Well, I’m back! Are you panting with excitement about what happened next? Are you? Are you?
Actually, I know one person who is: Kwitek (hi, Kwitek!) was over here last night, asking me when Part Two would be posted, ’cause he was DYING to know what happens next. And his friend – who does not speak English, so Kwitek offers summaries of my bloggy life in Polish – is also curious. So. Today is busy, but since I promised Kwitek an update today, I’d better get it out there. I am a woman of my word. OK, but here’s what: I am actually quite busy and I’d like to offer a compromise of sorts…
As my last entry said, my Mom and brother arrived in Warsaw on July 21st; on July 22nd my Mom fell and broke her elbow. Stupid accident and she’s still not sure how on earth it happened – she wasn’t drunk or drugged or anything – but I suspect she just completely missed seeing that curb because she’d had eye surgery about eight weeks before arriving here, and it did not go 100% perfectly. Her vision in one eye was really ‘cloudy’ and if she hadn’t been coming out here, then she’d have had some follow-up surgery to correct it. But she didn’t want to get the second surgery, then fly out here and risk complications, and instead she opted to wait until her return to Canada. And fell over a curb and broke her elbow. Upon reflection, perhaps not the best trade-off in the world, huh?
Anyway. I zipped over to the hotel and after taking one look at her elbow, I took her to a private medical center near her hotel, one which accepts walk-ins. Now, a quick note for y’all: these large private clinics have popped up all over the place in Warsaw, mostly because there is a demand for professional, safe and competent medical care in Poland – and many, many Poles (and most certainly non-Polish-speaking foreigners) feel that the state-run, public system is over-crowded and slow, and that many doctors working in the public system are rude, surly, unprofessional and not truly interested in helping find out what is ailing a patient, so people are quite happy to pay out of pocket, or to buy a medical package for six months or one year.
Can I just quickly say, however, that my personal experience with the Polish public medical system has been overwhelmingly positive: I’d say that my satisfaction rate would be ranked at about 82% (this figure includes doctors that have seen and treated my husband and two sons, as well, and my happiness does NOT include that bitch of a nurse who called me a bad mother for not vaccinating Max three seconds after birth. Ahem). So overall, I am well pleased with the public system, but when dealing with my Mom and a potential broken bone, I thought that an English-speaking option close to the hotel was best. Also, Polish hospitals are not the same as Polish doctors’ clinics: the waiting time for emergencies that are not life-threatening is just unreal, and I had no desire to drag my Mom off to sit in some chair for 10 hours. So, off we went to the private clinic, and it shall remain nameless. At least for now. Depending on their response (or not) to my letter of complaint sent yesterday, I may (or may not) go ahead and name and shame.
Oh, so are you getting the sense that things did not go well? Sherlock Holmes’, the lot of you! And here is the sort-of compromise: I am down to my last 20 minutes here, so how about I just copy and paste my letter of complaint, with names edited for privacy, and you can get a glimpse in to what went down? Yeah? So, here we go:
‘For the attention of:
HEAD OFFICE LTD.
- Management Office, Client Services Department (Division of Examination of Customer Satisfaction) and Ms. Barbara X, Managing Director.
My name is Michelle S, and I am a Canadian living and working in Warsaw, Poland. I am contacting you on behalf of my mother, concerning an issue which has not being dealt with in a satisfactory manner by your staff at the Nameless Clinic on Noname Street; I am so displeased, in fact, that I feel I have no choice but to inform you about the lack of professionalism that my mother and I have encountered at your private medical clinic.
On Thursday, July 22nd my mother and I went to Nameless Clinic, as my mother had fallen that afternoon and was in a great deal of pain – we suspected that she had broken her elbow. This was very worrying, as she and my brother were in Poland for a 3-week vacation, and we had plans to travel to the Baltic coast. They had also purchased plane tickets and made hotel arrangements in Prague, the Czech Republic, for a five-day visit.
