Alyson’s Journey

We attended a Candelighters Autumn party on Sunday. There was a Mom there whose little girl is done with her ALL treatments. We were introduced and started talking a little about shared pathways. She asked who our doctor is and then wondered why I drive Alyson “all the way to Children’s Hospital” when there’s a perfectly good satellite at the more local hospital. She really was laying in to me about emergency treatment, quality of care, the toll on the kids with all the driving and so forth. It got really uncomfortable and quite hard for me to not reciprocate on why I felt the local hospital stinks. However, you aren’t that lucky!

• Children’s is about an hour and the local hospital is about 40 minutes from us.
• The satellite office has one Oncologist. If he’s not on call, then a doc from Children’s calls you and guides the ER/regular docs at the local hospital until the satellite Oncologist is available.
• If you are admitted locally, you have to be in isolation because there isn’t an Onc area for kids.
• Denver Children’s is repeatedly listed as one of the best in the US.
• The Mom in question even admitted that repeated mistakes were made in her daughter’s care. (No heparin after port access, incorrect medications, incorrect doses and surgical inability to remove a portion of the first port were a few things she mentioned.)
• The Mom also told me a story of how the daughter had an emergency situation and a doctor from Children’s had to drive down to the local hospital in order to do treatment. (Hello? Are you hearing what you are saying?)

Thanks for letting me vent.