GreenBayGirl's Report - 3rd Time NOT a charm.....(long)

I completely agree with paragragh 2. As to paragraph 1,if you had issues with the STAFF which is what a lot of the problem was for Jean and her husband,then you should certainly go the the administrator as doctors have nothing to do with the hiring ,firing and management of staff.

As to the post op complications robert had,I do think it was certainly Dr. Almanza's responsibility to be on top of that issue and I feel like he was not as proactive as he should have been. I think he let things go to far for too long and that he was not as attendant on robert as he should have been given the blood loss he was experiencing.

If Dr. Almanza is making tons of money for Mr. Betancourt, he can certainly make demands on behalf of the patients he is operating on concerning post-operative standards of care. Let him pocket a little less money, hire licensed professionals, and earn a reputation as a good surgeon.

i can certainly agree with this ,Michelle.

I would have to agree with you ladies. From what I understand (and again, not sure about this one), isn't Almanza now a partner in this clinic? If so, he would certainly have the ability to make these kinds of changes. It would be such a shame if they didn't, seeing as how so many people are still going there and as one poster stated, they should before their luck runs out. These doctors make the majority of their money from American Medical Tourists, a fatality of any kind would be enough to put them under and they know it. So I don't understand why they aren't making those changes now.

You have to figure, the overhead costs of runing Hospital Jerusalem are so much cheaper because Betancourt owns the clinic and the 2 recovery houses so that alleviates hospital bills and hotel accomodations. Mexican nurses make $6400 a year, not $64000 a year. 1 day of surgery would cover the cost of Registered Nurses for the year alone. I just don't get it.

I have a real problem with a 16 year old nursing assistant giving IV meds. Does she even know what meds she's giving and how to properly administer them? Isn't she the same one that when someone had a leak and she pulled the drain a ton of fluid came out and she didn't realize that was a problem? Was that Donna's sister? Or was that the one where the cook pulled the drain? I can't remember.

I keep copies of posts, I'll have to go back and look.

Hi MWG,
The 16 year old girl (Claudia) is the daughter of the housekeeper/cook.

She is also in high school in the morning and nurses training in the afternoon. she graduates from both sometime this year.

Wow GreenBayGirl,

I am glad that your husband has come through all of that ok... and that you were there with him to make sure he did. It must have been really frightening.

In regards to the clinic - this seems to me to be a real standards of care issue. Assertive medical monitoring after an emergency surgery, esp. with continued bleeding, is not an optional luxury! I have no idea whether the rate of surgical complications, such as leaks, is any different at Emmanuel / Jerusalem than the industry norms, but this account, as well as Stoongal's, would suggest that the conditions of the aftercare arrangements mean that problems are not detected as soon as they should be - and that the response to problems is also inadequate, at least from the perspective of monitering and surgical aftercare.

This means that for patients without perioperative complications, the arrangements are probably just fine, but that if a patient does suffer a complication, that the consequences of this are potentially much worse than they would be at other facilities. In other words, the substantial savings in cost, an important consideration in choosing a facility, does involve a degree of risk that in my view is higher than the industry norm.

Margo...

These people appear to have legit concerns. They complain that they never see a doctor after surgery, that's a big big deal post op. This is major surgery and to have a 16 y/o nursing assistant doing post op care that an MD and RN should be doing is frightening. To have cooks pulling drains, massage therapists babysitting on the night shift, van drivers playing asst. surgeon in OR (I have the video saved to my hard drive as proof) and the driver inserting instruments in the patient during surgery... OMG, I have no words.

If anyone wonders how surgery is dirt cheap... maybe we know now.

I actually agree with you 100% MWG - the concerns are 100% legitimate. I personally wouldn't send a hamster to that clinic.

I was just making the point (perhaps it was not clearly articulated) that many patients who get through surgery ok probably think the clinic practices are fine - because, barring complications, VSG recovery is fairly straightforward. It's not that they are wrong about their personal experience - it's just that personal experience is only part of the story.

The problem is, when the inevitable complications occur (and I have no information about the actual practices in the OR, so can't comment on that), the aftercare - which absolutely should be supervised  by a physician - appears, to me, to be utterly inadequate... to the point of malpractice, and certainly not up to professional standards, medical best practice criteria, or medical ethics.

Personally, I think it's appalling ... and if I received similar knowledge about the surgeon I used, I would never again recommend him to anyone - no matter how positive my own experience was - and would in fact share all the information I had about  these very serious concerns.

I certainly wouldn't dismiss concerns about whether or not the "doctor" primarily involved with aftercare was actually licensed, by rationalizing that he doesn't actually do much patient care ... if there is an problem with the license, and frankly I believe Mel on this issue, it speaks to the integrity and ethics of the person running the whole show - and leads me to question the integrity and ethics of  everyone associated with the clinic, including the surgeon.