Rant time - do not read if you have enough problems of your own already!
Last Sunday was the 2nd anniversary of my daughter's death. We managed to have a great weekend, having our 2nd annual "Day out for Sophie" on the Saturday and then a really good Fathers Day on Sunday. I had begun to feel that the healing process had really begun for us.
Wrong.
As you may have gathered from previous posts and comments, we have a lot of issues with the way my daughter was treated during her illness, and we have been complaining through the proper channels, not looking for compensation but just hoping to bring deficiencies to light and stop someone else having to go through what we went through. There is a clear process that we are supposed to follow with different organisations around to help us and add a bit of clout if we feel we are not getting what we want. Sounds great, huh?
Events of the last couple of days have confirmed a growing feeling. The entire system is geared to the protection of the establishment (especially the consultants and high ranking doctors) and intends to string things out until we run out of anger and give up. We have been lied to. We have pointed out the lies, so they have changed them for new lies. It has been suggested that we somehow sabotaged the treatment (even though there is clear written evidence to the contrary. We have asked simple, direct questions only to have these questions sidestepped. There was an independent review of events and the report was totally damning of the hospital, but this has been taken seriously either. The organisations that are supposed to ensure fair play are paper tigers with no power. In 2 years we have got nowhere, while the people involved are steadily moving away to other jobs, making our complaint increasingly pointless.
As I see it, we have 3 choices.
1 - give up. This is the easy option but it may allow healing to start. Right now I feel as lost, angry and crushed as I did 2 years ago.
2 - go for private action, which could go on for a long time and might cost lots of money that we do not have. We are seeing if there are ways of doing it on no win no fee basis or getting funding.
3 - go public with it, but this is something that our daughter was against when we were thinking of complaining shortly before she died. This is probably not really an option.
Rant over, sorry about that!
About Me
- Rock Chef
- Hi I am married and have 4 kids - 2 boys(16 and 21), a girl (18) and another daughter who died in 2005 at the age of 17. My hobbies are wargaming and playing guitar (6 string electric and 4, 5, 8 string and fretless bass). I love spoof movies, which the kids call "Dad's stupid films" (but that doesn't stop they buying me new ones!).
6 comments:
I'm sorry John. I don't have any answers for. You have to follow your heart whichever way that takes you. It seems to be a common story though. Ricky was left in the emergency waiting room for 3 hours having a major heart attack. The nurse that rode in the ambulance with us to the "heart hospital" said she would drive her family/friends past the hosptial he originally went to to the "heart hospital". She works at the original hospital. That has to say something, maybe that his mistreatment was not unusual. There's needs to be some kind of responsiblity taken for these kinds of things. I also know the frustration (and money involved)of trying to get justice. Just hang in there and do what you need to do in order to find peace. My thoughts are with you.
I fully understand what you are going through.
It pisses me off to no end to know that Doctors are not responsible for their actions. When you do have a valid complaint, they make it virtually impossible to take legal action by making it cost us tons of money/time which we do not have.
If nothing else, I wanted to fight so that a certain Doctor's arrogance/neglect would not affect the next person walking through the door. Sadly, we've been forced to sit back and do nothing.
John-
I SO cannot imagine your complete and utter frustration with this. It's so incredibly WRONG! As if loosing Sophie was not bad enough to then have to deal with this is so inappropriate. I see very much honor in your choice to pursue this on the behalf of potential future victims. I would be doing the same thing. But I do have to agree with you on option #1. I think it would allow for you and your family to heal and to remember Sophie in that way instead of that memory being overshadowed by this corrupt health care system. From what you mentioned about her, maybe that is how she would have wanted it.
That is ONLY my opinion. You do whatever you feel is right and you know that I will stand behind any decision you make and support you and your family in whatever way I can...even if it is only prayer.
I don't think I can say anything that hasn't already been said in the previous comments. Just know that you and your family are in my prayers.
Thanks guys. We are still undecided about what course of action to take. I will let you know how things develop.
One thing that has come out of the last couple of days is that we might be asked to do a presentation to the people who are in charge of reforming the medical complaints procedure. So even if our complaint stops dead in the water we might be able to influence how things are done in the future.
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