Latest news with #emergencycare
Daily Mail
3 hours ago
- Health
- Daily Mail
'They treated us like animals!' Mother whose dream holiday to Turkey was destroyed when her son was rushed into 'mortuary'-esque hospital with 'excruciating stomach pain' reveals worst things about emergency care abroad
A mother's dream family holiday to Turkey was derailed after her son underwent emergency surgery in a horror hospital that resembled a mortuary.. Kay Bainbridge, from Rainham, Kent, was enjoying a family holiday to Turkey when her five-year-old son Layton began experiencing excruciating stomach pain. The panicked mother-of-three said she immediately sought medical attention from her Antalya hotel doctor but was told her son could not be seen without a large cash payment. The Kent native spent more than £1,270 on medical costs for her little boy and claims that her insurance company has yet to cover the cost. She has now set up a GoFundMe to help cover the costs of the emergency treatment and flights home after revealing the terrible reality of the emergency care they received. The mother and son flew out to Turkey with Kay's two other sons Kian and Kayson, her mother, brother, sister, and her children's father on May 14 for a family holiday. But while relaxing in Antalya, Layton, five, became extremely unwell and in the early hours of May 20 Kay found her little boy 'screaming in excruciating pain and vomiting'. The worried mother called the hotel doctor over who redirected her to a local clinic which Kay described as 'rundown' and added 'it was like going in to a mortuary.' The Kent native then explained that before her son had even been examined she was asked to pay up front costs of more than £1,000. Kay, worried for her son, handed over her last £250 which said was supposed to be for spending money for the last day or two of the holiday. She added that despite telling staff she had no more money left, they continued demanding more from her and she felt they became aggressive towards her. Kay said: 'They were still demanding £800 on top of the £200 and because I couldn't pay they got really angry and really aggressive.' Layton was then transferred to Baskent University Hospital in Alanya for further treatment and an operation on his intestines which had become twisted. But the mother-of-three said the care did not improve and during her stay she found the staff rude, the meals inedible and the care lacking in professionalism. The Kent local described how on route from the doctor's clinic to the hospital, paramedics fell asleep in the ambulance and Kay was left to watch over her son alone. 'While we were travelling there the paramedic was asleep, curled up in the back of the ambulance fast asleep for two hours on the way to the hospital while she was supposed to be taking care of Layton.' The Kent local described how on route from the doctor's clinic to the hospital, paramedics fell asleep in the ambulance and Kay was left to watch over her son alone Kay explained that upon her arrival, while Layton was taken immediately in to surgery, her and her son's passports were taken off them by hospital staff. The worried mother explained this left her in a panic. 'All this was going on like no one spoke English. I didn't have a clue what was going on. All I knew was that my son was going for surgery. I didn't know where or what was happening,' she said. After the surgery, Kay claims the hospital refused to let her son eat and the meals they did provide were awful. 'As a private hospital, you would expect something decent. I wouldn't even feed the food to an animal it was that bad. 'It was slop, literally just beans and rice, proper poor food,' Kay said. She went on to describe the treatment her son received as shocking and told MailOnline she watched medics anaesthetise Layton while he was still sitting in a wheelchair in the emergency room. She also said that her son was screaming and begging them to stop as they roughly inserted a cannula in to his hand that left the bed stained with blood. Kay said: 'Before the surgery they were putting cannulas in his arm and they were pinning him down while he was screaming, begging them to stop.' Kay also confessed she fears she may have signed away her son's organs during the process because she kept being handed forms in Turkish, without any translation After waiting in the hospital for her son to be deemed fit to fly, Kay told MailOnline the hospital believed they had lost her and Layton's passports and she was only able to recover them after threatening to get the police involved. Kay also confessed she fears she may have signed away her son's organs during the process because she kept being handed forms in Turkish, without any translation and struggled with the language barrier. 'I was getting made to sign things like things that weren't in English. I don't know what I was signing,' she recounted. 'I still don't know what I signed to this day. All I've been given is his medical report. No copies of anything that I've signed.' 'All this was going on like no one spoke English. I didn't have a clue what was going on. All I knew was that my son was going for surgery. I didn't know where or what was happening. In total Kay paid £1,270 for the emergency treatment for her son but her worries did not end there. Having run out of money, Kay and Layton were unable to stay in a hotel after being discharged. Although Kay said she contacted her insurance company, she claims they informed her they would be unable to cover the costs of a hotel stay for a further five days while Layton recovered and the mother confessed she and her five-year-old son were forced to sleep in the airport and book an earlier flight home. She said: 'My poor child had to spend eight hours on the cold floor in a Turkish airport because we had nowhere else to go.' Kay added that she made the best of the situation and pushed two chairs together to create a makeshift bed for Layton, who was still recovering from surgery, to sleep on. She added: 'It was either sleep on the streets with him, sleep in the airport for 5 days, or risk bringing him home.' The mother-of-three also had to pay £140 for flights back to the UK where the rest of her worried family waited for news. And the whole experience has had a lasting impact on her son. 'He's tramuatised. He keeps saying "Mum please don't ever take me back there" and he won't tell me he' s in pain because he think he's going to have to go back there, ' Kay revealed. Now back in the UK, Kay explained that in her son's first NHS hospital appointment she will ask for a full scan of her son's organs after finding worrying medical details on her son's paperwork. 'I'll have full scans to make sure he's got everything there, because on this paperwork it mentions that his appendix couldn't be seen. He's never had his appendix taken out.,' Kay said. 'And I've seen stories out there - that woman who had her heart removed. ' Earlier this month Beth Martin, 28, fell ill during a flight to Turkey. Initially blaming food poisoning, the mother-of-two from Portsmouth was taken to hospital where she tragically died a day later. In a sickening turn of events, a UK autopsy later revealed Beth's heart had been removed after she passed away in Turkey. The Ministry of Health in Turkey revealed Beth died after a 'cardiac arrest due to multiple organ failure' - but stopped short at explaining the exact cause of this and have not explained why her heart was missing. Kay added: 'A lot of people have told me they [Turkish surgeons] can just take the organs for their own right. And they don't need permission. It's worried me a bit, so I just want to make sure that I understand all the paperwork I've signed.'
