Here is all the letters written only to produce a meeting with a social worker. I was under the impression all the senior staff involved would be attending. Also I was told after the meeting that they would send me a letter outlining the changes they would make as a result of the horrible treatment we received. In the meeting I suggested using more common sense when assessing, staff receiving sensitivity training, and an apology would be nice. Knowing the staff had just been spoken to in regards to their behaviour would have been nice. So very disappointed. As a nurse I wouldn’t have treated a dog the way I was treated.

Letter 1

From:

Shelley Green (shelley-green@hotmail.com)

Sent:

October-16-14 11:17:03 AM

To:

communications@cornwallhospital.ca (communications@cornwallhospital.ca)

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Oct.-16-14

To whom it concerns,

I would like to make you aware of 3 situations I have encountered in the last 5 months that have really upset me.The first part I wrote this summer and decided not to send but as this seems to keep happening I figured you can’t fix it if you’re not aware it is going on, and I surely hope you are not!

5/14/14

I am writing this letter as a formal complaint against one of your physicians in the Emergency Department, Doctor Joanne Denise Bourcier.I was there this morning quite early with back pain due to what I’m sure is arthritis. I entered the hospital and discussed my problem with the admitting nurse who treated me with care and understanding. I’m sure she could see I was in pain. I was about the 3rd in the waiting room.I was called quickly and escorted to a room.The nurse came in and asked me a few questions related to my pain and gave me a gown and told me to take everything off but my panties and put on the gown.There was a blanket left.I did just that and pondered in my pain, which I classified between 8 and 9, how to get up on the bed.I managed but sitting on the side decided to remain seated, the pain of getting up and down on the gurney too unbearable.Sitting on the gurney, legs dangling after a while the legs pulling on my back, I decide to pull my legs up on the side of the gurney and sit back a bit to relieve the pain.Of course I think I look ridiculous but I had not taken any medication that morning hoping to show how swollen my body gets with this arthritis.I get it all over.My back, wrists, knees, feet, hands, fingers, all my joints it seems. I have missed work for it.I have gone to work doubled over, my boss very concerned, as is my husband and kids.I hate going to the hospital for the wait time.But if it’s bad enough… I decide to move over to the chair with a back on it.

The doctor flies in and asks me about my medication.I tell her I am on mostly menopausal medications.She says very flip, “oh well, you know at our age…” So I laugh but not sure why.She has me try to touch my toes and gets me on the table.Then she checks my feet, asks me about my smoking and recreational drugs, a little presumptuous and insensitive but I get it, to which I reply that I smoke about 4 or 5 a day, I am off and on…I struggle with it.I don’t smoke recreational drugs.She says“you must smoke more your circulation is terrible for someone your age” (lol the audacity after her menopausal med response/narcissistic a bit wouldn’t you say?)I say “Really you’re the first person to tell me this”, which I thought was strange.And I say “Well not sure what to tell you.That’s what I smoke”.She then says, “Well you’re way too young for osteoarthritis” to which I reply “well I’m pretty sure that’s what my Mother has”.She dismisses this.Like I already knew she had.She then asks me about cancer to which I reply, “I was recently here for tests because they did a CAT SCAN and found air in my bladder and a lesion on my hip.” She responded like a teenager in a bit of mocking way “air in your bladder” and I said “yes I guess it can indicate cancer.She starts to leave and says, “I better look this up and I need a urine sample”. I tell her I am prone to bladder infections but that I KNOW that this is not one.She says, “I want one just the same” and I also get this but I already knew. At that point the attending nurse comes in and says I’m getting an abdominal ultrasound??? Not sure why.This being done, I get dressed and she tells me “It’s not a bladder infection but we already knew that didn’t we?”She tells me basically I have a pulled muscle in my back. She never does examine my back.