My mother was referred to Dr. S (Doctor #0000000), as he is meant to be an orthopaedic specialist, and after looking at her x-rays, he confirmed that the elbow was indeed broken. He said that she would need a cast, and he put it on himself; the cast went from her left shoulder all the way down to her fingertips. He gave us no prescriptions for medication at all, and when I specifically asked him if she would need any form of medication, he said she could take painkillers if she needed them. He also said that if she (a) felt shooting or constant pain in her arm (b) was unable to move her fingers and/or (c) if we saw any bruising or swelling of her fingertips, that we were to return to Nameless Clinic immediately as there may be a serious problem with the break, and possibly complications.
We were due to fly to Gdańsk on Saturday the 24th and we had tickets to return on July 31st; we asked Dr. S if he felt we should cancel our plans. He stated – very strongly – that there was no reason whatsoever to do so, that we should definitely go to the seaside and that she would be fine. Obviously, she would not be able to swim, but she would be fine with spending time with my two small children and sitting on the beach. Based on his advice, we decided to go ahead and on the 24th, we flew to Gdańsk.
That Saturday night, my mother was in pain; her forearm felt like a piece of glass was stuck in it (this is how she described it to me) and the shooting pains had worsened significantly by Sunday. By Sunday afternoon, she was in so much pain that she was taking a strong painkiller every two hours, and was so drugged that she was sleeping constantly. Also, by Sunday afternoon, her fingertips (and especially her thumb) were swollen and yellow and purple. Based on what she felt and what I saw – and taking in to account the fact that my mother is 65 years old – we had no choice but to (a) leave our pre-booked and pre-paid hotel (b) buy new plane tickets back to Warsaw and (c) book her on a plane back to Canada, where she would be able to get attention from her own doctor on what was almost certainly a broken elbow with complications.
We flew back to Warsaw the next afternoon (the 26th) and after dropping my husband, brother and two children at our flat, I had the taxi take us straight back to Nameless Clinic. I explained to the woman on reception what Dr. S had told us (that we had to return immediately if there was any pain, swelling, or bruising, and my mother had all three of these symptoms), and we were told that the orthopaedic doctor on duty that evening (Dr. C – Doctor #111111) was very busy, and they called to ask him if he would see my mother. He refused. I told the woman that was unacceptable, that Dr. S had been very clear and very specific, and we were doing what we had been told by one of the clinic’s own doctors. I pointed out that if a Nameless Clinic doctor told us to do something, then one of his Nameless Clinic colleagues should be obligated to respect this, and to help us. She called Dr. C again and told him about Dr. S’s instructions, and he said we could wait outside the room (on the 10th floor) and he would see us when he had time. We went to Room 12, fully expecting to wait an hour or two, and accepting this situation.
After 15 minutes, the 10th floor receptionist came and said I had to go back to the reception area on the 9th floor. Leaving my mother outside Room 12, I went downstairs and was told that Dr. C would NOT be seeing my mother after all, and she was going to give my mother her money back. Again, I refused to accept this and explained (yet again) that my mother is 65 years old, she was in a great deal of pain, she was showing all the ‘bad’ signs we were warned about by Dr. S and they were going to help us. I was asked to sit down, and the woman said she would contact some of Nameless Clinic’s ‘sister’ clinics and see if she could find a doctor to help my mother. I sat for less than 10 minutes, and then the woman came out of the back room and said that Dr. C had just called my mother into the room. She had no idea what had happened, or why he had changed his mind, but he was talking to my mother at that moment. It was completely disorganised, and there seemed to be no internal communication!
I rushed back upstairs and arrived in Room 12 just as Dr. C was telling my mother to go for another x-ray. When I asked him why he did not agree to see us, he said he did NOT refuse to see my mother at all (so who is not telling me the truth – the receptionist or the doctor?). Anyway, he told us to come back to him right away after the x-ray, as he was very concerned about the pain and bruising and swelling.
After the x-rays, he told us a series of very interesting things. (1) A cast should never have been placed on my mother’s arm as there was no need for it; the best would have been a sling, painkillers and icing the elbow, and (2) That she should have received a prescription for anti-inflammatories, as it is absolutely standard practice for anyone with a broken limb or bone to get them. Swelling of a broken area is inevitable, and an anti-inflammatory is always prescribed. He said that he was very surprised that Dr. S had not done so.
