Pregnant people not welcomed at St. Clare's

Here is my email correspondence between myself and the complaint department with Eastern Health regarding a recent visit that I had at St.Clare's Mercy Hospital. 

St. Clare's Mercy Hospital 

Proximity 

My Initial Letter

Good morning

I am writing to you as my official complaint about my experience at the St. Clare’s Mercy Hospital on Wednesday April 17^th.

I am currently 26 weeks pregnant and on Wednesday afternoon, I began to see spots in my eyes and have troubles understanding what I was reading and my speech was jumbled and confused. This set of alarm for me so my first reaction was to go to the nearest hospital to get myself and my baby checked out.  I had a friend/co-worker take me to the ER department at St. Clare’s around 1:30.

Once there, I was admitted by a very nice receptionist and the triage nurses were very kind to me and listen to what I had to say; kudos to those women for their professionalism. Then I waited to see the Emergency Room Physician. During my wait, I was starting to feel better and was coming around again.

Dr. Chis Goodall was the Dr that attended to me and I was not pleased with his treatment of me and my situation. Dr. Goodall did not seem interested in me or my baby. He asked a few questions while doodling on the bed-paper and cut me off several time while I was trying to explain to him why I was there. He asked me to do a few motor skills tests before diagnosing me with migraines and prescribing some Tylenol.

Not once did he infer about the baby, nor check to see if the baby was in any kind of distress.  I would assume that this would be standard practice for a pregnant women coming into the emergency room.  I understand that he obviously did not suspect any danger to my baby through his assessment, but I did not feel assured at the time. The baby was/is fine and I am not a doctor so I won’t criticize his methods too much for what I felt was an oversight at the time, but it did not make me feel at peace.

The one thing that really got to me, the one thing that I would like to underline as my top compliant to the St. Clare’s Hospital is his remarks as he was leaving the room.  He said: “And next time, don’t come here [St. Clare’s]. We aren’t a baby hospital and we don’t have head doctors”.

I was, and still am, appalled by this remark. St. Clare’s is a hospital. I was in need of medical attention. To say that I was not welcomed there to have my need addresses is a gross misconduct of health care system. I work at 100 LeMarchant Road, and St. Clare’s hospital is literally 1 block from my office and I thought it prudent to go to the closest hospital to seek the quickest attention.

So I am asking you:

What services do you provide if not to take in people in distress?  What if something would have been seriously wrong and time was of the essence? Would I not be treated at St. Clare’s? Would it not make sense to go to the closest hospital to at least catch an ambulance to the Health Science while receiving medical attention?

I realize that this complaint will not accomplish any big changes in the Eastern Health system.  I am only writing to you to bring this issue to your attention in hopes that these kinds of remarks will not be made in the future. I do, however, expect a response to this letter that lets me know my complaint has been heard.

Thank you

The Response:

Thank you for contacting Client Relations. I wanted to acknowledge the receipt of your email and to assure you that Eastern Health takes all complaints/concerns seriously.  I am sorry to hear about the experience that you had with the Emergency room Physician on your visits of April 17, 2013.  Your concerns will be forwarded to the Clinical Chief and the Program Director of the Emergency Program.  The Clinical Chief will review your chart and speak with the physician that attended to you.   You can be assured that your complaint will be discussed with him. 

I want to thank you for providing us with this information so that we can follow-up on your behalf.  If you require any further information please contact me again

My Response to the Response:

Thank you,

I am normally not one to complain, especially about the hard work that health care providers do. I just feel that this remark was uncalled for and appalling.

Thank you for taking this seriously.

Her Response Back:

I have received information from the ER Clinical Chief: He has discussed this complaint  with the physician. The physician felt that he was professional.  He indicated that he did not mean to make you  feel you were unwelcomed at the SCMH site, just that obstetric al care is best served at the HSC.  He expresses apology for any unintentional upset.

Again, thank you for contacting us and if you have any experiences in the future that are not as you expected please contact us again. 

My Final response:

Thank you for your response.

I don't deny that he probably is a very good doctor. He was able to diagnose my condition with accuracy. His bedside manners do leave something to be desired, but I'm looking for a doctor, not a friend, in an emergency situation.  

I was just off-put by his remarks "not to come back". I understand that the Health Science is a better facility for my condition, but admits an emergency situation my thoughts were to get to the closest hospital to seek medical attention. Perhaps his wording could have been a little different, perhaps I mistook his intentions, but in any case it was deeply upsetting to me to think that a doctor at St. Clare's did not want to take on my issues-that may or may not have been pregnancy related. 

Thank you very much for acting on this regard. I do feel as though my concerns were heard and the appropriate action was taken.

I will not be taking any more of my prenatal concerns to St. Clare's in the future.

Thanks again

Thoughts?

Naming Problems and Solutions

Naming your child is hard work. I mean, you are picking something that will stick with that person for the rest of their lives. Granted, girls will probably change their last names when/if they get married, but their first name will always be with them. This is why picking the “perfect” name is so hard and stressful on parents.

Since finding out we are having a baby girl this summer, the hunt for the perfect name has started. We already have a son so at first I thought it was going to be easy. I have so many names that I like and was excited that I can finally pull some good ones from my big bag of reserved names and poof…there’s the name! Wrong!

The first problem is that me and Jamie are kinda on different pages when it comes to name, it could even be said that we are reading from completely different books! I am more “old lady”  and he is more “80s”. And while the debate still continues at home, I got to thinking about naming delemas and potential solutions.

