Escape from Mayo Clinic

[mnrose]

The Mayo clinic has just contradicted themselves on 17th August their press release said this

• Mayo Clinic did not attempt to take custody of the patient or become her guardian. Instead, Mayo sought judicial guidance to help identify the best person to make decisions for the patient.

On 16 they said this
Occasionally, Mayo seeks guardianship for a patient, it said. In this case, officials first were working with the patient's father, Harper said. However, after he backed out, Mayo sought an emergency guardianship in county court. To date this year, Olmsted County said it has seen 25 such requests of which 13 were granted.



So how come with 24 hou*rs they said they did try to get guardianship then say they didn’t

The statements are not inconsistent or contradictory. Mayo sought a decision from Olmstead County about WHO should be in control. Doesn't mean THEY wanted to be her guardian. In other words, they asked the Court to appoint an emergency guardian for the patient. They did not ask for the hospital to be the guardian. I see no disagreement between their statements. You are reading it too literally.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

I wish I wasn't in the midst of a string of long shifts, but I am, and don't have the time I need to write a cohesive opinion to the questions posted Thursday. I started to write a few thoughts down, but there are so many issues, it would be like writing a term paper. Suffice it to say, though, that I disagree with Paula on the "guardianship" issue, and that actually hinges on that which is really my main point, which is that all of these people involved in the Mayo situation - the patient, the parents, the police, the adult protective service people, the lawyers, the commenters, the reporters - are in effect, miscommunicating, because none of them are speaking the same language as the medical staff, and therein lies a large part of the problem here. People were tossing terms around, whether they were correct or not, and then they wound up in quotes, which is what I see in lots of articles as well as the above post this morning. The hospital issued corrections, dammit! They said that they emphasized these points from the outset but the reporters willfully omitted them and ran with their intended story line regardless of the facts.

Let me ask people this. How long do you think it would take to view ALL the medical documentation for someone who had a life threatening brain bleed, a tenuous surgery and recovery, then two months in the hospital afterward that included, at minimum that we know of, a feeding tube and a tracheostomy as well as complicated and problematic family dynamics? Do you think it could be done in four hours? By reporters who probably aren't very familiar with using an electronic medical record system? And all the hundreds of extensive notes by dozens of health practitioners? Let alone stop to figure out what everything means, having people explaining things (which is usually the ONLY way people are allowed to view medical records in hospital, with someone there to explain things), learning how assessments are done, perhaps struggling to put it all together? HA! NO WAY! That would probably take WEEKS! They didn't really read through them much at all if their four hours with the Mayo doctors were spent discussing things, as well. So they missed a lot. And we aren't just talking about "notes", but about actual documentation that occurs continuously while a patient is hospitalized. Nurses were assessing her (Alyssa's) mental status (among other things) hourly (or more) while she was in the ICU, and probably still very frequently, i.e. every 2, 4 or 8 hours, while she was in the neuro rehab unit, because of the nature of her condition and her issues with delerium and a whole host of other things. This is legally required documentation.

What they would've seen had they looked extensively was that was certain standardized tools and scores were used and that way anyone who understands them can pretty quickly understand what was going on with the patient just by looking at several days worth of documentation from different periods. It's not rocket science, really. THIS is how they show her mental status was off, and issues with the mother would have been well documented, as well. Most of the time other services that were consulted will leave notes, but even if they didn't (sometimes one person documents for an inter-disciplinary meeting), things like phone records and other electronic communications can easily be tracked if they need to be. Further, I didn't see anywhere that the outside hospital she went to read any of these electronic records, either, or spoke to the Mayo team to try to understand Mayo's concerns about the patient, as is the norm; she was only in the ER, but that's a whole other set of circumstances that really need to be looked at. Do people realize that her tracheostomy had just been removed a few days before, or that she still had an active feeding tube that the hospital says nobody in the family was ever taught to use? (Stepfather claims he was.) These were some of the concerns voiced by the Mayo staff to police. They said she was not ready to be medically discharged and that she was at risk, having just had a trach out, and she still had the need for a feeding tube because she likely wasn't swallowing right and was aspirating food into her lungs, which would contribute to that risk to the lungs - swallowing studies would've been done to determine this. Etc. Lots and lots of stuff here. Crazy to think that anyone would think she was just fine to up and leave (to go home) at that time. She did sign an AMA form, I believe I read, which means she acknowledged that she was leaving against medical advice - not sure if she signed it after the fact or what, maybe someone knows, but I did read somewhere that she signed it.

That's all I've got for right now, but there are so many holes in this story it's unbelievable that it was published this way. I think they did a real disservice to the general public here.

