Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Shame on Kaiser

In my previous post I mentioned that Spencer and I took Owen to the Emergency Room Sunday night, I would like to get into more detail about what happened at this time. I need to vent my frustrations with Kaiser and their inability to make their patients feel like they are taken care of. For those of you who don't know I had a lot of problems with Kaiser during my pregnancy and I just felt like no one really cared about me and my unborn child. (That is a whole other story that I don't even want to get into right now) So here's my story:

While I was changing Owen's diaper Sunday night I noticed that there were streaks of bright red blood and mucus in his stool. Knowing enough to realize that this isn't normal I called Kaiser's after hours nurse to get some advise. After answering a series of questions she determined that the problem seemed to be pretty serious and told me to bring my son to the emergency room right away and to bring his diaper. The people in the emergency room were very nice and helped us right away. I gave them the diaper and while we were there Owen was able to produce another sample for them to have. So I gave them two diapers full of the problem. After checking Owen's temperature and some other things it was determined that we could take him home and monitor his temperature and behavior ourselves. The doctor told me that there was nothing he could do until tests were run on the stool samples. He told me to go home and call my doctor on Wednesday for the results, but to bring Owen back to the ER if things got worse. So today I called our pediatrician for the results. After two long conversations with the nurse it was determined that the tests were never done. The lab at Kaiser in Riverside did receive an order to run the tests, but then the order was cancelled because the patient was discharged. I WAS TOLD TO GO HOME BECAUSE THERE WAS NOTHING ANYONE COULD DO UNTIL THE STOOL WAS TESTED! I don't understand why Kaiser can't help their patients. Something could seriously be wrong with my son, but I will never know because they can't get their act together over there! Luckily Owen seems to be doing better, good thing because no one seems to be able to help him. All I want is a health care provider that actually CARES, is that too much to ask???
Shame on you Kaiser!!

5 comments:

Laura said...

That stinks!! I have heard bad things about the Riverside and Fontana hospitals. I delivered Grant at the Lakeview hospital and had a really good expereience. Unfortunatley, that is what you get with an HMO like Kaiser.

Jill Duncan said...

I can't believe that, how scary! So they're still going to run the test right? Poor little Owen, does he seem to be in pain or upset at all? You know how I feel about Kaiser...I'm not a huge fan!

Lindsay said...

That is so frustrating. I am so sorry to hear about your experience. Is Owen teething or congested at all?

Sarah Hull said...

AMEN, AMEN, AMEN!!!! is there any way you can change providers? It's not worth it to have such crummy care. You will notice the biggest difference if you went somewhere else.
I am so sad about sweetest baby owen having a rough couple of days. But glad to hear he is doing better.

aaburga said...

Looks like a case of Negligence on part of Kaiser. They are soooo lucky that Owen is okay or else...

SPENCER! What's up man! It's me ARTUROOOOOOOOOO! I saw your lil brother at a NYE event. He almost crushed my hand when we shook hands.

So where are you living now? I am still in Rancho Cucamonga. Write back or something. aaburga@yahoo.com

Art