Hospital For Sick Children, A Mother’s Complaint
Hospital for Sick Children should be renamed to Hospital for Tortured Children just as my husband said.
The Hospital For Sick Children is also known as one of the largest paediatric academic health science centres in the world, with an international reputation for excellence in health care, research, and teaching. They have a reputation of an excellent medical servise not only in Toronto but also around the world.
I just cannot understand why!!!?????
I know many of you will say that there are kids in far worth health condition than my son was at the time of our visit but trust me the point isn’t here. I just want to know who is responsible for the time waisted and pain and suffering that not only my son went through but all the other kids and their parents. So you can better understand, here is our little story about our resent emergency visit to the Sick Kids.
On the night of 22 December my husband, my son, 19 month and I visited the emergency department due to my son’s injury. He injured his left arm while we were walking from Christmas shopping to our car. My little boy tripped and almost fell. I said almost because he didn’t actually fell, as I was holding his hand. My first reaction of corse was to hold on tight to him but as he was falling one wrong move and he was on his knees and sideways. All happened too fast to understand what actually happened but he did started to cry so I picked him up, carried him to the car, and drove home. He was crying all the way and I thought that he is only tired and wants to go to sleep but when we got home I noticed that he refused to use his hand and it was painful for him even to have it touched. We rushed to the nearest hospital and had him checked. After a few hours we were sent home with Tylenol and were told to monitor him. Our boy would not settle down and after a dose of Tylenol he went to sleep only for one hour. After he woke up screaming we decided to take him to Sick Kids. On the way we picked up our x-rays from the first hospital and rushed to Sick Kids full of hopes. We arrived at the hospital at around midnight. After long, long registration process we finally spoke to an admitting nurse. After hearing what happened and looking at my son’s injured arm, she said that he has a pulled elbow. Also, she said that she would be able to fix it but prefers not to as she cannot handle baby’s cry and she doesn’t want to cause him any more pain that he is already in. The nurse also spoke to another nurse who just walked into the room and told her that it is her department so maybe she can do it. That nurse said that she prefers that the doctor does it. The admitting nurse gave a dose of a Tylenol to my son and sent us to wait some more.
How disappointing it was to wait for so long to get any help. We were bouncing from one room to another for more than five hours. Finally, after 5 hour wait we were given a room where we spent another hour waiting for a nurse to come and check his vital status. After that we asked if it will be long before we see the doctor from this point and were given an even more disappointing and frustrating response. We were told that there is a long wait before we can see the doctor even though we had a room already. By now my son was screaming from pain again and I went to ask for some more Tylenol. After half an hour when no one came with the medicine I went to look for the nurse who gave him Tylenol the first time but was not able to find her and had to go back and ask if I can give my son my own pain medication if they are unable to help. One nurse said that she will be there in a minute and after another 15 minutes of seeing my son screaming and suffering I gave him my own medication, Motrin. By then my husband was very frustrated, after all, we were told that it is a few minute job to fix the pulled elbow and that the pain goes away as soon as it is fixed, he started complaining to the nurses and asking how long do we need to see our son to scream in pain, how long will we all be tortured sitting in a tiny room and seeing our son have no escape from pain. We were told by a nurse that unfortunately our son is NOT SICK ENOUGH TO GET PRIORITY!!!!!!!
I couldn’t believe my ears…..Does my son has to stop breathing to get any attention??? It was unbelievable!!!! My husband was furios…
I know that at this point some of you will say for sure that all I am doing now is complaining but NO I am not!!! All of you DO!!! You know why??? Here is the reason.
Many of you take the transit to work and many many people depend on the service. Not one I am sure likes to see delays because nobody wants to be late for work. Guess what! My husband is driving one of those subway trains that you guys are taking to work and he ended up booking off with family emergency because we spent all night at the hospital and he didn’t get any rest and he wasn’t going to put any of you in danger just because of his sleepless night. So, I am sure one more train got parked that morning during rush hour because my husband was not there. Now do you get the picture???
