@TeresaNJ First, happy to hear your recovery is going well. I have cervical stenosis, lumbar stenosis, degenerative disc disease, arthritis in my c-spine & lumbar spine, so can somewhat relate. Also, usually lurk but follow Doms progress always saying a prayer for him.
As far as your hospital stay at Jefferson, how awful for you. You are a nurse and am sure much better than many in advocating for yourself. So wrong to have this happen to you and glad to hear that you wrote your letter. Hope it does lead to making changes in their level of care.
DH & I are originally from North Jersey, way up in Bergen County, where we felt fortunate to have a great local hospital, as well as not too far from a trauma hospital. Also, not far from NYC, if needed. We moved to South Jersey where Virtua is our local hospital. When we moved here in 1987, our next door neighbor was a court stenographer and told us not to go to Kennedy. So, it was Virtua Voorhees or Virtua Marlton for us.
DH has had some issues with Virtua. One of which was when he had a brown recluse spider bite, which led into necrotizing fasciitis. When we phoned the doctor, he said to get to the ER now! Get to the ER and was triaged, doctor had called ahead. Sent to waiting room for hours. To the point of him sliding out of the chair. I pounded on the window at triage and was screaming that he needed to be taken back. I was told he was triaged and more critical people were back there. Finally, they listened to me and once back and a doctor saw him, told he had about 12 hours to live if he hadn’t come in. However, once on the floor the staff was exemplary. The other time, once again, in the ER but Marlton. DH tends to get cellulitis in the leg that had the infection and he gets very sick, very quickly. He was so sick we needed to call the ambulance and he was nearly septic, which we found out later. ER docs said he had vertigo & sunburn (dizzy & flushed). Once again, floor staff was wonderful.
With all of that being said, we feel as though Virtua is a very good hospital and would consider it if needing serious care. With the city hospitals teaming up with local hospitals, it seems to be upping the care. My boss just went through cancer treatment with Penn and he did need to be in the city for some of his treatment, much of the maintenance is now being done locally. Kennedy is now Jefferson (sorry!), so, that is another avenue perhaps. I did have my total hip replacement done with Rothman but know of others that had it done at Virtua and very pleased.
I sort of digressed from what I was originally going to say. My mom was very sick for 9 years, starting with a stroke, which led to a diagnosis of a blocked/shut down basillar artery. After a few subsequent strokes, Virtua Marlton referred her to Jefferson neuroscience, who wound up diagnosing her. Several years later, she had a hemorrhagic stroke and Virtua Marlton decided she needed more care than what they could do. They contacted Jefferson and were told that the ER was closed (capacity?), even though she was a patient of one of the top neurologists there. She was going to be airlifted but now what. They contacted Penn and she was okayed to go there. While recuperating, she distinctly remembered that she had 2 aides on either side of her when in bed. They were trying to turn her so that they could change the bed. One of them yanked her arm so hard that she had such pain in her shoulder. The other aide said “oh, she is out of it, she won’t know what happened?”.
I won’t go into all of the issues but my point from all of this is that we have become, as a family, so disenchanted with things that it has made us bitter. I know that there are so very many good & kind nurses, aides and support staff. However, when personally experiencing some really awful situations, it is so hard.
Your experience really was an awful one. Something that no one should ever have to go through. You’d hope that anyone going to a hospital could be treated with respect, compassion & dignity. When going through a hospitalization, most of us are frightened and vulnerable. I am so sorry that you had to endure it and I know you are a nurse that I would love to have take care of me.
(((HUGS)))