I am so tired of the poor care people are getting in emergency rooms. I do not know what others have experienced but time and time again, I have experienced poor care for my elderly mother.

I realize that budgets are tight everywhere but courtesy costs nothing! And sometimes people really need to be admitted to the hospital because they are simply too sick to go home! I mean really, isn't that what a hospital is for? If not then they just need to go ahead and shut them all down!

I am not ignorant. I know that Hospital Emergency Rooms are not to be used as doctor offices! I have never used them that way for myself or any of my loved ones. That is a waste of not only money but also my time as well as the emergency room staff and doctors time.

My mother has a history of Major Strokes (CVA) Heart Disease: Congestive Heart Failure(CHF), Myocardial Infarctions: Heart Attacks (MI), Chronic-Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), Diabetes, reoccurring Septic Urinary Tract Infections (Septic Infections kill) and some minor issues.

Yesterday morning I woke her up because I had to take my daughter to the doctor. I could not get her to get out of bed. She kept going back to sleep. I woke her 3 times in about 10 minutes. I had to shower so I let her be. She said she would get up in just a minute.  I finished my shower, she was still asleep when I checked on her. I  woke her again. She continued to be groggy. I helped her get dressed. She was having an unusually hard time walking even with her walker. My daughter and I had to help her a lot. I got her some breakfast and she picked at it. She had to eat some because of her Diabetes and she had to take her medications. Her blood sugar was 168, a little high but nothing she wasn't used to. We got her to the car. By the time we got to my daughters appointment, 1 1/2 hours later, she could no longer walk at all--even with the walker. We sat her on it, and pushed it! She slept all the way to the appointment for my daughter. She slept during the appointment for my daughter and she slept on the way back from the appointment. It didn't take a rocket scientist to see there was a problem. OK, she can't walk, she can't stay awake. When she is awake she isn't making a lot of sense now and her words are starting to slur! Time to go to the Emergency Room.

I get to the Emergency Room and let them know what her condition is. I give them all of her symptoms. They take her in to triage in about 15 minutes. Her vitals are stable and she has no fever. She is falling asleep in the wheelchair in between vitals. I am answering the questions. She is leaning over in the wheelchair. She is pale. They tell me take her back out in the waiting room since she is stable! They call her back about half hour later. She is still sleeping in the wheelchair!

She is now in the Emergency Trauma Room. A Doctor Stroh is the on call doctor! I have not met him before. We have to have help getting my mom on the gurney from the wheelchair. She is not quite asleep, not quite awake and can not stand. They hook up a heart monitor and blood pressure cuff. We wait for about 30 minutes and the doctor comes over and asks me what brought her to the emergency room. It went like this...

" She has generalized weakness, especially in her legs--She can't walk even with her walker. I can't keep her awake, even for a 5 minute conversation. She is slurring her speech and some of her speech is not making any sense. I believe by the look of her skin she may be dehydrated. This started this morning and has been getting progressively worse."  I am concerned about a CVA or Septic UTI. The doctor replied. "You brought her in here without Pneumonia and are taking her home with a chance of getting it. You shouldn't have brought her in here just because she doesn't feel well. You don't bring some one in here, just because. " I was floored. I replied, " With her history, I was really concerned. People generally don't just lose their legs, fall sleep all day and slur their words for no reason!" He went on to say, "Well we will run a few tests and see if we come up with anything."

He ordered some blood panels, a urine analysis, EKG and a chest X-ray.  When it came to the urine analysis, my mother could not evacuate! They had to catheterize her. The nurse had a hard time getting the Foley in due to Urethral swelling. This was the 3rd piece of the puzzle as far as I was concerned! When she was successfully catheterized she emitted 350mls of urine! Her poor bladder was about to burst! She had been in pain and did not even know it! It was obvious she had another UTI and I figured it was Septic!

The tests Dr. Stroh ordered all came back negative.  He comes in and says " Good news, all the tests are back and she is fine, I am discharging her!" OK, this did not go over well with me. I am a red headed Irish woman! I said, " She can't walk, I can't keep her awake, she can't pee without a catheter, her words are slurring and I still want to know why! She is not fine!" Well I can't answer those questions all I can tell you is all of her tests came back normal, so she is going home!" He walked away. I had called her doctor earlier and told him I was taking her to the emergency room. He picked a good time to call apparently! About 10 minutes after Dr. Stroh walked out, he came back in and told me to come to his office and talk to my mothers doctor. That conversation went like this:

"Yes, this is Kimberly. Well, I brought her in because she has generalized weakness and her legs are so weak she can not walk even without her walker. I can not keep her awake even for a 5 minute conversation and when she does wake up she does not make a lot of sense.I believe she is also dehydrated by the look of her skin.  She also can not evacuate her urine by herself, they had to catheterize her. She had so much swelling they had a hard time putting in the Foley. I realize Dr. Stroh ran tests that came back negative but with Mom's history I am really concerned. I know a Urine culture has to be run to detect the Septic infection and a culture hasn't had time to grow. OK. I will do whatever you want. Yes, I agree, I think that is a wise decision. thank you. doctor."

He told Dr.Stroh she was not to be discharged but to be admitted, put on IV antibiotics for a Septic UTI and on IV hydration. Let me tell you, was Dr.Stoh mad when he got of the phone with Dr.Hung! He left the room after me, came into where my mother was, shook her knees to wake her up and told her that I had talker her doctor into keeping her in the hospital.

About 15 minutes later Dr. Hung came in to see her for himself. It was about 7:30 at night. He agreed that she definitely looked dehydrated and did not look herself. He had made the right choice and so had I. Dr. Stroh was about 3 feet away and was glaring at me. 

When it was time to take mom to her room on the 300 floor, we got her into a wheelchair with the help of a nurse and headed out of the Emergency Room.  Dr. Stroh says to me, "When your done settling her in why don't you come back and help us some more!" and I told him," I might just do that, I am a better diagnostician anyways!"  You could hear snickering and giggles, throughout the room, and then a quick hush! The nurses didn't want to get in trouble!

I had kept my cool, and been polite until that end point, but I have to admit it, I finally became a smarty pants! But at least, my mother was on her way to a hospital bed, with an antibiotic IV and hydration! Her own doctor now in control.

How a doctor can see a patient unable to walk, unable to stay awake, unable to evacuate, with diminished cognitive ability and say there is nothing wrong with them, and chastise the person who brought them to the hospital for doing it, is beyond my comprehension! Add to that a history like my mother's and I believe that doctor is guilty of malpractice! He should not be practicing, every time he does, he is possibly putting someones life in danger! At the very least, this doctor needs a hearing aid since he heard nothing I said, he needed glasses because he was too blind to see anything wrong for himself, and needs etiquette classes because he has no bedside manners!

The moral of the story, call your own doctor or your loved one's own doctor when you do not agree with the Emergency Room Physician. It can literally mean the difference between life and death. My grandfather died due to a Septic infection left untreated in a nursing home! That will not happen to my mother!