I am pissed about my grandpa

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I’ve been not wanting to say anything here, for risk people would want to give medical or legal advice, but I can’t stand it anymore.

My grandpa was found fallen in the bath tub, left there for 18 hours. His son, who lives next door, was supposed to be checking on him, and is constantly after my other uncle for not caring enough.

Gramps has been in the hospital for a week. The staff thought he was crazy because they wouldn’t listen to us and get his hearing aids in. They finally do that, and are treating him well, and he gets sent to another room.

His doctor turned him over to social services, and the lady is a bitch who I wouldn’t be surprised to read an obituary about tomorrow. She seems to live to piss people off. And if she pisses off real psychopaths that are not taking care of their relatives, I’m sure bad things could happen to her.

But, to top it all off, in the hospital itself, they only check on him every couple of hours now, and leave his bed pan in there for even longer. So he got fed up and tried to pour it out. They let him wear his balance shoes, and he wound up falling in the bathroom and breaking his hip. And did the nurses find him? No, it was my uncle.

Grandpa knows that there is rivalry in the family, and doesn’t want to give power of attorney to any one person for fear of causing family fights. But everyone is treating him like he’s no longer in sound enough mind to make his own decisions.

And, of course, I’m still stuck at home, unable to actually help. My grandpa is failing due to incompetence, and I can’t do anything about it.

2

I am sorry you (and your grandpa) are going through this. You do have recourse: talk to the administration about the service/treatment the social services is giving him (and your family). As for the rivalry that is straining your family, I have no easy answers…

3

I’m not a nurse, but I’ve been hospitalized a few times, and have always been impressed at the nurses’ concern for my safety. And whenever I’ve had to use a bedpan, it’s been removed immediately.

You didn’t ask for advice, but dang – can he be moved to a different hospital? Keeping him safe is #1 priority. The family issues can be worked out later.

4

What exactly are you expecting the hospital to do about him getting up of his own volition because he was annoyed, then falling and wind up breaking his hip? It really does not sound like the hospital’s fault. Should they be strapping him down or restraining him to the bed somehow?

5

What do the nurses do/say if he hits the call button for stuff like the bedpan?

I don’t work in inpatient care, so I don’t know how often it’s normal to check on a patient who sounds like he was pretty much stable.

6

For a stable patient who is alert, oriented, and doesn’t need IVs or tubes tended to - every two hours would be the pretty normal minimum, particularly on the night shift.

Now, during the day, it’s going to be a lot more often - what with meals being served, vital signs, baths, medication passes, physical therapy, tests, lab, doctors coming in, etc - it would be very unusual for a patient to go very long at all without someone coming in to the room, no more than an hour probably.

What I find unusual is that he’d been in a week. That’s a long hospital admission these days for someone with no complications who is otherwise doing well. Someone who still needed some kind of care/eval would be transferred to a skilled nursing unit or something of the sort after just a few days.

7

Mm, good point. If the reason for staying hospitalized was injury-related, you’d think they’d recommend transfer to a rehabilitation center or something similar. I wonder what’s going on.

8

I expect them to not call social services because we didn’t keep him from falling, and then letting him fall themselves. I expect them to at least find him in the bathroom. And I expect a bedpan to be removed whenever it is full.

It is the hospitals fault, because, since it was on their property, they have liability, just like every other place. My mom falls at work? They’re at fault. A thief falls in my home? I’m at fault. It’s how the world works.

And I would respect it if you would have the human decency not to try to snark with me right now. I know it’s lost on a lot of people here, but there are times where you are either supposed to be conciliatory, or shut the hell up.

9

I left out a part. When they found him, he had pneumonia, and it still hasn’t completely cleared up. Still, since his insurance won’t pay for more care, he was about to be moved out anyways. Now that he’s fallen, they can rebill.

But, seeing as people without insurance can go to the hospital and still get care, and they can write it off, I’m still pissed that they’re letting money decide how much care to give.

And we want to move him, but, again, there’s a financial problem. I’m not going to go into all of it, but I’ll point out that grandpa was about to be file for bankruptsy because my aunt who was handling his finances died, and my uncle is financially incompetent.

That’s another point where I feel bad that I wasn’t helping out, as I’m sure I could have handled the finances just a few years ago before this anxiety disorder took over my life. He could have never been in this stupid mess.

10

With all due respect YOU posted an angry rant implying a great wrong had been done on a public message board, and then you chastise people inquiring about the logic of your anger for being insufficiently sensitive and comforting. If you want to throw a tantrum and then get pissed when you don’t get wall to wall hugs a public message board is not the appropriate place to vent.

