Sunday, January 9, 2011

US healthcare at its finest?...I hope not!

It's hella early on Sunday morning...I woke up at 3:00 AM and I'm still awake...seems to be my pattern lately.  Wake up at 3:00 AM, hop online, become freakishly tired by 5:00 AM...go back to sleep and...you guessed it...not be able to wake up when the alarm goes off.  I guess I just have too much on my mind these days.  But, who doesn't?  The world just seems to be going to hell in a hand basket...today there was what looked like a massacre to me in Arizona.  A Congresswoman was shot point blank in the head and numerous others were shot and/or killed as well.  What kind of world do we live in?

The last time I posted, my mother had been taken to the hospital from the nursing home with pneumonia.  Now, mind you, this was based upon a physical exam by HER doctor and a review of chest X-rays taken at the nursing home.  The hospital started her on oxygen and IV antibiotics.  Based upon review of their own X-rays, they confirmed pneumonia.  After 3 days, they were perplexed that she was not responding to the antibiotics...Hmmm...let's see...how about we run some blood work?  I mean, we wouldn't want to rush anything...Yeah...after 3 days, let's run some blood work for sure...WOW...what's this???  Looks like some sort of infection...Hmmmm...let's do a urinalysis...UH OH....she has a raging urinary tract infection....let's look at those X-rays again...well, shoot...what were we thinking???  She doesn't have pneumonia.  She has a urinary tract infection.  

So...after 4 days in the hospital and being given IV antibiotics focused on clearing up pneumonia, my mother was sent back to the nursing home with a urinary tract infection.  I am clearly not a physician but...how do you confuse a urinary tract infection with pneumonia, especially after viewing two different sets of X-rays?  Wouldn't you think somebody would've figured it out before 4 days of being in the hospital on potent drugs...the wrong potent drugs for the infection she REALLY has?  Don't get me wrong, I'm thankful it's not pneumonia but this just does not appear to be healthcare at its finest.

*Sigh...*




1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Wow... I just read this and I'm appalled. I've been a nurse for 25 years and now work in a very busy Urgent Care in the San Francisco Bay Area. The FIRST thing we rule out in our elderly patients is UTI regardless of their symptoms. A UTI is often the cause for confusion and "just not acting or feeling right" in the elderly, especially women. A simple urine analysis takes 5 minutes and would have saved you all that time and heartache.
Please always trust your instincts. Family members are often correct in their diagnosis. Hang in there. Penny