On April 3rd/4th a Toronto hospital (St. Michael's Hospital @ 30 Bond St.) put my mom at serious risk by putting a male patient in her room with her that is in detox. I wanted him out but I was told no and that he was no threat, he wouldn't even get out of bed. I almost lost my mom on the Wed. that week and then again this day. Critical care had to literally sit in her room for an hour and a half monitoring her, etc.
So they move this guy in the room against my wishes. A half hour after I'm assured that not only will this guy not get out of his bed, that even if for some strange reason he managed, he would pull off all his leads (he's monitored, cardiac, etc. like my mom) and they would see it on the monitor and come running. I told him I still didn't like it. I'm told he's in detox as if that's some kind of comfort.
No sooner was I given this reassurance when I was sitting watching my mom and talking to her doesn't he get up out of bed! He rips off all his leads, he walks over to almost the foot of my mom's bed, he the pulls out a packaged syringe from the dead syringe box (have no idea why there was a good syringe there) and he then pulls off the wall the large container of anti-bacterial hand gel and stands there with one in one hand and the other in the other hand staring at us. Looks like he may club us or stab us for all we know. He finally starts back for bed!! No one comes.. I tell my mom to hit the button, someone comes on and asks what I need, I tell her the guy is out of his bed and she says "ok"......... and no one comes!
The guy is delirious, he was seeing bugs, hallucinating and was holding complete conversations with himself. What if he took that syringe and stabbed my mom?? Anything could happen. I demanded they remove him from her room. Long and short of it, they didn't. I had to argue with them about what they were going to do to protect her. I had to remind them that her safety is first and foremost. I told them again to remove him but they wouldn't. I told them to put him back downstairs in Major Trauma where there are monitors and monitor him there. They wouldn't do that. I then suggested they move him to another floor. They wouldn't do that. I suggested they call security and have them sit in the room with them and again, that wouldn't work either. I was told security wouldn't do that! I reminded them that there are facilities across this city for those in detox and he should be sent there or even to another hospital via ambulance which is done a lot in Toronto. Still they wouldn't.
The charge nurse tells me she'll figure something out and in a half hour I go looking for her.
The plan was to have a "sitter" sit in the room with them all night long. I had to wait for 90 minutes though, around 11 pm by then. I guess they needed to replace her. It was a small young woman. He could have overpowered her in a heartbeat. Regardless of the sitter my mom was too scared to go to sleep. My mom jumped and yelled that he was out of bed again when she saw a pair of shoes. The shoes belonged to the person sitting in her room to watch. My mother almost died that day, I was told to call my siblings and this is how she is suppose to get her rest now they have her stats somewhat under control? This is how she's suppose to keep her blood pressure stable? And her heart? She called me around 2 am that morning, wide awake. She thinks she managed to get 3 hrs sleep that night if she was lucky. My mom has arrhythmia, dangerous arrhythmia. They can't get it under control and her blood pressure is out of wack too. Her safety is at risk as is her life as far as I'm concerned if she's kept up all night from fear.
This isn't the entire story. I left out the part where the nurse confronted him. He was going to drink that damn stuff because it's made with alcohol. I also left out the part why he was in her room, which is bull, as far as I'm concerned. I left out many parts of this story, like when a lawyer friend of mine had to show up the next day to get him removed from the room. And the part where the next evening a Hospital Director showed up apologizing profusely and remarking that he wasn't contacted and no one followed hospital policy/procedure in this matter, etc.
This should ever happen in any hospital. No woman or senior citizen should ever be put in this kind of harms way. He could have stabbed her, raped her, clubbed her to death with that big bottle of anti-bacterial gel. There is no telling what a large man in detox having hallucinations could do. He was far too unpredictable and unstable and my mother was defenceless. Especially since no nurses came. Who the heck was watching my mother's monitor if no one was watching his??? And no one will ever convince me that if my mom was a young woman that this man would have been put in that room with her. She had 2 Dr’s that continually told me “she’s old you know”.
Not 2 months after they tried to put her from a “step-up” unit into another room with a man again! Needless to say, she got very upset and I said flat out No.
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