11

My best understanding - admittedly, I’m not in hospital billing, either - is that when people without insurance get admitted to the hospital and cared for, it’s usually just on the ER-level, stabilization and then sent home. And they are billed, though often at a discounted level, and rebilled, and billed again and again and called, etc., until finally the hospital decides if they want to write it off. I’m not sure that doesn’t still mess with the patient’s credit report in the meantime, though. And if it’s not written off, it definitely goes to collections. Non-profit hospitals (again, to the best of my recollection) have to do a certain amount of discounting/free care.

That being said, you should talk to some sort of patient services/social services rep at the current hospital, or transfer then talk to one at the new place. My brother-in-law was uninsured when he was admitted to the ICU for liver failure, and they helped him get onto a Medicaid plan. Considering that your aunt has passed and your uncle isn’t good at handling finances, he might have also overlooked some kind of Medicare plan (caveat: I know jack about Medicare) that your grandpa is eligible for.

I sympathize with your situation and complaint, but expect that the hospital will point out that your grandpa was unattended for 18 hours at home, versus less there. There’s also limits to what they can handle depending on staffing. My father-in-law was having some sort of waking nightmare/hallucinations sort of an effect from Ambien when he was in the hospital. He tried to get up out of the bed and flee, and we had to restrain him until the staff could get there. My mother-in-law had a similar problem with “hospital dementia”, thinking she was at home, and repeatedly pulled at her IV thinking something was itching/stuck on her hand. We dissuaded her from it as best we could while we were there in the room, but the staff wouldn’t have been able to watch her the whole time. Eventually (after she’d settled on thinking that she was checked into a lovely hotel, and we left) she fought the staff when they tried to keep her from “checking out” - they needed 4 people to restrain a nearly 80-year-old woman! :eek:

It does sound like the bedpans weren’t being cleared fast enough and that there are significant other questions with their care/attitude, and hopefully a transfer to a better facility can be arranged. There’s a hospital near me that I would prefer to only deal with for my own/my husband’s care for immediate stabilization, and then transfer elsewhere, due to a history of billing and other issues with them, so I understand the feeling.

12

I’m sorry to hear about your Grandpa; it must be horribly frustrating for you, feeling like there’s nothing you can do but wait and watch. I don’t know enough about how the system works there to even begin offering advice or suggestions about things you might try - I just wanted to let you know I read your post and will be thinking of you and your Grandpa. I hope he heals quickly and things work themselves out amongst the rest of your family.

13

I second the advice to complain to the hospital administration. Start talking about lawsuits and criminal charges for neglect and you’ll get their attention.

14

Did you miss that the bedpan was left there for hours? That’s unacceptable - it isn’t clear whether he was on the bedpan, or it was moved to one side (and who did that??? Grandpa? when he wasn’t supposed to be getting up???).

Sounds like a lawsuit in the making.

15

I would advise not bringing up a lawsuit. If you are going to sue them get a lawyer and sue them without giving them a warning to collect evidence of their case. Also keep in mind that many companies have a policy that once you’ve mentioned calling a lawyer they can no longer speak to you at all and your communications are from that moment forward forced to go through their legal department.

If you really want assistance appeal to their human nature. Something like, “I know how hard your job is and I appreciate all the work you do but please think about how you would feel if your grandpa was left somewhere you thought he would be safe and his bedpans were seemingly ignored and he fell and broke his hip. I think you would be upset too, and understandably so, no matter what the scenario. I’m asking that you try to take extra special care of my grandpa since I am too far away to help effectively.” will go over a lot smoother than, “I’m going to sue this hospital into the ground!”

16

Also, see if the hospital has a patient Advocate.

17

Please don’t take this as criticism; I’m simply suggesting another avenue to be explored.

Has your grandfather had his mental state assessed? I suspect that the hospital may have a tendency to view a patient who doesn’t put in his hearing aid and who pours out his urine as showing the beginnings of a change in his faculties, and may treat him with somewhat less consideration. If an assessment can show that he is still sharp, the hospital might be more inclined to respect his complaints and take him seriously. If the assessment shows some gaps, then that can be addressed in his care.

What do the nurses say about the bedpan incident? Is it possible that your grandfather’s sense of how much time had passed was not accurate? I’m asking this not to defend the hospital but again to explore whether your grandfather would benefit from a workup of his mental state and perceptions, for his own benefit.

As far as money goes, perhaps you could look into whether your grandfather’s state or county offers some sort of home assistance for the elderly of low income, perhaps through Medicaid or some other program.

18

The whole subject of restraints in medical institutions is not as clear-cut as you would think. My mom is in an Alzheimer’s unit and she got out of bed one night. She fell and broke her pelvis in two places. I mentioned this to my neighbor, who is a nurse in a nursing home here in Kansas. Her response was, “Patients have a right to fall.”

I’m not 100% sure, but I believe they can only be restrained if there is a medical reason to restrain them.