Hospital Experiences

[sistersue]

Something happened in the Hilo Medical Center ER last night that should be talked about for everyone's possible future welfare.

On Monday evening a 36-year-old mother and wife was driven to the ER by her husband because she had been in excruciating pain for 12 hours.  After about 6 hours the "Doctor" sent her home with pain patches. She lay in bed crying the whole next day in agony so her husband took her back to the ER when he got home from work.  This time, after another 5 hours and more x-rays, a different "Doctor" was ready to send her home again.  She was in so much pain she couldn't walk and couldn't stop crying.  An angel of a nurse paid attention to her and ordered an MRI, or asked the "Dr." to order one. They said they couldn't do an MRI because she couldn't lay down without screaming and she couldn't be given any more pain medication.  So this angel of a nurse gave her more pain medication anyway, and insisted on the MRI.  They found a massive infection in her spine which could have killed her if not treated. 

I called the hospital to find out what that nurse's name is so we can thank her but they can't give out that information.  All I can say is thank God for this lady nurse working in the ER who probably saved this person's life last night.  This "person" just happens to be my granddaughter.

Knowing about these hospital experiences can educate us and help us protect ourselves and our families in the future.
jmo

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

Hope your granddaughter makes a full recovery.
So glad that nurse was on duty - - it only takes one person to see the standard protocol isn’t always in the best interest of every patient.

[MyManao]

A friend of mine’s son had a headache.. my friend told him to take two and see what’s up in the morning, the headache persisted..

Three days later the headache was still going strong.. getting worse. The kid was obviously in agony.

My friend decided to take his son to the hospital. Hilo Medical Center. Hours.. like all day and into the night.. later a doctor finally decided to image the kid’s brain.. and saw a tumor.

The doctor decided, on his own in the ER without any further investigations or doctor's consultations, the kid needed immediate surgery..

The doctor cut into the kid’s skull, and immediately decided he was out of his depth.. and he closed everything back up without cutting anything.

Anyone with a skull being opened must have a shunt installed to allow the excess fluids that naturally accumulate as part of the healing process to drain..

The doctor put the shunt in backwards.

By morning the kids was in a coma as the fluids accumulated and put excessive pressure on his brain. And the doctor wasn’t akamai enough to realize he installed the shunt wrong.

Simultaneously there was a pediatric brain surgeon’s convention at the Mauna Lani.. and the kids mother went there and stood up in a room full of doctors and begged them for help. A doctor from the mainland approached her and within hours had the kids records, and the next morning he was flown to the mainland where that doctor removed the tumor and fixed him up.

A year later I was summoned to jury duty, and, as a room full of perspective jurors was ushered into the courtroom the judge read an outline of the case. Someone was suing the hospital for negligence. The room erupted in laugher. Immediately the judge became upset and cleared the room of everyone except the lawyers and those that laughed. I was one of them. As the judge asked each in turn why they laughed each recounted a horror story involving malpractice on the part of the hospital. When I was asked about my laugher I recounted the story above, and, of course, the lawyers for the defense asked that I be excused.

When the case was reported in the news, the hospital lost, of course.

If you’re going to the hospital because you need their help.. keep going until you get to Kamuela. Queens ain't the cat's meow, but damn at least they’re a real hospital.

[terracore]

I cut my finger and went to the ER (HMC) for what I thought was a simple couple of stitches. I would have gone to urgent care but my daughter (an RN) said they have no idea what they are doing and she drove me to the ER.

The ER was "full" but the rag I was bleeding into was dripping onto the floor so they sent me back anyway. I sat in the hallway of the ER for a few hours. For almost an hour there was a dead guy behind me also in the hallway (they covered his upper torso and head with a sheet). Finally a doctor came by and said they needed to take an xray before they could stitch it up. Why? I protested against an unnecessary medical procedure that I would ultimately have a co-pay for and he said they needed to ensure there was nothing in the wound. It's an effing cut finger... you can clearly see there is nothing in the wound... I don't need an xray! Anyways after another 2 hours they sent someone else out and basically told me I wasn't getting out of there without an unnecessary xray. At this point it had been about 5 hours since my injury and I was worried about the cut portion dying so I had the xray. Of course the xray showed nothing. It was at least another hour before somebody stitched it.

The cut portion of the finger did actually die from being detached for so long and I had a long course of antibiotics because of it, but fortunately it did grow back. I don't have feeling in it, but I guess I'm lucky its there. To be clear, I didn't cut a portion of my finger off, it was cut deeply.

They were understandably busy, overwhelmed might be a better description, but I believe deliberately holding up treatment until I consented to an unnecessary xray contributed to the fact I have no feeling in the tip of my finger. But at least I didn't wind up like the guy in the hallway behind me. I have no idea what they did to him.

