Note to Oklahomans: Avoid St Johns Owasso Hospital

[rainbow4321]

Needing to vent, thought I'd also warn anyone in the Owasso, OK area.
I'm a nurse, by the way...


The hospital is so empty that at one point, my mother was the ONLY patient in the hospital. It's only got 24 medical-surgical beds and no ICU (if a patient goes bad, they have to wait on the transport team to get them into Tulsa).

My mother was admitted to this "hospital" this past weekend w/ advanced cancer...she didn't find out about the cancer til her second day there. Don't be fooled by this big, beautiful building. It has no right being opened for business.
What few moments/days we have left w/ my mother have been spent battling nursing administration and the doctors.
Their number of medical/nursing horror stories is so extensive I'll try to sum it up w/ this list:

1> The hospitalist (doctor who sees only hospital patients) literally yells at her, telling her that he doesn't want to hear her concerns about her health "because I've been awake for 24 hours and have been on duty for the past 3 days". Tells her she hasn't had a fever w/ her current condition, she has to point out that she had a 101 fever in the ER. The CEO was notified by me via the nursing supervisor, the hospitalist has now been fired from my mother's case by the CEO (and perhaps from his job). The administrator admits this doctor "had a previous meltdown w/ another patient" the same day.

2>Her potassium level is low enough to possibly cause cardiac arrythmias...the hospital staff refuses to address it until I call them and demand she be given extra potassium pills. The doc admits that her every 4 hours breathing treatment cause potassium levels to drop yet he made no attempt on his own to give her extra potassium.

3> The nursing staff tells Mom to "just lay on your left side to get rid of your chest pain"...despite her rating her pain as constant and at a 7 out of 10 (pain scale is 0-10). No pain medicine is ordered for her until I call and request pain medicine for her. Her diagnosis: pleurisy, pneumonia and advanced lung cancer.

4> She gets a horrible spell of shortness of breath after returning from the bathroom. Tells the nurse she is having breathing problems and the nurse tells her that she is fine..nothing could be wrong w/ her oxygen level. Makes no attempt to check her oxygen level. Mom whips out her own finger-size pulse oximeter (checks oxygen level) and uses it in front of the nurse. Her oxygen level is 78---safe range being above 90. The nurse looks annoyed and shocked that mom has the piece of equipment.

5> They try to give her blood pressure medicine despite her pressure being 90/42--luckily mom was with it enough to refuse it. Only after I call (again) do they write parameters for when the medicine to be held (now it's don't give if the top number is less than 110).

6) She was diagnosed in the ER w/ dehydration and had to get extra fluid. The nursing staff on the floor refuse to measure her fluid intake and urine output until *I* tell them to do so just to make sure the dehydration is resolved.

7)The nurse walks into mom's room, hears her snoring and then gurgling mucus in her throat. An xray taken earlier in the day showed fluid buildup in her lungs and they had to give her Lasix to get rid of it.
I request that she be put on a continuous pulse oximeter so her breathing can be monitered and the nurses can hear the alarm goes off--cuz it may mean that Mom is choking on her sputum and can't breath. The nursing staff refuses..says that they don't have the ability to monitor it from the front desk---OK, well turn the alarm on high and leave her door open..you hear the alarm it means her oxygen level is dropping and she needs attention. Again they refuse. As I write this, the director of nursing is meeting w/ my mother in her room along w/ my sister who lives up there. Hopefully, they are both giving the director an earful of everything that has been happening.

8) I went and spent a few days up there..the entire staff on the floor seems to know I am "the daughter from Texas---the "NURSE". Today before I left every staff person who saw me kept asking "So WHEN are you leaving????". The oxygen issue happened within 3 hours of me leaving. Guess they figured it was safe to return to their old ways---crappy nursing care. They were wrong. I called the hospital in a fit of rage and initiated the director of nursing to head to my mother's room for this "meeting".

--------------
Please be careful where you put your loved ones if they need to be hospitalized. Never leave them alone and always question, question, question. If you have a healthcare professional in your family, CALL them, ask if things sound right. Never be intimidated by the hospital staff...it could mean your loved one dying or getting seriously injured.


Sorry to vent but I am at my wit's end and don't want people going thru what we are going thru right now!

[AndyA]

1. Good grief!

I remember hearing a news story about two hospitals being built in Owasso, and whether or not there truly was a need for both.

How is your Mother doing? Bless her heart, to be so sick and have to endure all this as well.

[rainbow4321]

2. There is no need for 2 hospitals in their town.

Mom is doing a little better, thank you...still cannot live on her own, still fighting lingering infections, is on her third round of antibiotics.She has an ongoing "tumor fever" but it's now 99.5 instead of 101 and higher. She's opted to go get a lung biopsy done this week even though she doesn't want any chemo/radiation. She is hoping to find out what stag the cancer is in and maybe to get a more definitive answer on how much longer she may have.
The family member she is staying with says that Mom just feels like sleeping all the time and that her oxygen level drops to the 80's with minimal activity, unfortuately...memory lapses are also more frequent now. Fortunately, she can live with family members as long as she needs to, so it is nice knowing that she is not home alone and in a dangerous situation (stove use, forgotten medications, etc...)


If you are familiar with Owasso you know that it is a town with only around 25,000 people. My city's (in Texas) population is 250,000 and we only have THREE hospitals within our city limits. So, no, there is no need for both facilities. IMHO, the one my mom was at was just a Primacare clinic with 3 floors attached to it. Maybe ok for minor cuts or sprained ankles but anything worse and people NEED to go elsewhere.
Owasso is a small town, word spreads quick...once the community starts to hear bad stuff, they won't forget it and the hospital census will reflect that.

In a rush to be open when/before it's rival hospital, the hospital that my mom was in opened it's doors before it was able to provide safe medical/nursing care. Their rival hospital took out full page ad saying that their hospital was Owasso's "hometown"-based hospital while St John Owasso was only a "satellite facility". Reportedly, according to my family and other locals, St Johns Owasso took it as a very public slap in the face...probably leading to the rush-to-open-the-doors.

[digdogs]

3. There Is A Growing Need

My heart-felt wishes for your mother and family.

I've lived in Owasso for a little over a year (moved here from Fort Worth, TX). My partner is an OT. She had a similar experience at the hospital in Bartlesville when her father had a stroke. He was an employee at the hospital and had his stroke while on the job...and still his care was lacking. As in your experience, the hospital staff was not happy with my partner's efforts to hold them accountable.

I can't speak to the quality of care offered by our two new hospitals (Bailey does have ICU) but I do think Owasso was/is in need of both facilities. While our population is only about 28,000 our school district serves an area with a population of over 45,000 and citizens from several surrounding communities shop, seek medical care, etc. in Owasso. In addition, we are listed as the fastest growing community in Oklahoma. The hospitals may not be fully utilized now but they will be in the near future and it's nice to live in a town that's a bit ahead of population growth.

Thank you for taking the time to post your experience with St. Johns. Good info to have.

[Mommy_of_2_cuties]

4. Something about St. John's

I to had an unpleasant situation at the St. John's branch in Sapulpa. My suggestion to all is go to the bigger hospitals. You'll get in just a slowly (it's never quick) and you'll get better treatment. Besides if you need serious medical care, their more than capable of giving it to you, since that's where they'll send you anyway.

But these doctors at the smaller hospitals do need to think about how they treat others. Also if there's no one in the waiting room or in the other beds why can't you wait on the next person??? That's something I'll never understand.