So back to the Hospital with perfect reputation…
Basicaly, we were not able to sit and watch our tiny, helpless baby son suffer any longer. My husband picked our little 19 month old boy up and we left. WITHOUT GETTING ANY HELP!!!!!
We did learn a good lesson though. You have to be half dead and not breathing in order to get help at the Sick Kids Hospital . And we know for sure that we will never go back to seek help there, unfortunately. What a shame for “best” children’s hospital.
I know our story will not be published on their web site of Miracle Recovery Stories which are posted there in order for all of you sensitive and caring people to give them donations for their “great” work, but we will be sending messages and emails to different departments and spread the word of the “kindness” and “sensitivity” of The Sick Kids Hospital personnel.
Thank you for reading and hope you will be more lucky than we were.
P.S. Just a quick update on our son’s injury. He is getting better and better by the minute. He is gaining back the motion in his arm. We did ended up taking him to an after hour clinic for kids where we were helped withing an hour. Thank to the Dr.Patel and all caring staff our son is getting better.
Disclaimer
This article was submitted by one of our readers. Penciltrick cannot make any claims as to its authenticity but the article was accepted on a good faith belief that it is an accurate and truthful account of the events listed.
January 21st, 2008 at 4:04 am
It sounds like there was a fundamental miscommunication in this situation. The nurses ought to have been explained to you that triage (the process whereby patients are organized for treatment) works based primarily on two priorities: bleeding and breathing.
If you aren’t bleeding, and you’re breathing, you’re going to the back of the queue. That’s all there is to it. You’re conscious, breathing, crying? All good signs. Wait your turn.
Consider this: the whole time you were waiting with your son, there were ambulances and helicopters delivering children from all over the province with serious, life-threatening injuries, each one pushing your son further and further down the line.
A hospital is not like a deli. It does not operate on a first come, first serve basis. Although your child was no doubt injured, it was not life-threatening. Did you stop to consider that there were likely children who were dying ahead of you in the queue?
Remember, they treat children with rare, terminal, and life-threatening illnesses at Sick Kids. And yet you would question the hospital’s world-class status? I’m sorry, but an elbow injury is simply not a priority. Basic first aid would tell you that. Common sense would tell you that.
Unfortunately, every parent in every hospital likely feels that their child is the sickest of the sick, and I don’t fault you for that: you must have felt terrible and helpless, seeing your child hurting, without being able to help. What an awful, frustrating feeling.
However, it is for this very reason that after-hours clinics exist. Hospitals are for the seriously injured. For everything else, a non-emergency setting like a clinic is appropriate. If your son had been accidentally poisoned, for example, I would have no issue with you going straight to the ER. But for an injury treatable with Tylenol? Why waste the hospital’s (and your family’s) time?
This is what contributes to long wait times: individuals unfamiliar with how the system works go to the hospital with minor injuries, cuts and bruises, the sniffles, and other inane concerns. And then they complain about how long they have to wait to be treated! Absurd.
Six hours sounds like a pretty typical waiting time for a minor injury, I’m sorry to say. That was my last experience, accompanying a friend with a head injury to a hospital here in Edmonton. Is it a perfect system? Absolutely not. Ought waiting times be a serious government priority? Definitely yes.
I think your lesson learned is a good one, though, even if you did style it as a complaint. Your story will assist others in thinking twice about making the hospital their first stop for every minor cut, bruise or scrape — which is a good thing.
April 9th, 2008 at 6:28 am
I have to say – after having worked in several ER’s (as a Nurse) and having worked at Sick Kids, that what I find the most frustrating is the people that come to the ER with non emergent issues. Honestly, it costs the government 280.00 just to register in the ER. The prices go up from there. Then people come for “quick fixes” even though they may have been treated in another facility/clinic like this family.
Have you ever stopped to consider that there is a huge shortage of nurses, yet we cannot turn anyone away – even if we know they shouldn’t have wasted our time and theirs coming to the ER? We sometimes work all night without breaks, and without food, because the ER is filled with 60-70% of patients who are WASTING OUR TIME!!!
