Kathleen A. Gagne

Kathie Gagne died 4,585 days ago.

June 13th, 2012 @ 2:00 pm

I was able to talk to Nurse Karen for a few minutes this afternoon. She told me that my mom had recently been seen by Dr. Moore, a psychiatrist who was covering for Dr. Greer.

Karen told me that mom was more talkative today, and that she had clearly spoken “four or five words”. That doesn’t sound like much, but it was enough to get me a little bit hopeful again. She also said that mom was very hungry today and had eaten at least 95% of her lunch.

Karen confirmed that they had stopped administering Sinemet, the drug for Parkinson’s that I had never approved and couldn’t imagine why they had started giving her. (At no point has anyone told me that they think my mom has Parkinson’s disease.)

She also said that Dr. Dahila Fulop had been to see mom yesterday (June 12, 2012).

Karen then helped hold the phone up to mom’s ear so I could talk to her for a few minutes. I tried telling her that I loved her and missed her and hoped she was feeling a little better, but she didn’t respond at all — not even a word — and I could just hear her crying on the other end of the line. After it became clear that she wasn’t going to say anything and I couldn’t take it any longer, I simply hung up.

Another Failed Attempt to Talk to Mom

June 13th, 2012 @ 12:30 pm

I called to try to talk to mom, but was told that there was “no nurse on the floor” and I’d need to try again later.

Case Manager Keith

June 13th, 2012 @ 10:00 am

I received a phone call from Keith at (386) 425-0450, a discharge coordinator / case manager at Halifax Hospital.

Keith was trying to explain to me how hard his job was because my mom doesn’t have any funds or insurance. He noted that he had been calling “all over” but had been unable to find a place “to put” my mom. He said at one point that “there is no place for her to go with no money.” I tried telling him that I had been working for several months to try to get her Medicaid, and that — more importantly — I am very concerned that they are trying to discharge her when clearly she is not acting like herself.

Keith was very clearly frustrated when he learned that I live in Los Angeles and was not going to move my mom out here or move my family to Florida to care for her. I got upset and exasperated, and I asked him what he thought I should be doing beyond calling twice a day, every day, and writing letters, and spending hours on the phone with government agencies and incompetent administrators at Halifax, and that’s when he hung up on me.

Nurse Karen

June 12th, 2012 @ 7:30 am

I just called the Halifax Hospital Psychiatric Unit in another attempt to talk to mom. She’s currently in room 1435A in the France Tower.

Eventually I was connected to Nurse Karen and we talked for about thirty minutes; I had to give the entire history of mom’s condition again because Nurse Karen knew nothing, of course. Mom was asleep so I didn’t get to talk to her.

I called the Fountain Building and spoke with Jennifer, who told me I could contact Dr. Nasr by calling (386) 763-4920. I called and left him a message.

Reaching Out

June 11th, 2012 @ 3:34 pm

On June 11th, 2012 I emailed my friend’s dad, who is a lawyer in California, to ask him for some advice about what happened to mom when she had a colonoscopy at Halifax Hospital in Daytona Beach, FL:

From: David V. Gagne
To: [redacted]
Sent: June 11, 2012 @ 03:34 PM PDT

Hey [redacted],

I don’t know how much I’ve told you (or [redacted] might have told you) about my mom, but she is in the hospital right now and has been (except for about three weeks) since December 1, 2011.

[redacted] suggested I tell you about an incident that happened recently, so that’s what I’m doing. This is the short and quick version. Please do let me know if (a) you think I should do anything about this or (b) you want more details.

Thanks, [redacted].

dvg

The hospital called on the 21st of May and asked my permission to put her under anesthesia and perform a colonoscopy; I approved and they had the procedure on the 23rd.
On the 25th I got a call from Dr. Nasr, the gastroenterologist who wanted to let me know that the nurse who handed him the equipment (endoscope) had (possibly) not properly autoclaved the medical device. That meant it wasn’t sterile, and they were concerned about her possibly contracting Hepatitis A, B, or C, or HIV. I was told that they were testing her for all four, the doctor was very apologetic, and he said they would have the results by the following Tuesday (May 29).
On the 30th I called and was told by a nurse that there was no record of any of these tests being performed, but that was only because it was a hospital error and the patient wasn’t being billed for it, so the tests weren’t associated with her account. She was able to find that the HIV test had come back negative. On June 1 the same nurse proactively called to tell me that I would probably not ever get formal results of the Hepatitis testing unless there was a problem.
On June 7th the gastroenterologist called to tell me that the tests had all come back negative, that the nurse who made the mistake had been fired, and that some other nurse who was working on the same shift had been “punished”.
Now any time I call and talk to a new nurse or doctor, I make sure to reference this as there is no record of it in her “files” at the hospital.