He said the cast had to come off, and he took us to the removal room himself; he also sawed off the cast personally. This is when we got surprise #3 – the cast had been very improperly applied by Dr. S. There was a section of plaster on my mother’s forearm that was raised from the rest of the cast, and this chunk of plaster was pressing down directly on one of the tendons in her forearm. We all saw the part of her arm where this piece of plaster had been pushing down for three days: her arm was actually indented from the pressure. He said that this chunk of improperly wrapped and applied plaster had most certainly caused my mother a great deal of pain. We were very lucky to have come back as quickly as we did, as the potential for serious damage was there. He added that the part of the cast around her thumb was also incorrectly applied, and was far too tight, and that the pain, swelling and bruising in her fingers and thumb were directly because of this.
My mother and brother returned to Canada the next day (the 27th), just 6 days after arriving in Poland for a 3-week holiday. I had not seen my brother in over four years; I had not seen my mother in almost 15 months; we had been planning this trip for over a year, trying to find a time to work with all of our schedules and employers and airline tickets. Since returning to Canada, my mother has seen two doctors – both of whom were shocked and dismayed at Dr. S’s actions. They agree with Dr. C that (a) no cast should have been applied (b) anti-inflammatories should have been prescribed immediately, as a matter of course, and (c) that the ‘raised’ and too tight parts of the improperly applied cast caused my mother great pain, bruising, swelling and could possibly have led to far more serious problems – such as nerve or tendon damage.
I do not mind telling you that my faith in Nameless Clinic is gone, and by association, my faith in HEAD OFFICE LTD. as well. I – like so many people – judge a healthcare practitioner by the people they choose to employ on their behalf, and I feel that Dr. S was unprofessional in every single way.
I must also state very clearly that the cast was the cause of all of my mother’s pain, and this pain was the reason we had to cut short our trip to the seaside. Also, it was because of the huge amount of pain she was in that we thought that the elbow break had complications, and why we felt she had to return to Canada as quickly as possible. I cannot stress this enough: according to three competent doctors, the cast was not only unnecessary, it was completely inadvisable. The fact that Dr. S put on a cast at all is bad enough; what makes me very angry is that he did it so poorly (and just why was it applied so poorly? Isn’t cast-application a basic skill for a so-called ‘orthopaedic specialist’?), that he caused my mother great pain and ruined our holiday.
Private clinics such as Nameless Clinic promote themselves as providing far superior and more professional service than the public Polish medical system; this is why private clinics charge so much, and why people are willing to pay. However, if you expect your clients to pay privately, then we clients are well within our rights to expect a high-quality level of service and care.
In the case of my mother (who had a very simple elbow break, remember, so it was nothing unusual or difficult to deal with), she did not receive high-quality – or even decent quality – service or care. I assume that you are concerned about customer service and quality control, especially since your competitors actually DO provide great service, in my experience. We went to Nameless Clinic because my mother’s hotel was in the center and the clinic was within walking distance; I wish now that I had taken her to Name Of Competitor.
I definitely expect a response from you on this matter, and I am very curious how you will choose to handle it. After all, I work in media, PR and promotion in Warsaw (my clients include Magda Gessler, Polonia Palace, the InterContinental, Batida and the Warsaw Tourist Office), so I know the power of ‘word of mouth’, and I am also aware of the need for a respectful and helpful response from a business or organization upon receiving a legitimate complaint.
I thank you for your interest in this situation, and I look forward to hearing back from you. If you wish to check my mother’s patient information, her name is CS.
Kind regards,
Michelle S’.
*****
So, there it is. My Mom and brother were here for six days only, since we truly thought that her elbow break was serious enough to cause her that much pain, so it was serious enough to get her back to Canada for medical attention by her own doctor, in English, paid for by her insurance.
We were wrong: that much pain was caused by a well-paid idiot with a medical degree who did not know how to apply a cast.
Stay tuned for Part Three – The Disappointment.
Sigh.