Sick Kids gets children from all over the world! They have the second highest acuity in the world and perform procedures that no other hospitals do. They have true emergencies dozens of times each shift. A pulled elbow – especially one that was already seen and xrayed and found NOT to be broken, is very low in the queue and to suggest the hospital is bad for that reason just goes to show how ignorant some people are.
April 25th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
Here we go. Out come the fierce defences of Sick Kids. Who are we to besmirch the sacred reputation of the sacrosanct Sick Kids? Let us all go and bow down before the precious institution and utter no blasphemous comments that might in any way suggest any sort of complaint about the ‘world class’ Hospital for Sick Children.
Hogwash!!
I, for one, _HATE_ the ‘precious’ Hospital for Sick Children. I will never, ever give them my support or respect.
I brought my son there several times for both acute and non-acute illnesses and was patronized and talked down to, each and every time. It wasn’t that I had to wait, the staff and clinicians were incredibly unprofessional and incompetent. My mother is an RN who worked in pediatrics for over 30 years, in hospital, and she was appalled. I was given incredibly bad direction and treatment advice. So, by the time he was critically ill and treatment from Sick Kids was going absolutely nowhere, in fact, from bad to worse, I said F you to Sick Kids and its precious ‘world-class’ treatment facility and went to the US for treatment. There the clinicians weren’t stuck on themselves and their standing in the medical community. They actually, GASP!, examined the patient and then treated him appropriately. No condescension, no snarky comments, no ‘well that’s not how we do it here’ attitude. My son is now recovered, no thanks to Sick Kids.
So, don’t give me this crap about taking kids from all over the province and the world and about it being a leader. How about that kid from Vietnam who had the growth on his face that Sick Kids chose not to treat. There was hell to pay because a second opinion was suggested. Then doctors at a Boston area children’s hospital actually undertook to help the kid. I watched that case with interest and was exceedingly glad that they chose to take that child to the US for treatment. At least there, they dared to treat him.
And so the doctors in the US dared to treat my son. For what my son needed to be treated for, Sick Kids is literally in the dark ages and the treatment we received in the U.S. is light years ahead. (and I’ll argue till I’m blue faced with anyone who says that Sick Kids and Canadian health care is better than the U.S. – because in our case it was definitely not the truth).
And it’s really a galling shame too. Because if you have a kid that has something acutely wrong with them, some rare disease, needs something reconstructed, transplanted, a bone set, etc, then, I’ll grudgingly admit, yeah, it probably can’t be beat. But, if you have a child who has a chronic disease, then forget it. And further, if you have a child who has a disease that the medical establishment refuses to admit they caused, even worse for you.
Sick Kids claims to be ‘world leaders’ in pediatrics, but from what I’ve seen, they fail miserably.
July 24th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
I think the demeanor of the patient’s family plays heavily in situations such as this. I have been at this hospital for chronic care and emergency occassions over the years. It is best to remain calm (although you are not), be thankful for every little thing (even being recognized in the waiting room) and take the time to remember names. That leads to forging a relationship that the understaffed nurses will appreciate. At the very worst you have names to report behaviour unbecoming and onprofessional.
October 31st, 2008 at 9:37 pm
Sorry to hear you had such a negative response. My son is a patient of there for a heart condition. I absolutely LOVE that hospital and can’t say enough good things about the doctor’s and nurses. I feel very fortunate to have such an incredible medical centre less than 30 minutes away. We are very blessed.
January 8th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
So those of you who have stepped up to defend the hospital have apparently decided that a pulled elbow does not justify attending the ER. How about a fractured skull with bleeding in the brain? This is what I brought my five and a half month old baby in for and I received even worse treatment than the one complained of in this complaint. Don’t get me wrong, I encountered some great nurses and doctors during our stay at the hospital (we went through emergency and stayed for two days), but the hospital definitely requires improvement both systemically (in terms of standard operating procedure) and personally (in terms of bedside manners).