CTV News
8 hours ago
- General
- CTV News
Bow Island ER closed over weekend due to lack of clinical coverage
The Bow Island ER is temporarily closed over the weekend due to a lack of clinical coverage. The Bow Island Health Centre emergency department is temporarily closed over the weekend due to a lack of clinical coverage. The ER will resume normal hours on Monday morning. For the time being, nursing staff will remain on site to provide care for remaining patients and long-term care residents. Alberta Health Services said that anyone needing emergency care should call 911 or go to Taber or Medicine Hat For non-urgent health questions call 811.
BBC News
17 hours ago
- General
- BBC News
Isle of Man TT: 'Art and science' to emergency care planning
There is an "art and science" to planning the emergency healthcare response to the annual TT festival, the man tasked with running the ambulance service has said. More doctors, nurses, surgeons, and ambulances are available over the fortnight on the Isle of Man, which runs until 7 Care's director of ambulance services Will Bellamy said there was ongoing forward thinking to factor in what marks the health care provider's busiest time. He said: "It's a massive influx of population to the island and we factor that into our planning." As well as an increase of on-call and on-duty staff within Manx Care, Mr Bellamy said a further eight members of "mutual aid" had come over from the south east coast ambulance service. While the local team would receive an average of 500 calls to 999 over a two-week period, during the TT fortnight that rose by about 200, he said. 'Myriad of procedures' Over the racing fortnight elective surgeries are paused to enable extra capacity for trauma care at Noble's Hospital. Mr Bellamy explained that there were additional doctors and nurses on shift within the minor injuries units and emergency department, as well as more surgeons, to cope with the potential increase on were also extra teams to operate aircraft to transport patients to hospitals in the UK whenever needed, with daily discussions held with tertiary specialist hospitals about available capacity, he said. Throughout most of the year there are four frontline ambulances on duty during the day, and three at night on the island. But Mr Bellamy said that increased to seven during the day and five overnight during the TT said while you could not predict the number of incidents any one year, there was an "art and science to be applied".He said the "art" came from years of history and experience knowing "where accident black spots will be".The science was looking at the data, especially 999 calls, "to come up with an activity plan and a response plan for the island", he Bellamy also offered a reassure local residents and visitors that if anyone fell ill during the TT, especially during racing, that there were "a myriad of procedures to get around this island" and no one should delay calling them. "Whether we come to you via cars, ambulances, or we come to you in the air via a helicopter, it's all been part of our planning," he added. Read more stories from the Isle of Man on the BBC, watch BBC North West Tonight on BBC iPlayer and follow BBC Isle of Man on Facebook and X.
