Stupid Doctors!!!

[lynne b]

Mom went to her primary Dr. today (my daughter took her), well come to find out they had taken her off one of her meds that she needs when she was released from the hospital in Dec., the med is prescribed by her eye doctor and she has been on it for almost 10 yrs. This happened one other time shortly after she first went to the NH and it was for a long period of time before we realized she was not getting it and by the time we got her back to the eye doctor he had to start over from scratch with her eye (she is legally blind in one eye), he wasn't even sure if he could get her good eye back to where it was before she went to the NH but he put her on a high dose and it got better, thank goodness!!

I thought i had made it very clear that no one is to change this med except the eye doctor but i guess it didn't register somewhere, i guess we will have to go back to keeping better tabs on what they are doing with her meds and care.

Gayle, is there anything else that we can do to keep this from happening again in the future? I plan on calling the home tomorrow and talking to the director to see if we can get something done about this. Good thing it isn't a life or death med that she needs, but she has always had a fear of going blind in her good eye so she has always taken very good care of it.
She has sarcoidosis and it effects her good eye.

[Janet]

OMG Lynne...what were they thinking? Maybe you should make sure it's on her chart...ask to see it. If it's not one thing it's another.

[gja1000]

I don't know what you could do to be SURE it doesn't happen again. Make them put it in RED in her chart or flag her chart in some way to indicate that THIS particular medication is not to be changed except by Dr. XXXXX.

I would raise a stink big time and I would let them know that her vision might be affected by this oversight and I would let them know that you might take action if anything like this ever happens again. I wouldn't be nasty, just matter of fact. If your mom doesn't have a secondary medicare plan, then this could cost her some money out of pocket - thus, the facility might be liable for those payments since they made a medication error - or someone made an error!

[DianaB]

Good advice, Gayle!!

Lynne, I hope that this never happens again. It would be so awful if your Mom's other eye lost it's sight.

[JJJ]

Gayle gave great advise I would also probably have a note in the allergy section. Although here in some hospitals it is in red in the front of the chart.