"My Parent's Care: Not Seeing The Whole Picture"

My parent had back surgery and ended up with a slow deep infection. They ended up back at the University of Alberta Hospital and had a washout and another surgery. They were in agonizing nerve pain. The staff on the unit they were admitted to thought they may have dementia because my parent was delirious with pain and had barely eaten in over a week. They sat my parent up in a chair (seemingly against their will) and refused to help them back to bed, then left them with no call bell – apparently they told my parent that they had to sit there for 45 min. My parent was so weak they could barely call out for help. They were able to FaceTime family who then called the nursing station to request that they be helped back to bed. I feel this led us to be labelled a problem family.  

My parent couldn’t eat solid food, so I requested (to a nurse) a dietary consult and to have a pureed diet. It seems they did not put in a request and my parent kept getting sandwiches, meat (which they absolutely could not eat), muffins etc. they couldn’t eat this. I asked a student nurse if they had 3% milk as my parent was getting 1% - every time the students were there, my parent would get extra 3% milk, otherwise they wouldn’t. My parent had barely eaten in more than 2 weeks at this point. I resorted to making bone broth so they could get calories.  

Apparently, the night staff would tell my now fully cognitive parent that they needed to use their diaper to defecate and urinate in and that they would just change them - they wouldn’t help my parent to the bathroom.   

I feel the physio was too assertive and my parent didn’t feel that they could say no, even when they were screaming in pain. My parent ended up falling when they couldn’t stand.  

There is so much more to this story then what I’m writing today. We were scared to leave my parent alone in the hospital so my other parent went and stayed all day, every day for the duration of the stay. My sibling, who is also a registered nurse (RN), was there almost every evening and I went as often as I could. I am an RN and am absolutely horrified about what happened to my fully cognitive parent. My training as an RN is to look at the whole picture of my patient including diet, mental and emotional health. We are taught to be compassionate and that patients are allowed to say no. In my opinion, my parent was not listened to, their pain not dealt with appropriately, their diet ignored.  

After my family had to call the nursing desk when my parent FaceTimed us in pain, the charge nurse took my other parent outside their room to have a conversation about my sick parent. This is when my sick parent was fully cognitive (I think they just assumed they had dementia). My parent is their own decision maker. They asked to speak to the charge nurse who told them that they had to leave and promised to come back to finish the conversation, but never did. This entire time my parent was nothing but friendly, in my opinion, and tried their best to accommodate the nursing staff. They are not mean or nasty and never in their life has been. I do not believe our family was a problem. We only asked, and very respectfully, that my parent be allowed to participate in their care (i.e. say no when activities were causing extreme pain) and that they be brought food they could actually eat. I feel this should be the norm. We all cried when my parent was finally transferred to the Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital.  

I have lost complete faith in our healthcare system. The moral and psychological injury to my parent (plus the physical injuries they suffered), should have never happened.  

I feel that the only silver linings in this stay were the students who cared so much and tried their best to help in the ways that they could. Also, there was one RN who talked with my parent after finding out that the night staff told them to use their diaper. This RN promised they would talk to the night staff and that it wouldn’t happen again. These were the only bright lights of the entire weeks/months long stay (I try to block out most of it because it hurts my soul to have seen my parent suffer so much for so long).  

By the way, my parent is now walking and driving - they are not back to baseline but have slowly recovered to the point where they have some of their independence back.