Well, it's about time...
Shock and surprise. Northside finally sent the records to the attorney. They arrived in yesterday's mail. The attorney is even keeping the envelope that the records came in so that they have proof as to when they were mailed out.
I could have hand-delivered something from Northside's front door to the lawyer's office sooner by walking!
The thing is, if anyone was thinking I was going to simply go away by using stalling tactics, forget it. We can calmly discuss politics or any number of things, but don't expect me to quietly go away after causing the death of someone I care about.
I've maintained all along--and will continue to maintain-- that if P__ had died after getting great medical care, I could have accepted it. Since P__ died, both my brother and dad have died. I'm not filing any lawsuits there, even if I were considered the appropriate person to do it. There was no medical malpractice in either case, even though there were medical problems going on.
Everyone who is born dies, some sooner than others. But to have that death caused by another person--including by lack of decent medical care--is as wrong as it gets.
I could have hand-delivered something from Northside's front door to the lawyer's office sooner by walking!
The thing is, if anyone was thinking I was going to simply go away by using stalling tactics, forget it. We can calmly discuss politics or any number of things, but don't expect me to quietly go away after causing the death of someone I care about.
I've maintained all along--and will continue to maintain-- that if P__ had died after getting great medical care, I could have accepted it. Since P__ died, both my brother and dad have died. I'm not filing any lawsuits there, even if I were considered the appropriate person to do it. There was no medical malpractice in either case, even though there were medical problems going on.
Everyone who is born dies, some sooner than others. But to have that death caused by another person--including by lack of decent medical care--is as wrong as it gets.
Labels: lawsuit, malpractice, Northside Hospital (Tampa Bay), wrongful death
posted by feminist writer - Robin Shwedo | 2:42 PM
7 Comments:
Hello everyone, nurse at Northside for 2 and a half years. Let me start out by saying I am sorry for your loss. I will address some of the issues presented on this blog, from the inside out. First yes that hospital is a terrible place to work any nurse there will tell you that. Yes it is mostly agency there because they can’t keep staff around because the working environment sucks.
Northside is owned by a company called HCA, they are a doctor owned for profit hospital. For profit, that’s the key words as you stated. However this is a system we American’s have unfortunately bought and paid for. The problem is not Northside but the health care system in general. HCA owns St. Pete General, Ed White, Largo Medical just to name a few in the area, and although I haven’t worked in them personally I hear they are pretty bad also. Now please do not think I am defending Northside because I am not.
Northside treats all the patients and their staff bad. We actually finally got a union in the place but before the contract was finished they fired what remained of the dwindling staff nurses and went almost all agency, I was one of them. We had 4 managers in the 2 years I worked there. Most of them we didn’t ever even meet. The staffing was horrible 7-1 on PCU floors average with no CNA’s to help us. They put psychiatric patients in with geriatrics and not to mention the drug addicts wandering around the floor looking for pain meds. We had minimal supplies even lacking linen at times. I would never take my family member to that hospital. They call Northside a teaching hospital and all they ever taught me was how much they don’t care about people.
To answer the question about doctor’s family who go there. They get private VIP rooms on the third floor. I was told to take extra special care to Dr._____ mom, I refused out of principal, everyone gets the same care on my shift the best I can give under the conditions you dealt to me. Do mistakes get made, yes. Are nurses stressed and under staffed, yes. Would we change it if we had the power, of course we would. Nursing sucks. No one wants the job because it is very easy to place blame on the nurse, aka the whipping post. I challenge all of you to look at the big picture here. The system is corrupt from the top down. We have pharmaceutical ads, billboards advertising chest pain, insurance companies for profit hospitals they all get in the way of your health care, for what? MONEY!!!
Comments like this are petty, come on people this just makes you sound like you are nit picking, choose you complaints wisely…
“A small point: they have white boards in all the rooms where you are supposed to be able to see who your nurse is, the aide's name, date, etc. This was RARELY kept up to date and we went four entire days without it being updated.”
I personally wasn’t worried about the sign when I was just hoping to give all my medications without killing someone. Things that come second in HCA hospitals are feeding, toileting, charting, walking people in the hall, smiling, talking and stupid white signs. Do the patients deserve this; well the hospital charges how much for a room. To bad in health care you don’t get what you pay for, especially with HCA/Northside.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hospital_Corporation_of_America
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nursing_shortage
Thanks for your condolences.
Will address some of your concerns in a new post.
I was the one who posted the comment about the white board. How the heck are you supposed to know who your nurse is if it isn't written on the white board???? If you think I was nitpicking, I just want to let you know that I also went into a nursing supervisor's office and commended one of the nurses who seemed to have it together and how she treated us. The nursing supervisor appeared as though she could have cared less. I made out one of those little notices which are posted down by the cafeteria, by the way. If you still work there, I still remember how Mark the night supervisor nurse moved my dad out of the ICU, saying his doctor okayed it. But the next morning, he got reprimanded by the cardiologist who DID NOT okay it (CCU was full, so he was in the ICU) and he got moved back.
