You know what really makes me sad....

We went to the local hospital for Veteran's yesterday to transfer a patient.

The nurse taking care of my patient had to leave for a family emergency so she turned over all her patients to another one who clearly hadn't even gone in to look at my patient at all. She didn't know his baseline mental status, she couldn't tell me his history, and didn't know really anything about him.

We walked into the room and you could hear audible gurgling coming from his trach. He had recently had several very large strokes and had the trach for airway control. She had told me that he didn't need any suctioning but it was clear that he did. I wound up suctioning him several times before we left and then had to dc his IV because she didn't know if it was going with him or not.

I ended up having to provide deep tracheal suctioning all the way to our destination and learned more about this patient by reading his discharge summary than the nurse could tell me.

Not only did this sweet man give of himself to serve our country but as a Veteran and a patient, he deserves caregivers who know all about him and can appropriately take better care of him. And someone who risked his life to defend the freedom and honor of our country by serving on our armed forces deserves the best medical care that can be provided. It makes me angry and very sad that this is how our vets are treated on a daily basis by facilities that are supposed to excel at taking care of them.