Stark
Contrast
In this journal, I will
be comparing my experience as a social service worker helping one of my clients
experiencing appendicitis with the reading about Renee Smith dying as a result
of a ruptured appendix. I was shocked
when I read that Renee died of complications from appendicitis. Not too long ago, I helped save the life of a
woman with appendicitis, whom I will refer to as Kathy. There are similarities
between Renee and Kathy because both belonged to marginalized groups of
people. Renee was a First Nations girl,
and Kathy was a homeless woman. However,
there is a stark contrast between how Renee was treated by medical personnel at
the hospital and what happened to Kathy.
In Renee’s case there
had been neglect right from the time she entered the hospital the first time
and the nurse gave her pain killers, and she was allowed to leave the
hospital. The next day when Renee came
back to the hospital in worse condition, she was admitted with acute abdominal
pains. Renee was not started on IV
medication even though she had not been able to retain any fluids due to
vomiting and diarrhea. Renee died due to peritonitis from a ruptured appendix. By contrast, Kathy came and spoke to me about
not feeling well. Kathy told me that she
had been vomiting and felt nauseas.
Kathy was bent over in pain and I asked her about the pain. She told me that it was going through to her
back. My biggest concern for Kathy was
that she was dehydrating because she was vomiting. I also knew from having experienced gall
stone pain previously that the type of pain she was experiencing was indicative
of something more serious than stomach flu.
After some talking, she finally gave me permission to call Emergency
Services on her behalf. The ambulance
was there within fifteen minutes and they took her to St. Paul’s Hospital to be
admitted. The doctor ran some initial
diagnostic tests on her and they discovered that she had appendicitis. Kathy had her appendix removed within 10
hours of being admitted to the
hospital. Kathy recovered quickly from her operation, and was back at the
shelter within a few days.
My training is in
social service work. I am not trained in
medicine, but even I understand the importance of replenishing lost body
fluids. I do not understand how doctors
and nurses could overlook the fact that Renee was losing more body fluids than
she was able to replenish. The least
that the medical staff could have done was to put her on IV medication while
the diagnostics were being done. In
Kathy’s case, being put on IV was one of the first things the medical personnel
did to help her. In Renee’s case, the
diagnostic testing such as an X-Ray was either delayed, or not even done as in
the rectal exam to confirm the diagnosis of appendicitis (131). Kathy was fortunate to have medical personnel
who were attentive to her needs. I think
that Dr. Mills sums up well when she uses the following description at the Inquest,
“She [Dr. Mills] criticized the treatment Renee had received and said that on a
scale of one to ten, with “one” as the lowest, Renee’s care deserved a “two”
and “reached the level of malpractice” (Speck, 131) [emphasis mine].
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