpired between him and her prior to my picking her up. I have to say that he presented a competent appraisal of her condition to me. He clearly was not happy with her refusal to stay. I asked about her bare feet and he said she refused socks; she denied this. She was initially diagnosed with fluid around the heart and pneumonia. She received first treatments for both in the 24 hours she was there; I asked him what would be the best approach to get her to move forward with addressing the diagnoses and he essentially told me that they could do nothing further; that even if I brought her to another hospital they wouldn't forward any info about her. He told me that he was the father of 2 and that he was quite capable in addressing any problems with wise-reaching conclusions. I took this to imply that maybe I should just back up and let her solve her own problems. I thanked him for his in-depth information. Here's the issue for me: my takeaway from this conversation is that he lacked any compassion or empathy for her misery. She was clearly upset from the time she arrived the day before; the evening nurse made a sincere effort to calm her down. When she told Jason that she wanted to leave, her removed her catheter in a rather harsh manner in her opinion. She also had a real problem breathing and took the oxygen tube out of her nose and put it in her mouth; when they placed an oxygen mask over her nose and mouth she kept moving it because she couldn't breathe and started to panic. She told me that she was cooperative but clearly felt that they ignored any of her questions for the most part and she ended up with the impression that she was the least important person in the situation; all procedures that were addressed took precedence over her anxieties regarding what they were doing. Jason Benny comes across to me as a very competent nurse but incompetent in addressing the fears/anxieties of my daughter nor did it seem to me that that was even up for consideration. Being railroaded or at least having the impression thereof, is not particularly helpful to a stressed and anxious patient as my daughter was. It has taken a couple of hours for me to calm her down and I know that she will have to address her pneumonia in the near future. I just wish that it could have been resolved at Cedar Park Regional.