Top Gear
2 days ago
- Health
- Top Gear
'We can perform open heart surgery on a pavement'
Motorsport TG talks to the medical team behind the Isle of Man TT Skip 10 photos in the image carousel and continue reading The Isle of Man TT. The most dangerous motorsport event in the world. It's tempting to assume the TT, the last bastion of motorcycle road-racing, plays fast and loose with safety. That emergency care here isn't what it could be because, well, there's 37.7 miles of course to cover and with average speeds now over 135mph and 80-90 bikes on circuit at a time, it's just too much to ask. Instead the TT is at the cutting edge of what's medically possible, 'If you look at most circuits, even F1 or Moto GP, they will stabilise [the patient] and evacuate,' said the Isle of Man TT's chief medical officer, Dr Gareth Davies, 'but we are now able to bring the whole hospital, the resuscitation team, the emergency theatre, to the patient's side and stop the dying process at that point.' Advertisement - Page continues below This is revolutionary – and logistically very complex. The trauma team for the TT includes 80 paramedics, doctors, nurses and ambulance technicians, seven fully kitted out BMW X5s, at least two helicopters and several fast response medi-bikes. Photography: Huck Mountain You might like Davies is a consultant in emergency medicine who worked at the Royal London Hospital for 30 years, and was simultaneously the medical director of London Air Ambulance. 'In London we were always 15 minutes behind the point of wounding, whereas here, we're on the scene within two or three minutes. It's a unique bit of medicine, the injuries tend to be very complex so we carry all the equipment necessary to perform major trauma surgery on a pavement, in a field, by a hedgerow, wherever really.' It's not just a matter of reacting fast, but having the support where it's needed. 'We've got a heat map of crashes going back over 100 years, so we know the likely black spots and position the response teams accordingly, but the corner speeds they're now carrying are moving them further down the road, or creating issues in new places. Advertisement - Page continues below 'The rider's safety kit has improved dramatically since I started working on the TT back in 1990, with body airbags, PPE and improved helmet standards, but the appeal and uniqueness of the TT is its intrinsic danger and there's only so much you can do to mitigate against that.' The medical teams are taking some learnings from the race teams. They now use a shadow-board to make sure every piece of equipment is in the right place before they start a procedure, just as a mechanic would with his tools, and use extensive checklists – essential when there are over 100 pieces of equipment in each of the 140 medical bags out around the course. But Davies, together with his deputies Sally Simmons and Paul Hancock, and the rest of the MRMS (Manx Road-racing Medical Services) team are trying to get ahead of the curve and work more on accident prevention. 'This year for the first time every competitor had a full medical before they were allowed to race. Plus we now have a voluntary research programme with the riders that looks at the physicality of the racing, measuring various parameters and monitoring them during the race. 'We're looking at this data to think how long races should be, because we are finding after six laps people are losing a lot of fluid, they're losing grip strength, they're losing concentration.' Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter. Look out for your regular round-up of news, reviews and offers in your inbox. Get all the latest news, reviews and exclusives, direct to your inbox.
Medscape
2 days ago
- Health
- Medscape
Key Challenges Faced by Today's Hospitalists
On any given day, Andrea Braden, MD, must make quick clinical decisions about hospital patients who require emergency care. Her biggest challenge as a hospitalist is 'the anxiety around never knowing what is going to come in the door that day,' said Braden, who is also an OB/GYN and lead clinical educator for TeamHealth in Atlanta. 'There is no way to predict whether your day will be calm or disastrous. I think having to be prepared for both scenarios at all times is what keeps us hospitalists on edge. It's also what makes us great at our jobs — the ability to take control of emergencies and guide our teams appropriately.' Braden and other hospitalists share their most common day-to-day challenges with Medscape Medical News . Healthcare Funding and Insurance The role of a hospitalist doesn't end at discharge, said Monique Nugent, MD, a hospitalist at South Shore Hospital in Weymouth, Massachusetts. Nugent said her biggest challenge is the ever-changing landscape of healthcare funding and what insurance companies will cover, such as medical services and devices that help her ensure the continued health of her patients after they leave the hospital. 'It affects the care I can give people and affects their long-term prognosis,' she said. While Nugent is thankful for the work of her case management team, she said she still spends a lot of time working around what insurance will pay for patients' healthcare needs. 'I have to make sure I prescribe meds they can get,' Nugent said. 'Can they get into rehab or long-term care? Can they safely be at home? Are they able to access specialists after discharge?' If a patient qualifies for certain services, such as hospital-at-home, the next step would be to ensure that service is available in their area, Nugent said. For instance, someone who lives in a rural community may come to a Boston-area hospital for a stroke. After discharge, however, a patient may not have access to certain rehabilitation services, or their insurance may not cover services to ensure they continue to improve once they are released from the hospital, she said. Another example: If a patient prefers hospice care at home, will their insurance cover what's needed for this? 'How can I help navigate that so that they will be supported?' Nugent said. Balancing Act Ethan Molitch-Hou, MD, cited time constraints as a primary challenge for hospitalists. 'We have limited time to care for complex patients who are only getting sicker as we move more care to outside of the hospital,' said Molitch-Hou, who is an assistant professor of medicine and director of the Hospital Medicine Sub-Internship at the University of Chicago Medicine, Chicago. 'There is a constant battle to balance handling your sickest patients who need your focus and time to get the correct diagnosis and treatment, while the push for an early discharge or assuring your patient who is unhappy about events in the hospital (that may be out of your control) is also cared for,' he said. 'Conversations that you know require time and nuance can be interrupted by a page about something that, at the moment feels, less consequential, such as a stool softener when in the middle of a rapid response for a hypotensive patient.' