4 years ago
In early September, my husband had a motorcycle ac...
In early September, my husband had a motorcycle accident where he was significantly injured. As a nurse, I was glad to hear that he had been taken to Grant. However, although he received good treatment in the ER trauma room, it all changed once he left there. I was sent to an abandoned waiting room, no where near the OR, to wait for the surgeon. A surgeon that when he finally appeared, told me very little, other than to go home. When I insisted on seeing my husband, he called post op and told them to come get me. It took close to an hour to be retrieved by the post op nurse and she made it very clear that I was a big inconvenience in her night. I was told to not bother my husband and that I needed to leave. When I made it clear that I was not leaving, I was then sent to the inpatient trauma unit waiting room, with a promise that they would get me when he was up there. I sat for almost 2 hours before I found my way to the nurses' station and was told that they were told no one was there with him. I was finally allowed in his room. Understanding that my husband had just had emergency surgery, I expected for him to be checked on frequently. However, that was not the case. From 2 AM until 530 AM, no one entered the room. (Understand that I am an orthopedic surgical inpatient nurse. All fresh post ops should be assessed hourly). At 530, the night shift nurse came into the room. I told her that I was concerned about the drainage from my husband's incision. She looked at it and told me that it was dry. Amazingly, I was able to wipe fresh blood from it, and you could see blood throughout the entire dressing. At 700 AM the nurses came to give bedside report. Night shift stated that the dressing was clean and dry. When I again brought up the blood, I was told that it was dried. At this point you could visibly see the blood running down his arm. This was the last visit we had until several hours later when day shift came in to medicate him. PT then came in, and we discovered a puddle of blood under his arm, and it was not dry. He then asked for a bed change, which was eventually done by me. My husband's pain was not controlled and he became very dizzy when he stood up. The PT stated that if he was able to walk in the hall, and his pain was controlled he could go home. After this, the nurse came in and stated that since he was going home, he could no longer have the IV pain meds. He had yet to walk in the hall and my husband, who never complains of pain, was rating his pain a 9. I had to complain to everyone to get his medications increased to a higher dose. Eventually, he did walk in the hall, and we were told we were going home. At 2 pm we were given our discharge instructions. It was 430 pm before we left the hospital. For 2 1/2 hours we waited for a wheelchair. At no point did we ever see the surgeon before he left the hospital. After his discharge, he had an appointment scheduled with the surgeon. It was cancelled the Friday before it, it was supposed to be on Monday. There was no reason given. We stopped in the office on that Monday to see if we could get him a bigger sling. As they had given him a small sling (he is 6' 6"). The staff in the surgeon's office was less than friendly, in fact they were down right rude. Luckily, I work with some excellent surgeons and was able to get him in with a good one. We never did get to see the surgeon that did his surgery. Never again will I trust Grant with the life of a loved one.
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