Peng's Hospital Ordeal

 I was been worried lately because Peng was admitted with severe abdominal pain. His mom was thinking it was just indigestion or severe constipation. But the pain still persisted for the whole night so I told her to bring him to the hospital.

My premonition was that he has appendicitis and I was right. He was admitted in the urgent care and eventually was transferred to Children's Hospital in LA. He was triaged as an emergency surgery but they still waited to observe him and started him on high doses of antibiotic. 

He stayed at the Pediatric floor for the entire night and was scheduled for surgery the afternoon of the following day. The wait since admission was almost 24 hours and I suspected that the appendix was ruptured. 

His fever was persistent, his blood pressure was critically elevated, his pain was to the roof, the poor child was suffering and he was made to wait for one day until his appendix ruptured as it was confirmed by the laparoscopy. He almost had died. 

The neglect of the surgical team was immense that the poor parents had almost lost the boy. Good thing he was a fighter and survived the risks of the surgery. He was courageous and had endured the pain. He was not even treated well by the nurse by not giving his PRN pain meds hours after the surgery and had pushed him to walk without even pre-medicating him for pain. 

This had happened considering he was admitted in a very prestigious children's hospital. He was not treated well.

I told his mom to complain with the social worker and file a grievance and you know what the social worker told her? That she had received a lot of complaints regarding the entire surgical team regarding the mistreatment of the patients. And I was right again pointing that this is a big medical neglect so I advised the mom to seek for legal advice because she has a case.\

She filed the grievance by calling the 1-800 number that the social worker had given her and was also planning to seek some legal advice regarding their plight at the hospital. I was  very surprised that this happened at the very top most children's hospital in the country. They almost lost their child!

Now, Peng was been discharged and was doing well despite still feeling some occasional pain but he has some PRN meds for that. I told the mom to keep encouraging him to walk to heal his wounds fast and to lessen the pain as well. I am glad he is in good health now and that every thing was okay despite of the scare and nightmare at the hospital.