Dear Editor:
Most of us have to deal with the death of a loved one in our life.
It is a situation very hard to deal with, may this be through natural death, accident or sickness. Many questions arise when it happens at a hospital because of lack of oxygen and the patient goes into a coma and passes away two days later.
I wrote and called the hospital and eight weeks after my husband passed away I finally received a phone call from the hospital with some explanations. A failure in communication was one big problem but so was the unbelievable tragedy the way my husband was cared for by some of the nurses.
I also believe strongly if a patient is handicapped as my husband was – he could not read or write, could not speak or walk nor push the call button – the monitor in the room should be on all the time for their safety. In this case the monitor was not on and no one could see the oxygen level going down and the patient going into a coma. Would the monitor have been on this might have been prevented.
What happened in the past cannot be changed, but I strongly hope issues like these can be changed hoping something good can come out of this. Caregivers must be advocates for their loved ones.
Herta Wunder,
Elora