Hospitals

I wonder how many hospitals inadvertently harm, or even kill, their patients.

The ER cardiologist had my records in hand when she asked me about my blood pressure medicine.  I told her what she said was not what I was taking, but she assured me they were the same thing.  We went through this routine three times while I was there and when I went to the doctor today I found out she prescribed an increase in my dosage based on a drug I was not even taking.  She hadn't paid any attention to what I said at all.  Obviously she had also paid very little attention to my records.  My doctor wanted me off of the new dosage immediately.

When my son was very young he had an asthma attack that left him turning blue.  The ER gave him the epinephrine he needed and then prescribed another drug for me to give him at home.  I had enough experience to question that because it was a different form of a drug he was already taking.  I had been told by both our pediatrician and pharmacist that you never used two forms of this same medicine.  When I questioned the ER doctor he indignantly told me he knew best, but I persisted and he finally went to recheck it.  Had I given my son the dose he had prescribed, he would have died.

I was just scheduled for two heart tests and when I talked to the people at the hospital they brushed me off saying my doctor had requested the exact test I had asked them to avoid.  So, I called the doctor's office who said they only said that test was okay if the first was impossible.  I asked them to call the hospital and clarify that.

Hospitals are set up to make money.  They are not set up to take care of sick people.  Their routines have almost nothing to do with patient comfort or care and evidently good doctors are not the norm anymore.  I am very nervous about going back into that place and allowing them to play with my heart.