He replied to me almost immediately:

From: [redacted]
To: David V. Gagne
Sent: June 11, 2012 @ 03:46 PM PDT

Call the doctor. Tell him that you want all the tests performed again, at the hospital’s expense and you want to receive a copy of the test results directly from the lab. You then want the doctor to call you with his verbal interpretation of the test results.

I responded to him shortly after that and wrote simply, “Okay. I’ll do that tomorrow (Tuesday) when I get to the office.”

He wrote to me the next morning and said:

From: [redacted]
To: David V. Gagne
Sent: June 12, 2012 @ 09:41 AM PDT

Be “firm” with him. He will try to tell you it’s not necessary. Tell him that this time you will make that decision, either informally between you and him or “formally” (don’t explain what you mean by that). Tell him that you’ve been unable to sleep thinking about the negligence of the nurse, the facility and the ultimate supervisors (he will know you’re referring to him) of that nurse. If he accuses you of not trusting him, tell him he’s entitled to his opinion and that you want a second opinion, and you want it faxed directly to you from the lab. Tell him that if it doesn’t come directly from the lab, you’re going to get a third opinion from an independent lab and that he will ultimately pay the cost.

[redacted]

The New Hospitalist

June 11th, 2012 @ 1:20 pm

I just had a short phone call with Dr. Anwer, the new attending hospitalist for mom at the Halifax Psychiatric Unit. He told me that he would try to get a psychiatrist to see her.

I tried to explain to him that I thought my mom’s problems weren’t ever going to be solved by continuing to simply drug her. But you know what they say: If all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. I don’t have much faith that he’s going to follow through on getting a psychiatrist to see her anyway, so I guess it doesn’t matter.

What the hell?!

June 11th, 2012 @ 8:00 am

I called the Halifax Psychiatric Unit in another attempt at talking to mom. Someone answered the phone almost immediately, then when I asked to speak to my mom I was put on hold for eleven full minutes. Finally Nurse Ramos answered and we spoke for quite some time.

She told me that mom had been awake and talking, but she was “very restless” and so they gave her some morphine and there was no point in trying to talk to her now.

Nurse Ramos also informed me that mom is now in wrist restraints, and has been for a while, which was (shocking) news to me.

She said that Dr. Mohammad Kahn is her new “medical” doctor, and that the good news is that she is swallowing and drinking on her own now.

I asked Nurse Ramos what drugs she’s taking now and was told Namenda, Zoloft, and Sinemet, which is apparently a Parkinson’s drug. I freaked out and asked when the hell they started giving her that and why.

At first Nurse Ramos said that they started the Sinemet on June 4th, and then when I pressed, complaining that nobody had talked to me about it or about Parkinson’s or anything like that, she said that this prescription was actually started on May 31st — by a Dr. McDonald — and the dosage was increased on June 4th. ¹

She told me I could call Dr. McDonald at (386) 673-2500 if I wanted more information; and that Dr. Kahn could be reached at (386) 304-3827.

She also mentioned a Dr. Wizbicky — I have no idea how to spell that — but only that she saw his name on mom’s chart and not who he was or what he did.

¹ I later learned that the reason Dr. McDonald wasn’t returning my calls was that he prescribed the Sinemet for my mom and then immediately left town on a two-week vacation.

Moved Rooms

June 11th, 2012 @ 7:43 am

I called Halifax Hospital to try to talk to mom this morning. I was feeling very guilty because I had not called for two or three days, primarily because I have just been mentally exhausted from dealing with this whole situation. I was told that she was moved on the 8th to room 1402A in the France Tower.

So. Lesson learned. Call every single day.

Dr. Nasr Finally Calls

June 7th, 2012 @ 12:30 pm

Dr. Nasr finally called to let me know that all of my mom’s “blood work had returned negative”.

He said that they were still unsure of whether the scope was actually run through the autoclave because they were “missing the records” concerning it. He also told me that one nurse was terminated and another nurse was “punished”.

A Happy Update

June 5th, 2012 @ 5:32 pm

I received a voice mail from my mom’s friend from church. Here is a transcript of the message:

“Hey David, it’s [name redacted]. I’m just touching base with you. I was in Orlando today all day for training so I didn’t get to visit your mom. But I visited with her on Monday and she was alert, awake, and for the first time talking and so I got to engage with her. She didn’t seem to be under the influence of any kind of mood-altering medication, which was refreshing. She was trying to exit the bed, so … When I came in she had just finished physical therapy and she was very agitated, but wanted just to chat with you a little bit about that. At your convenience you can give me a call. Wanted to know if you had gotten … what kind of report you got today from them. She still has a feeding tube in but she was talking so I thought that was just a matter of a day or so before they’d be able to get rid of the feeding tube. I’ll talk to you later. Bye.”