The other day a family member called me regarding a relative who had just been hospitalized after having surgery. This family member was irate about the lack of care and lack of communication among the staff assigned to the patient.
The elderly family member who I am talking about was discharged from the hospital on Wednesday and had to be readmitted at 4 a.m. Friday due to complications from surgery. That’s when the fiasco began.
The doctor who operated on the man was off for the weekend and a different doctor assigned to care for the man did not know he had been readmitted. After checking in on him, my family member called me outraged that it was now Sunday morning and they had not seen or talked to any doctor since Friday morning.
The patient was not progressing as he should have been. To make things worse, his room had not been cleaned and the nurses were less than polite.
My family member was frustrated to say the least. Why wasn’t he getting the care he deserved?
Here is what I did, and it was what you should do too if you are in a similar situation. Call the main number to the hospital and ask the operator to connect you to the “administrator on call.”
The administrator on call will likely be a vice president or top executive with the hospital who has been assigned to handle these calls and complaints. Calmly explain your situation and your expectation that things be cleared up quickly. If there is not an administrator on call, ask for the “nursing supervisor on call” and do the same thing.
Just hours after I gave the hospital administrator on call an earful about what was going on inside his hospital, a meeting was called between my family and the nursing staff on that hospital floor. By Sunday afternoon a doctor had stopped by to see our elderly relative and the staff was much more on top of the situation.
When you are not receiving the care you need or the quality you expect at a hospital, you need to be an advocate for yourself and your family. Calling a hospital administrator immediately is an important first step toward fixing the situation.
Kester Freeman blogs regularly at Action for Better Healthcare.