It may be a terrible place to work, but it is even more terrible to be a patient there. I loathe Northside.
Thought I'd let you know I haven't heard back from your attorney, but things are moving very well at the state level and at the federal level with our case, and we've uncovered an astonding fact in our case, that might well help yours also...
Hello sorry I haven't replied in a while. I will address Lisa's comments. "The nursing supervisor appeared as though she could have cared less." I know the feeling that's because they don't care, you didn't figure out anything new. Your little notice you took the time to fill out, no one there cares about that either. It was probably never read. Marc did not get reprimanded. They just tell you that so you fell a little more empowered like you did something. One thing for sure, they had a laugh at your expense when you left thinking you got Marc in trouble. I tell you this only so you know the truth not to make you angry. I am on your side here. I encourage everyone to go to www.google.com and type "Northside Hospital Pinellas Park" and write a review for the hospital. That will be a start. Complaining to the management or cardiologist is like complaining to the devil that hell is too hot.
P.S. Your funny about those white boards. I was trying my best to keep people alive. The last thing on my mind was taking 10 minutes out of my day to fill out one of those.
I used to work agency for HCA at Northside, Largo and St. Pete General. Who the hell could find a marker to write your name on the damn board anyway when you can't even find an IV pump or a pillow? Not to mention the hassle you have to go through trying to get your patients medication from pharmacy at that place. Things are antiquated and pretty shabby at St. Pete but the supervisors are very helpful and kind, staff are friendly, the charge nurses even take patients and still manage to help everyone else out. Assignments are still heavy and hectic but there usually is at least one tech and the nurses help each other out and patient care isn't so compromised.
Northside and Largo are very scary
places, though. No support, no aids. I was always fearful for the patients there and losing my license if something were to happen. Admin. doesn't care when you ask for help. At Largo the super. will say, "nope, you can't have a tech because there's 4 nurses, even though the 4 nurses each have 5-6 heavy, total care patients, sorry but somebody will be lying in feces or urine, usually several somebodies until you can get one of the other nurses to help you, all the meanwhile, trying to get vital signs, answer the damned phone, pass meds, call doctors, assess patients, check blood sugars, waitress, fix monitor leads, call pharmacy to find out where the phenergan is for your lady who's been puking her guts out
for the past hour, look for iv poles, try to find linens and pads. Maybe you can do your charting after you've given report to the morning shift, who by the way, have more nurses with the same number of patients as on night shift, 2 techs, AND after they get report they will be going downstairs to get their breakfast. Unlike night shift, who has not even had time to pee, let alone eat anything, as if anything were available anyway. Largo does not even have a breakroom or even chairs for you to sit down and chart at. Nurses have pulled tables from patients rooms to sit on to chart. I felt like I was "walking over bodies" to take care of the most critical patients while somebody's grandma or mom or dad laid in poop or pee, it's a horrible situation when you can't give care because you're having to do everything else and ultimitely, the patients suffer and the nurses and God forbid, somebody falls, it happens. Ivs and foleys get yanked out, call lights are binging 5 and six at a time. C'mon, WE NEED HELP!!! Mostly all agency at night too because staff won't put up with that crap. Really difficult when you don't know where stuff is and neither does anyone else on your floor. I'm sure that admin. is aware of this situation but nothing is being done. I guess if something happens, it's on the agency nurse, not them. Very sad. When will nurses get to take CARE of the patients? I'm very sorry to all of the patients who had to wait for their pain meds, or didn't get turned in a timely manner, had to wait for something to eat or drink, just wanted a blanket or pair of footies, or had to lay uncomfortably in urine or feces or fell because they were trying to get to the bathroom by themselves and were too weak and unsteady on their feet. My only assumption for this lack of support is one that pertains to money. But what happens when enough is enough? And agency nurses and staff refuse to work at these facilities, with staff depletion, even more nurses will decline to work and patient care will suck even greater and then the patients, doctors and community will refuse to come. Wake up and smell the CDiff, HCA!!! Get some CNAS No one wants to hear about the budget. That's lame and tired and I think we know better. It's cheaper for patients to stay at the Ritz with a private nurse and physician and your facility sure ain't no Four Seasons.
Northside can t careless about patients. That PCU unit had about
10 nurses on at one time and 8 were ALWAYS out smoking.Those computors are germ carriers that share c-diff from patient to patient.
The only help was a 300 lb CNA who told us what the patients wanted - she couldn t do shit.
HCA s suck
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