Well, as the chief physician of a group of hospitalist doctors, and a patient that has undergone 9 surgeries, I feel like I can answer this question. What no one tells you is that hospitals, as we used to know them, no longer exist in the United States.
A far more accurate and authentic term is Medical Profit Centers.
The systems are no longer run by physicians. They are run by MBAs. They have exactly one motive, to make as much profit as possible.
If this means cutting personnel, non working equipment, failure to clean the facilities and a host of other cost savings measures, well so be it. If a patient is harmed they will quickly cover it up. Changing the patients medical records is a standard procedure if their finances would be threatened by a law suit.
My husband was recently hospitalized for a cardiac surgery at a top cardiac hospital in Houston TX.
He had been there eleven years prior and had gotten really good care.
The hospital had been purchased by a large religious organization several years ago.
Within the next few years, they had eliminated the jobs of massive numbers of staff. They cut back on cleaning the patient rooms. They got rid of anyone who could fix anything broken.
You will be thrilled to know that they doubled their profitability as a result.
They also lost their accreditation for doing heart transplants due to poor patient care and excessive mortality.
They pushed the surgeons to do nonexistent work ups on the patients. Just get in the OR and make money.
This was all unbeknownst to us.
My husband had a surgery without the appropriate evaluation of his bleeding risk, which was quite high due to numerous factors.
During the surgery he began to have massive bleeding. He lost four liters of blood.
Read that again FOUR LITERS OF BLOOD.
He received over one hundred units of blood products, in an effort to save his life.
He went into grade five (scale 1–5) hypovolemic shock. He had a heart attack. His lungs were destroyed.
What did the surgeon tell me when I spoke with him after the surgery?
“Everything went fine.”
Now, I’m a physician, it took me a nanosecond to realize that everything was definitely not fine.
I never left his bedside.
They made error, after error.
I couldn’t turn my back.
They kept trying to give him medications with major drug interactions.
They gave him two drugs off his allergy list.
They allowed him to self extubate (pull the ventilator tube out of his own throat).
He got two hospital acquired infections.
They forgot to feed him for several days.
He was on a ventilator for 5 1/2 weeks. He spent a total of eight weeks in the hospital.
The room was filthy. I had to demand that they come clean the dried blood off of the floor, once it had been there for five days.
It took them over an hour to find a working EKG machine. The first three were broken or missing parts (in a world class cardiac hospital, in the ICU).
He was covered in bed sores.
My daily conversations went something like this…
“What are you doing?”
“Dr. C ordered X drug for him.”
“Well if you give that to him with Y drugs, that you started yesterday, you will kill him. Take that out of here.”
Or
“We’re going to change his ventilator setting to achieve ABC”.
“No, you are not. They tried that and almost killed him.”
I finally got so fed up that I reported them to the Board of Health.
Once they heard that, the Director of General Wonderfullness showed up from the hospital system.
There was a big meeting to discuss his care. I was not invited.
They circled the wagons.
What did the surgeon have to say about the five day hospitalization that turned into two months.
I never heard from him again.
He rounded at dawn to avoid me.
One morning I got up at the crack of dawn.
I dragged myself into my wheelchair.
I rolled over to the hospital from my hotel, a few blocks away.
I confronted him with all his followers hanging on to the hem of his white coat.
“WHAT HAPPENED TO MY HUSBAND? WHY EXACTLY IS HE STILL HERE?”
The man literally ran away, tripping over his disciples.
Long story short.
I demanded the records.
It was obvious that numerous things had been changed.
I was very apparent that they had lied about his condition.
I was not surprised. It happens all the time, these days.
I discussed this with an attorney.
“Is it only my perception or are hospitals just dangerous places, now?”
“Maureen, they routinely change the records. They are no longer safe.”
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