Just a quick overview. At first we were told it was just a bump on the head and were directed to their urgent care clinic to wait for 3-4 hours. We then insisted on an x-ray and a fracture was revealed. We then insisted on a CT Scan. A doctor came to tell us that the CT scan was clear and we were relieved. An hour later a neurosurgeon came to tell us that in fact the CT scan revealed blood in our daugther’s brain.
I appreciate what sick kids does. But if you’re argument is that it is only meant to treat dying patients from around the world then don’t lead everyone to believe that it is a standard emergency room. In addition, even the best hospitals have room for improvement. Instead of relying of the honours bestowed on the hospital let’s try and make it better.
February 18th, 2009 at 9:12 pm
I’m going to jump in to defend the hospitals. Feel free to stop reading if you can’t tolerate views different from your own. My opinion is not specific to Sick Kids hospital, it applies to every hospital I’ve ever visited in Canada.
I will start by stating a very obvious fact: our health care system is defective. It is understaffed and overburdened. However, I do not think it is underfunded. The problem, like many others have said already, is they expend an unreasonable amount of resources on people who don’t need hospital care, people who would be better served by a visit to the general clinic the next morning. Ideally, we should have 24-hour clinics in every major city to serve these people, but that is a political issue for another site.
Let me give you a golden example of what an ER is not supposed to deal with. Many years ago, I was in a nasty car accident. I was lucky, walked away with just a few small cuts from the shattered glass, but I was still taken to the hospital. I sat in the waiting room for 3-4 hours until an R.N. looked at me, took my vitals, then quickly cleaned up my wounds. No x-ray, nothing beyond basic first-aid. I could have, and should have, done that myself. In fact, they were so hurried that I still had bits of glass embedded in my skin, which I cleaned up myself at home. My life was not in danger at all.
I considered my visit to be a waste of both the hospital’s time and my own, but it had not been my choice as I was a minor at the time. If the same thing happened today, I would not burden the hospital with such trivialities.
While I will concede that small children lack the ability to evaluate their own health, parents should still make a sane effort to assess the situation before sounding the alarms and giving in to panic. You and your child are no more important than anyone else in the hospital – making a scene of it will do nothing to help. Parents have earned a bad reputation in emergency rooms all over the country, because they are constantly crying wolf. It isn’t a stretch to say that nurses and doctors have become desensitized to the real issues, as a direct result of all the self-righteous parents wasting their time.
What if it were a different industry ? What if it was your job ? I’ve had so many people squander my time and interest with trivialities and false alarms, people who want to convince me they are god and I am their bitch, it has left me cynical and jaded. I’m not a nurse, just a computer programmer, so I can certainly sympathize with health care workers and the stress they endure every day. At least I have the freedom to turn down clients I don’t want; perhaps hospitals should be empowered to do the same, or at least get the funding they need to implement progressive changes so that even the non-emergencies can be handled in an efficient manner.
March 2nd, 2010 at 6:05 pm
I agree with the complaints. I was referred to a specialist. I did not want my daughter to be concerned, and I have no worries. the secretary said it’s perfectly safe for me to leave her in the waiitng room while I spoke to the doctor. well first i had to see a counsellor, then the doctor, which meant after a one hour wait in a dinky room with NOTHING for the kids to do except a few old books, my 5 year was unattended for 45 minutes in a non secure room, totally unsupervised. this is world class kids care? I think not.