At that point she prescribes me Ibuprofen in the dosage I have already been taking with little or no effect.I already told the admitting nurse and the attending, both professional in manner so I had no doubt it was on my chart.If not it didn’t matter.The point is when I pointed it out to her (the doctor) that the ibuprofen wasn’t touching the pain anymore, it’s been going on for 2 years now she retorted “I’m not giving you anything stronger!”I wasn’t looking for anything stronger.First of all I wanted a diagnosis for personal and work purposes as my boss has been asking me to get it checked, seeing me in pain at work, either doubled over or unable to type or do my daily duties at work due to arthritic pain.so all she had to say was “there is nothing stronger than Ibuprofen that I can give you however my suggestion is to see your family doctor and get a referral to a specialist if the ibuprofen isn’t working any longer”. She made me feel like I was a drug addict looking for OxyContin. I was very upset!When I started to leave I saw the attending nurse who had to check my pulse before I left and as she was doing so I said I felt the doctor had formed an opinion before I even gave her my symptoms and was very dissatisfied with the doctor’s care.The nurse asked if I wanted to talk to the doctor again.I told her I felt it was pointless.She wasn’t listening and it was obvious that she wasn’t interested in listening.I told her I brought it up to my doctor but it hadn’t been, addressed.I told her I didn’t blame my doctor.I like and respect her very much.It hadn’t been my main reason for going in to the doctor on both visits that it seemed to be overlooked.The nurse informed me that the doctors only address one issue per visit as a rule and that I should call my doctor again.I thanked her for her helpfulness.

What I didn’t tell the doctor about my previous visit… didn’t think I had to, was that I waited for reports from one department within the hospital to another for 7 hours, after they told me to wait in the emergency and the doctor would call me and discuss the results.I waited.The shift changed.A friend that ‘s a nurse noticed me in the waiting room a couple times, waved the first, then asked the second time if I was waiting for someone.I said no…just 6 and a half hours for test results. She got the ball rolling.The doctor was very apologetic.And I lost a full day of work sitting in the hospital. Two if you want to include today.

This type of care is totally unacceptable.I hope you discuss sensitivity training to this doctor or get rid of her.I have a feeling I won’t be your only complaint.

9/25/14

My daughter and I both arrived at Emergency with continuous diarrhea and vomiting, and quite loudly at that. 15 minutes after we arrived in Emergency my husband came to the bathrooms and told us the admitting nurse finally appeared at the front desk. (I spoke with another patient that was waiting 10 min. before we arrived and said there was no one at the admitting desks.)

My daughter went first and the nurse was anything but pleasant and comforting.She looked angry as a matter of fact. I had to keep going to the bathroom for obvious reasons so my husband had to admit me. I was so distraught I asked for a bed twice between puking and shitting. Profusely sweating and red in the face barely able to walk she refused me twice and told me to wait. I finally saw a bed across from one of the bathrooms I had been occupying and I climbed onto it. Needless to say when they finally came to get us I told the one nurse she would have to change the bedding because I had to climb onto the bed as the admitting nurse refused to help me get into a bed. We were finally led to a room where there was one stretcher for the two of us and we were both in horrible shape. Across the hall was an empty room with a stretcher.Seeing us shaking and sweating they never offered us a pillow or a blanket so we got our own blankets across the hall and I proceeded to lay on the bathroom floor so I could get into a comfortable position as I was in a lot of pain. We were hooked up to IV fluids after I said to the nurse who sounded like they were getting ready to discharge us, “Aren’t they going to hydrate us????”Obviously lacking in confidence, which shook mine, she failed at inserting the IV needle on my daughter, blew a vein, and another nurse came in to do my daughter while Miss lacking in confidence did mine, yay, and very painfully as she jabbed me 3 times before finding the right spot.

We were never so thankful for the day shift.Finally a decent nurse came in and brought another stretcher in for us and handed us some heated blankets. She gave us great advice, which I already knew most of having worked in the profession for 30 years, but you still want to see them giving advice in case you aren’t aware.

I was also there with my son this summer.He was complaining of depression and suicidal thoughts.The crisis team was to call him that night.We still haven’t heard from them.Crisis is now past thank God but what if it was a really desperate situation????

So having said all this….

My concerns are:

1) What happened to LISTENING TO THE PATIENT WITH AN OPEN MIND

2)Do you not have beds, blankets and pillows.(the other patient in the emergency went in c/o a sore neck and wasn’t offered a blanket or a pillow so we weren’t alone that night)

3)What happened to PROFESSIONALISM AND ACCOUNTABILITY????

4)Do you feel equipped to deal with Ebola when you can’t handle a simple flu with dignity, respect and a response that is anything but sub-par basically????

I would love to know what you plan to do to rectify this???

Sincerely,

Shelley Harley Green.

