May 24, 2017

Hospital Protocols Still Hinder Care

Am I unhappy about my hospital experiences? In a word, yes! Plus now it involves three hospitals. The first case is in this blog and it is by far the worst. The second case involved a doctor (not a hospitalist) ordering me to take more insulin than I knew I could handle and would be more than low. I told the doctor if that then he would be required to pay for my second day in the hospital, as I would otherwise leave against medical advice when I went below 70 mg/dl. Finally, the doctor relented and my AM reading was still below 70 mg/dl, but not enough for me to be concerned. Had I taken what the doctor ordered, I would have probably been below 40 mg/dl.

The third hospital was similar to the second hospital, but this time it was a hospitalist that gave the order and he was threatening to remove my diabetes supplies and my meter. I started to get out of bed and was having trouble because of the operation and he asked me what I was doing, and I said leaving against medical advice because of an overbearing and unreasonable doctor. My wife had started gathering my supplies and putting them in my briefcase. The hospitalist told me to stay in bed and he would see what my blood glucose was and called a nurse to use the hospital meter and test my blood glucose. When the reading came out 76 mg/dl, he said he would again have me tested in the morning. I said okay and went back to sleep.

In the morning, the hospitalist was there and asked the nurse to test my blood glucose again. This time it was 59 mg/dl and he was even surprised and said to use my meter, which when I used it was 58 mg/dl. Okay, he admitted, you were right and probably would have needed to stay in the hospital another day recovering from severe hypoglycemia. He said that after the operation, most people would have had a glucose reading over 140 mg/dl because of that alone. He said if he hadn't seen the results with his own eyes, he would not have believed it. He said you should be released about noon and he would be back to see me before I was released.

Breakfast arrived as he was leaving and he asked me to count the carbohydrates in the meal. I said after counting the foods I would eat and said 35 grams and pointed out the two items I would not be eating. The dietitian said I must eat them and I asked her if she wanted the whole tray thrown at her. The hospitalist told her to leave and when she wouldn't, he did escort her out of the room.

When he came back in, she was right behind him and told me she would feed me herself to see that I ate everything. I pick up the tray and told the doctor to duck. He told me to lower the tray and he would have someone take her back to the kitchen. She said he would not and she tried to get past him and I let the tray go in her direction. The food was all over her face and top and she became furious. It took two nurses to get her out of the room and the hospitalist called the administrator and he was there rather quickly. When he arrived, he asked what the problem was and when he saw me, he said what do I need to do. When the dietitian came back in, I said fire that bully. She still had food on her and said I would be brought another tray and she would force-feed me to see that I ate everything. The administrator said she would not have the chance as she could go to his office and wait for her final paycheck.

When she tried to appease him, he said told the hospitalist to call security and for them escort her from the premises and he would mail her the final check. With that, she left the room muttering to herself. Next, the administrator asked what other problems I was having. I said, because of my anger at the dietitian, I threw my breakfast at her. He asked me if the woman sitting at the foot of the bed was my wife and answered yes. He picked up my phone, dialed the kitchen, and asked them to send up two breakfasts as soon as possible. In ten minutes, we had them. The assistant dietitian and a nurse had them and the nurse asked what had happened to the head dietitian. The administrator asked the assistant if she felt up to doing the job. When she said yes, he told the nurse that the new head dietitian was standing next to her.

I was discharge at 12:30 PM and was happy to be out. My wife asked me how I had survived the problems and had everything go my way. I said because I know the administrator and you know what he asked and the hospitalist said. This was backed by the administrator and he likes his orders followed and knows that the dietitian was set on bullying me.

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