 

[gottaluvPluto]

I wish I wasn't in the midst of a string of long shifts, but I am, and don't have the time I need to write a cohesive opinion to the questions posted Thursday. I started to write a few thoughts down, but there are so many issues, it would be like writing a term paper. Suffice it to say, though, that I disagree with Paula on the "guardianship" issue, and that actually hinges on that which is really my main point, which is that all of these people involved in the Mayo situation - the patient, the parents, the police, the adult protective service people, the lawyers, the commenters, the reporters - are in effect, miscommunicating, because none of them are speaking the same language as the medical staff, and therein lies a large part of the problem here. People were tossing terms around, whether they were correct or not, and then they wound up in quotes, which is what I see in lots of articles as well as the above post this morning. The hospital issued corrections, dammit! They said that they emphasized these points from the outset but the reporters willfully omitted them and ran with their intended story line regardless of the facts.

Let me ask people this. How long do you think it would take to view ALL the medical documentation for someone who had a life threatening brain bleed, a tenuous surgery and recovery, then two months in the hospital afterward that included, at minimum that we know of, a feeding tube and a tracheostomy as well as complicated and problematic family dynamics? Do you think it could be done in four hours? By reporters who probably aren't very familiar with using an electronic medical record system? And all the hundreds of extensive notes by dozens of health practitioners? Let alone stop to figure out what everything means, having people explaining things (which is usually the ONLY way people are allowed to view medical records in hospital, with someone there to explain things), learning how assessments are done, perhaps struggling to put it all together? HA! NO WAY! That would probably take WEEKS! They didn't really read through them much at all if their four hours with the Mayo doctors were spent discussing things, as well. So they missed a lot. And we aren't just talking about "notes", but about actual documentation that occurs continuously while a patient is hospitalized. Nurses were assessing her (Alyssa's) mental status (among other things) hourly (or more) while she was in the ICU, and probably still very frequently, i.e. every 2, 4 or 8 hours, while she was in the neuro rehab unit, because of the nature of her condition and her issues with delerium and a whole host of other things. This is legally required documentation.

What they would've seen had they looked extensively was that was certain standardized tools and scores were used and that way anyone who understands them can pretty quickly understand what was going on with the patient just by looking at several days worth of documentation from different periods. It's not rocket science, really. THIS is how they show her mental status was off, and issues with the mother would have been well documented, as well. Most of the time other services that were consulted will leave notes, but even if they didn't (sometimes one person documents for an inter-disciplinary meeting), things like phone records and other electronic communications can easily be tracked if they need to be. Further, I didn't see anywhere that the outside hospital she went to read any of these electronic records, either, or spoke to the Mayo team to try to understand Mayo's concerns about the patient, as is the norm; she was only in the ER, but that's a whole other set of circumstances that really need to be looked at. Do people realize that her tracheostomy had just been removed a few days before, or that she still had an active feeding tube that the hospital says nobody in the family was ever taught to use? (Stepfather claims he was.) These were some of the concerns voiced by the Mayo staff to police. They said she was not ready to be medically discharged and that she was at risk, having just had a trach out, and she still had the need for a feeding tube because she likely wasn't swallowing right and was aspirating food into her lungs, which would contribute to that risk to the lungs - swallowing studies would've been done to determine this. Etc. Lots and lots of stuff here. Crazy to think that anyone would think she was just fine to up and leave (to go home) at that time. She did sign an AMA form, I believe I read, which means she acknowledged that she was leaving against medical advice - not sure if she signed it after the fact or what, maybe someone knows, but I did read somewhere that she signed it.

That's all I've got for right now, but there are so many holes in this story it's unbelievable that it was published this way. I think they did a real disservice to the general public here.

I do think that the truth is some where in between both sides of the story.

I think we have good and bad nurses and most of them are good. I remember I had a horrible experience with a nurse after one of my surgeries and my husband had to step in because she was not listening to me. I ended up with a new nurse that fixed my catheter and listened to my needs. I have also seen horrible treatment of patients in rehab and nursing homes and filed a complaint with the facility - I was not related to these people.

I have issues with the rehab facility taking Alyssa's phone away, not letting other relatives spend the night and not letting her transfer to another facility.

I read in an article that Alyssa's family took her straight to another hospital and did not take her home after they left the rehab. So being at risk for having a trach out and the need for knowing how to work a feeding tube should not be an issue.

I wanted to add that most of my nurses have been excellent!

 

[NHdisneylover]

Not quite true as the judgeship overturned the torture of children when it turned out the only reason to remove them was there adoptability

http://medicalkidnap.com/2017/11/21...llegally-only-reason-was-child-was-adoptable/

Does this case get talked about in any sort of reliable media, or only on the highly slanted site you linked?