So here is my list of Baby Naming faux pas and how to deal with them:

Problem: You and Partner are on different naming planets.

Solution: Keep talking and listen to what they are saying. Try and not get too frustrated when your partner throws out Heather as a potential name when you are thinking more along the lines of Ruby. It can be easy to throw up your hands in defeat as another one of your 100^th suggestions gets shot down and proclaim: “Fine! You name her whatever you want then!”. Stay calm, there is still time to find a name. Ask your partner to list 10 or 20 names that the like and see if you can pick up on their theme or naming taste. For example, if he really likes boyish names for girls, perhaps you can think of girl names that can be shortened to a boyish nickname, for example, Veronica into Ronnie.

Problem: First childs name is a strong family name, but there are no more family names that you want to use anymore.

Solution: Break the tradition! It’s ok that your second or third child does not follow the same naming formula as your first. Treat each child as a separate naming experience. Perhaps this one won’t get a family name or the 2 middle names like the first one did…and that’s ok! This also applies to the repeating letter syndrome brought into the light by the Duggar family with their 19 J named kids. I’m sure by the time they had to come up with the 10^th J name, they were starting to run out of suggestions, but by then, it was too late, the trend had started.

Problem: Your mother in law hates the name you have picked out.

Solution: Too bad for her. While it can be fun to talk about names with your family and get suggestions, it can also be stressful when you have a name picked out and someone in your family decides to scrunch up their face into a sour pout when you tell them that name. I say, to each their own. I really did not like my sister’s kids name…at first, but now I love love love it! Sometimes it just takes a little getting used to and hearing it a few times before you can put your prejudices away and accept the name. Your mother in law already had her chance to name a child now this is your time to choose a name, and if someone else wants you to use the name Danica they can get pregnant and name their child that.

Problem: Someone used the name you were going to use! Whaaaa!

Solution: Get over it and use the name if you really like it. This is one of my biggest pet peeves! NO ONE OWNS A NAME!! You can’t call dibs on a name and hold it in some vault for no one else to use. PA-lease! Sure, out of respect you can cross a name off your list because it is too similar to someone elses' name, but I say if you really really like a name, go for it. For example, we recently had an Olivia join our family, I really liked Oliver for a boy…I would have used that name if we were having a boy with no second thoughts. I know it’s not exactly the same name, but its close enough that some people would have nixed it. Bottom line, use the name you like regardless if it’s also your neighbour’s kids name. 

Do you have any naming problems you would like to add?

The Witching Hour

There is a well documented phenomenon in the paranormal research that says spirits and ghosts are most active at 3:00 am. Believe it, don’t believe it, whatever. All I can say is that something strange happened last night at 3:00 on the dot which got me thinking about this phenomenon.

The house was quiet, everyone was sleeping in their usual spots, which these days is Jamie on the couch (cuz he tosses and turns most nights), Hunter in his bed, and me in our bed. All of a sudden, a loud crash boom bang from Hunter’s room! I wake from my slumber and glance at the clock…3:00. In my daze, I jump out of bed and go into his room to check out what has happened. Now, bumps in the night are not strange coming from his room at any hour in the night, so I was expecting to see him up and about and perhaps he had just pulled something from his shelf.

In the darkness I peered into his room, about ready to coax my son back into bed, but he was in bed. I flipped on the light and looked around the room. A shelf that was otherwise secured to the wall was now half hanging off the wall with its contents scattered on the floor. The contents, a few figurines and pictures, had knocked over his lamp and a picture off his dresser.  The things on that shelf were by no means super heavy, enough to overload the shelf.

I looked at my son sleeping in his bed and thought, that’s strange. I picked up a few things off the floor and tried to re-secure the shelf on the wall. It took some effort to do, and I tried to pull it off the wall to see how “secure” this shelf really was. I couldn’t get it to budge. So I turned off the light and went back to bed.

All of this took place in a span of about 3 minutes. While laying in bed, I started to think about it. How did that happen? What could cause a perfectly secure shelf to suddenly unsecure itself from the wall? Then I thought about the time…3:00 am. Isn’t there some myth about that being the witching hour? I started to get a little worried about that last thought. I almost went back into Hunter’s room to pick him up and bring him back to my bed where I knew he would be safe. But then again, him sleeping in his own bed all night is such a rare thing that I thought I better not.

I said a quick prayer asking my Uncle George and grandparents to watch over him and fell back to sleep.

Any thoughts on this? Do you believe in the witching hour? Share your stories with me.

Thanks for reading

Greenhouse

Last year we built ourselves a greenhouse. Just a little one, but we are still only newbies to the whole gardening thing so we didn't want to overwhelm ourselves with a big project.

Our greenhouse was about 10x10 and was mostly made from reclaimed lumber, although we did have to buy some wood, so I think the whole thing cost us about $100.

Hunter helping our neighbour Gerard frame up the walls and build the base.

Putting up the first 2 walls

Make sure they are good and level

Got 3 walls up!

All 4 walls up

Now for the roof and the planter boxes

We used larger stone on the bottom to make it sturdy

Filled up the planter boxes with soil from our compost and used gravel for the center part.

Wrap that sucka up with some plastic (not greenhouse grade, but it will do for now) and plant!

We did tomatoes and cucumbers.

                            

Hunter helped water the plants; our prized cucumber!