So, Gary spent a couple days at Grant Hospital in downtown Columbus this week after he was sent there by our neighborhood ER. (He went to the ER because he's had the flu and then started having heavy chest pains and trouble breathing and he kinda looked like he might be dying.) He's home now. I can't recommend Grant as a place to go if you're sick. They probably do fine with people who are fundamentally healthy (women having babies, for instance -- everyone on that floor seemed to be having a good time of it.)
- They failed to diagnose what's making him sick -- he's still sick. They pretty much said "It's not your heart or pneumonia, so bye!" Nobody came by to tell him anything useful at the end -- a nurse came in, went over the list of his medications (which we'd given the hospital) and told him to get his stuff together.
- They put him on heavy doses of oxycodone while he was in there for the pain they failed to diagnose the cause of, then didn't give him any ramp-down doses or alternative medication when he was released. Just "No more for you, we don't care if you're going into withdrawal, bye!" That's just fucking cruel. Result? He feels worse now than he did when he went to the hospital.
- The nurses were regularly late giving him his medication by at least an hour while he was there.
- He was there for a day longer than he needed to be (considering they weren't going to do more than check out his heart and kick him to the curb) because they couldn't get him in for a stress test the first day, and they couldn't get him in for a stress test because that department was a total clusterfuck organization-wise and was understaffed.
- They treated the old guy in the bed next to him very poorly. The old fellow was about 90 and has a tumor on his spine that's been giving him a migraine for 3 months straight. None of the doctors who came into the room to talk to him told him the same thing. First doc was all "No worries! We'll operate and you'll be fine!" Second doc was "Inoperable! You're dead in three months!" The second doc came in there with four other men (residents?) and they just sort of loomed over his bed while bad-news doctor was lecturing at him -- it had the feel of a gang-up. What, bad news doctor was scared that this frail old guy who could barely walk was going to leap out of bed and try to choke him? Ugh. It felt really icky. Furthermore, the bad-news doctor sent a chaplain in there to talk to the old guy, and the chaplain could not have been more clueless or useless. The chaplain clearly did not know why the old guy was there and asked the most perfunctory questions and then left.
On the plus side, Gary says the food was okay.