What’s Going On At Conemaugh Hospital?

It’s another day, and another report of a relative, friend or acquaintance being warehoused in the Conemaugh emergency department for days.

This time it was an aunt who, according to the report relayed to me, spent parts of two to three days in the ER before finally being sent home. Diagnosis: Ulcer

I was told that a distant cousin, since deceased, had an example of this prolonged ER limbo during a lengthy exercise in fumbling the diagnosis. First, it was cancer. Then it probably wasn’t cancer but your guess is as good as mine as to what it is. That became, we don’t know for sure, but let’s treat it like lung cancer. Finally, it was cancer and he had little time remaining. This last time, they got it right, unfortunately.

Along the way, an attempt to produce a sample of the growing mass in his body for biopsy purposes was made by someone at some provider and sent to two out-of-town facilities, but the sample size supposedly was too small.

Too small! This was, by definition, a mass of tissue the man didn’t need or want, so why take too small a sample of it!

I’ve had personal experiences with the ER, involving my mother, my brother and others that did not inspire confidence. Neither did the whole hospital experience in general, for me and others I know .

A notable exception, a blessed occurrence, was recently when my four-year-old granddaughter was left unattended on high-rise monkey bars at a summer day camp, predictably fell, and broke her right arm just above the wrist.

Her parents — my son and his wife — were out of town, so my wife, who had gone to the camp to pick up the granddaughters, instead ended up racing the ambulance to the hospital, taking along the other granddaughter camper, who is five.

I met them at the ER and the care was prompt and excellent. We were kept up to date on any progress and the patient was constantly being checked. A woman met with us to provide a snack for the other granddaughter and emotional support in general. The ER doctors were effective and possessors of good bed-side manner, the latter not necessarily a given these days.

But, even during this positive example of ER care, I saw the downside regarding others. It was decided I should go outside the treatment area with the older granddaughter so she would not need to witness personnel trying to yank the broken bone back into place. That failed, by the way, and pins were inserted days later.

While in the waiting area, we saw an abundance of people just sitting there, often in wheelchairs, with IVs in their arms, masks of various types on their faces, and seemingly not ready to leave any time soon.

We theorized my granddaughter had received priority in treatment due to her young age and the traumatic nature of the injury.

She was given many stuffed toys to redirect her attention from her injury, and was promised a popsicle when she was discharged. She’s a tough kid and, despite her injury, she asked if her sister could have a popsicle, too! That sister, by the way, was destined for the promise of popsicles and ice cream the next week, a scheduled removal of tonsils and adenoids, but at another hospital.

Back to the matter of Conemaugh. I have another cousin, a cancer survivor, who had some poor experiences at Conemaugh ER some years back, including being sent home with wrenching back pain, which it turned out was due to sepsis. He had many touch-and-go days after returning to the ER and receiving a correct diagnosis. When those bleak days seemed to be improving, a nurse had the temerity to indulge in an orgy of self-congratulation, saying to me they’d finally been able to help him turn the metaphorical corner.

Said I: Too bad you slammed him face-first into the wall before that.

Generally speaking, the Conemaugh hospital is dirty. That’s true of the ER. It’s true of the ICU, in which my mother spent her final days. It’s true of the patient rooms I’ve seen in recent years while visiting, or being there myself. If there is garbage on the floor on day one, it will be there on day two, day three, etc.

I’ve seen medical waste and tubes of blood left sitting about. I’ve seen equipment, such as IV machines or various monitors, with thin layers of dust on it. You can’t help but wonder about how sterile the conditions are.

Explanations for the room shortage and problems getting patients into one seem to comport with anecdotal reports of whole areas of rooms sitting empty and unattended by staff. One rumor making the rounds is various parts of the hospital are closed due to a lack of staffing. Maybe it’s something else, I’m not sure.

And yet there is a construction project on the side away from Franklin Street that seems to have been going on for three or four years. I’m not talking about the parking garage.

Why build and expand if you can’t staff existing capacity?

Back to the sanitary conditions: What happened to the housekeeping staff, which used to be top-notch?

Maybe some of the area’s legion of panhandling grant seekers could take a break from pumping downtown revitalization and tourism to pry loose some money to do an in-depth study of why Conemaugh operates the way it does. Now that could be a valid use of my tax dollars.