750 Sandfield Cresent,

Cornwall, Ontario

K6H 5C3

Notes to self on letter to be written

12/17/14

I called the CCH hospital 4 times in the last week trying to talk to Dr. Scharf. I left an angry toned message and he finally called back. I told him I wanted to talk to him about the emergency situation with my daughter and I. I wanted to know what he had done about the lack of stretchers and linen and the poor attitudes on his nurses and the fact that no one was at the admitting window for 20 minutes that night. He said “There should always be someone at the window. I can explain the policies for the Emergency Dept. He was very condescending. I said “I’m not interested in your policies. I want to know if you are planning on budgeting for more linen and stretchers, and if you talked to the nurses with such poor customer relations about the way we were treated”. He said “well I’m not sure what night that was so I’m not sure who was working”. This was part of my original letter to the hospital a month ago. For a Chief of Staff, would you not think if one of the complaints a patient makes is about the staff and a certain situation on a date that was given in the letter that he might go back and pull the files on myself and my daughter, and the old time sheets? I’m not sure how he does his investigation but it was apparent to me that there was none done.

Letter 2

12/17/14

I am writing to tell you that I just spoke with Dr. Scharf about my complaint to the hospital about a month ago. I am very dissafisfied and angry with his handling of the situation. I made suggestions, he was pompous and condescending. The first call he made to me in reference to the original complaint he was laughing and joking with someone in the background when I answered my phone. Someone else was with him while we began the conversation, which is fine, however he was obviously not focusing on what the problem was. He wanted to tell me the procedures of the Emergency Dept. Not interested I told him. I’m only interested in how you are planning of fixing the problem. I asked him specifics related to the night I was there, which if he was truely serious about helping he would have had the information at hand before he called me. He didn’t even know who was working the night in question. So obviously they weren’t talked to in regards to the horrible treatment my daughter and I received. I will further this with the Hospital Association. Thank you very much!

Letter 3

Thu 1/22/2015 11:24 AM

To Michael Turcotte, Melanie Baker-Brown, Christopher Giggey and Jeanette Despatie,

I am writing to let you know that I was in Emergency, yet again, with my 5 yr. old Granddaughter on Tuesday, January 13th. She had some cold symptoms for over a week that needed to be seen.

When I had spoken to Dr. Scharf a few weeks ago and mentioned the disastrous setup in the Emergency Department for initial intake he stated, “Well if you’ve noticed we now have a person greeting and directing you when you come in to the Emergency”. I told him I noticed the person a couple times but not always. His response was “we have been going through some growing pains”… Understandable but a year ago I was called by a representative from the hospital and was asked if I had any complaints, they were conducting a customer service survey. I specifically said that the Emergency Department is an fight waiting to happen. There is no one to tell you to sit in the “red” section till it is your turn to go up. You have to see the small sign which most people miss. I suggested going back to the number pull system. You have it on the other side where the old Emergency is. I don’t get it. People are skipping others because they can, and everyone is angry when they see others go right up to the nurse when they’ve just come in and others have been sitting in the “Red” section still waiting to be seen. This was the case again on Tuesday. I had to keep getting up and telling people they had to sit in the “red” section because none of us already sitting there have been seen yet. It’s not my job to look after your clients!

So okay, I finally get in to a room after 5 hours in the waiting room. Another young Mom with her obviously sick little guy was in just before us. After listening to the nurses exchange their fun stories and giggling while waiting patiently, or not by this point when you have a sick little one and it’s 11 pm, I’m now out in the hallway looking for any staff in sight. The other young Mom is too, and obviously very frustrated. Finally I see Dr. Scharf and am quite disappointed as the man has lost any of my confidence that he is even there for anything other than a popularity contest with his staff. I go back into the treatment room and I hear him say to the other Mom, “So what’s the problem?” …there are nicer ways to engage with a client but whatever. She responds, “well I’ve been in this room waiting for over an hour now for one thing” to which he responds “well you see that man over there? He’s been waiting 6 hours so you should feel lucky”. Really? Since when do we talk to clients like that? God what is it going to take for this man to learn some decent customer service. You don’t have to like us but treat us with respect. We have sick kids, we’re concerned, and we’re frustrated. We know you work hard, we know there is flu outbreaks, give us some respect and treat us like we are paying your salaries!!!!

Frustrated and Fed up!

Shelley Green,