April 11th, 2010 at 10:10 am
Before you go and defend this hospital, think of how many kids dies due to staff negligence each day.It’s not something you hear on tv… I personally know people who work there and hear horrible stories of kids dying… We were in the hospital yesterday, my 8 month old had 40 degrees fever under armpit for 4 days, was dehydrated refused food and drink, had severe vomiting and cried non stop. The triage nurse saw how unwell my child was so they gave Tylenol, I asked how much I can give her (considering she was on it for the past 4 days I didn’t want to give more than I should)she told me that she will go find out, then she came back started calculating making mistakes in calculations and didn’t know what to do… Then she said and i quote ” give how much you want” at that point my mothers started raising my voice at them because at that point the child was coming out of consiousness we asked for the doctors with tears on our eyes. the nurses did not know what to do.. the nurse that was helping us got up and said and I quote ” i don’t know what to do, call a doctor” got up and left..another nurse came and took us to “urgent care” (it’s a place for non-serious conditions… no doctors what so ever) another girl working there we asked her for a wash cloth because at that point we started rubbing my child with warm water to reduce a fever, after a couple of hour it was a success. after a long wait a nurse came and told us that we were pout in a wrong department and we should go back to emerg. The doctor there was amazing so was the nurse there.The doctor was shocked that we were not accepted right away cause the child was ill…. we went and asked 2 nurses for the 1st and last names; one of them refused and said I quote ” I forgot it” then m husband said it right there and pointed at it; she lied said it was not it and we know that it is caus we have family and friends working there and the turn they badge around so no one knows their name… after she said said she just does not want to share this information with us. may I remind you they are not allowed to do that! she said
“should I call security?” my husband said “please call them” she pretended she is busy with something else. Then one hour later she went to security and i heard her saying to him some lies, sch as we were calling her names and yelling, very untrue…. he came out to talk to us but did not say anything because he knew us very well cause he worked with someone close to me at that hospital and knew us very well that we will never start a fight and never raise our voice in any circumstances…he gave us a green light to do what we want may I remind you cause he knew we never ever raise voice…
So before and you go and defend people there is amazing and not so amazing people work there…they can be sure i will be talking to the supervisor there tomorrow morning and I will get an apology letter….i will make sure they don’t treat anyone the same way… cause there is a lot of sick kids and parents that don’t know what to do… I don’t want their kid to be on another statistic list of dead kids.,.
July 9th, 2010 at 5:50 pm
The only people on here sticking up for the sick kids hospital are obviously doctors, so your opinion is not valid. I experienced 11 hours of hell there with my 3 year old daughter. For 10 days she had a minimum 39.4 fever and barely ate a thing, during that time we tried the tele-health thing, and going to a doctor. But the doctor could only assume she had a bladder infection because she is not fully potty-trained,and could not give a urine sample. The meds didn’t help and the pharmacist recommended sick kids because they could use a catheter to take a proper sample. Sounds great but after a longgg wait (which is ok because of emergency patients arriving at anytime)3 or 4 kids in their 20′s with no obvious experience messed up the first catheter try, saying my daughter was to blame because of the way her (area is shaped)and left a bag under her diaper for hours waiting for a sample.They also made a big mess that shouldn’t have been, and torturing my daughter. And hours later when finally a few great doctors that i liked very much came in,i explained my complaints and he said he would send in a more experienced nurse to try it again. Therefore admitting the other doctors mistake, plus he said he did not like the fact that that bag was on here for so long because she didn’t pee during this time. He said only minutes it should be on, and then try another because of the bacteria risk surrounding that area (duh) and that even if she did pee they would have had to throw it out because of contamination and not knowing if the bacteria is inside her or outside. Not once did the 4 or 5 rookies mention this during the whole time putting her at risk for worse problems, and having to use a catheter twice in a few hours could give her problems there throughout her life. And it took them forever to find a vain in either arm, also after they said that one of them would be back in a couple of minutes and over an hour later i looked around for someone and i hear (oh, no one has been in there lately) so if your quiet like most people you get no or bad service. And i had to get very MAD, i did everything except treating anyone, violence or break anything in there. Yet i am basically alone in my rage being told by docs and family to shush, but if i didn’t i probably wouldn’t have got the good service i eventually got. Plus they will never think they did anything wrong. So please anyone who ever has to go there remember this and stick up for yourself when needed. Because it’s not about wanting to be treated better then any family there…. its about getting the right treatment without jeopardizing who your there to help and support