I told my doctor what happened when I scheduled a follow-up visit and she was horrified. She basically said they did a butcher job on me and that I had the type of injury that needed to be stitched up immediately or else there wasn't any point.

To their credit, they did offer me pain medication multiple times while I was waiting. I declined. I wanted to keep my mental facilities as sharp as possible considering I went in on a Friday and came out on a Saturday I was already very tired.

Edited to add: I was there over 6 hours and nobody took any of my information down (like insurance etc). When they were releasing me I asked about that. Don't you want to see my insurance card or anything? The lady seemed kind of confused and said somebody would probably call me for that. I didn't hear from them for a long time until a social worker called me and asked if I needed help applying for Medicaid. I was like, WTF? I had the highest tier HMSA policy offered. It took months to sort the billing out.

Also edited to add: A few years ago my wife went to the ER. Things went pretty well. Over a YEAR later their billing company contacted us and said we owed a co-pay (I made a post about this on Punaweb at the time if you want to find it, though it was on the old server). Long story short, I was able to find the cancelled check showing that we had already paid it a year prior. I wonder how many people get swindled by these "unpaid" bills because they can't find records of something that happened so long ago?

[Rob Tucker]

We had an elderly relative visiting from the mainland that was feeling tired an run down.. a bit excessively so. So late on a Friday afternoon we took her to the Pahoa clinic where they took her in and examined her and did a blood draw. Later, at 9 that night, a nurse from the clinic called and told us to get her to Hilo Medical right away... like now. Which we did.
She turned out to be dangerously anemic in a near fatal way.

Always been grateful for Puna Medical Clinic and those kind folks that work late and don't stack lab reports up to look at tomorrow.

[terracore]

For context, I will share another story of when we lived in Juneau, Alaska.

Our daughter got really sick with a high fever that didn't respond to the usual treatments like Tylenol, etc.

We took her to the ER, and they sent us home telling us to give her more OTC stuff. Her fever got higher and she started having crippling diarrhea so we took her back. They gave her some more OTC meds and sent her home again. She got sicker and her fever was higher so we took her back a third time. This time they admitted her to the hospital and by then she had bloody diarrhea and they started her on IV antibiotics. This was late at night. They diagnosed her with typhoid fever.

In the morning the on-call pediatrician came on duty, examined her, and said she was ordering her to be medevaced to Seattle "before this hospital kills her".

Long story short, she didn't have typhoid fever, she had salmonella that went septic, and the antibiotic she was on was the wrong type. The on-call pediatrician was right. She probably would have died if we didn't transport her to another state for treatment.

The medevac bill we received was over $108,000.00. I remember opening the letter from them that said..."Your insurance has been billed, this is your portion" and feeling sick to my stomach. Eventually the insurance company did pay it.

Edited to add: The experience had a profound impact on her, and she decided she wanted to be a doctor when she grew up. She later became valedictorian at Keaau High school and got a scholarship and went pre-med. After a few years she realized we didn't have a million dollars to take her all the way through medical school so she became an RN instead. So if you're wondering why there aren't enough doctors... well, that's because middle class families don't have enough money to finance that.

[TomK]

I've never experienced bad care at HMC. Back in 2018, the medical staff saved my life after I got sepsis and the care and attention of the medical staff were second to none. Not so much for admin, who couldn't spell my name correctly even though they had my ID and so I was refused an essential medication because the name on my wristband didn't match the name on my insurance nor my ID. Fortunately, it got sorted out before it became a really serious problem, but it took a while.

[sistersue]

I've never experienced bad care at HMC. Back in 2018, the medical staff saved my life after I got sepsis and the care and attention of the medical staff were second to none. Not so much for admin, who couldn't spell my name correctly even though they had my ID and so I was refused an essential medication because the name on my wristband didn't match the name on my insurance nor my ID. Fortunately, it got sorted out before it became a really serious problem, but it took a while.

Over the past 35 years I've heard dozens of HMC stories from family and friends.  Many of them were really scary and life-threatening but many more of them had good outcomes.  I've always thought, because of personal experience, that the ER doctors are excellent.  Now, after two of them could have killed my granddaughter by not diagnosing her until a nurse talked them into an MRI, I'm so afraid for everyone else this may happen to.  Does anyone here know where I can send a letter about our bad experiences so maybe they can educate these two doctors?

[terracore]

As far as I know every patient gets a survey sent to them after they are discharged. I don't know how to vent on a patient's behalf.

[kalianna]

sistersue, hereʻs a link to various departments and contacts. You should be able to get more info by contacting someone there. Sorry I canʻt find more info for you.

https://www.hilomedicalcenter.org/about-us/contact/