The Face Of Really Bad Medical Care

She was an elderly cultured woman, someone's grandmother, admitted to a large impersonal ward with green walls in a busy city hospital. I was not her doctor, but because I knew her before admission, I dropped by periodically to say hello. I recall that initially, she had some right upper quadrant abdominal pain and slight jaundice. Someone in the family told me that she had gallstones and was obstructed, but that the doctors thought she was too great a risk for them to operate. Day after day, she languished because none of the doctors wanted to risk his reputation with this patient who, as a consequence, deteriorated steadily.

When meal trays were distributed, the nursing assistants congregated at the end of the ward and socialized. No one helped the patient, no one cared whether she ate or not, no one seemed concerned about her fluid balance and dehydration, and when the nursing assistants picked up the patient's tray with all of the food intact, they said nothing to the patient.

The system ground on. One day I stopped in to find a different patient in the bed. Someone's grandmother had died from medical and nursing neglect, but the institution took no notice other than to change the linens and find a new occupant for the bed.