This post is a slight departure from my regular healing articles. However, it will lead back into several energy healing and protection methods.
I have spent the last several weeks helping my mother navigate through a stay at the hospital.
She is 86 years old and unfortunately had a fall that broke her leg very close to her hip.
Scary to say the least. But the EMTs responded very quickly and off she went to the emergency room closely followed by myself and my sister.
The emergency room staff were caring and efficient. My mother was admitted and surgery was scheduled for the next day.
The surgery went smoothly and after a few hours in recovery she was moved to her room.
OK, you are probably saying to yourself, “So what is the problem and why do I have to protect myself”?
I do not have very much experience with hospitals so I did not realize that there are actually two very different worlds within a hospital.
There is the world of emergencies and critical care.
This includes the emergency room, all operations, recovery and ICU.
All of these people seem to have everything together. They are efficient, caring, well trained and well staffed.
Her ICU care had one nurse for 2 patients.
I have nothing but high praise for all of my contacts in these areas.
The other world within the hospital is being in the general population.
And my advice here is to get out as fast as humanly possible.
There may not be a more dangerous place to be in this country then in the hospital.
Never go into the hospital without someone close watching out for you. It will be next to impossible to be your own advocate.
In another post I will list many statistics about how bad hospital care can be. I will also do a post with stories that I have been told about what it was like to be in the hospital or to be someone’s advocate who is in the hospital. And in another post or two I would like to share some energy healing and protections techniques that helped save my mother from harm.
But in this post I just want to list a few examples of what she went through and how we worked at getting things done correctly. And understand that me or my sister were with my mother probably 15 hours a day for almost two weeks.
Before I go through my abbreviated list, my advice is this – Question everything, take nothing on face value because a doctor or nurse said it. If you have a question, do not feel bad about asking. Do not get brushed off. If you feel like that is happening go up the food chain. Ask to talk with the nursing supervisor or the head of any department that you are having trouble with. If need be talk with the hospital administrator.
Do not be blown off. Do not care if you are seen as a nuisance. Be polite if possible but be firm and be relentless.
So now for an abbreviated list –
- Bring in a list of all medications – but do not assume that anyone will read it or follow it. Even though your list may be made up of medicines that work well they generally will be ignored. So go over the chart with the duty nurse and understand why there is any change in the medicine that you have on the list.
- Bring in a list of all medicines that you are allergic to – but do not assume that they will read or follow it. There seems to be a feeling that there is no difference between medications and one is just as good as the other. This is so wrong. If it were true how would you have developed a list of medicines that you are allergic to.
- Always keep up on the pain meds – make sure the orders are for set intervals of time and not written “as needed”. Since it takes anywhere from 30 minutes to 60 minutes for a nurse or aid to respond to a call button you could be in pain for a while before you get any relief. And besides if you are less then coherent from your stay you are not a good one to monitor your pain levels. Your advocates will not be able to be with you 24/7.
- Monitor scheduled treatments – doctor ordered treatments seem to be taken as a suggestion and will be filled if they get the chance. My mother was scheduled for regular nebulizer treatments. It took herculean effort to get at least 50% to 70% of the treatments done on any given day.
- It’s always someone else’s fault – What can I say here?
I could go on and on. But I know you get the picture.
If you have to go into the hospital, don’t go alone!!!!
If you are helping someone in the hospital then be relentless in your quest for proper care.
Don’t become or let your relative become a statistic of hospital incompetence.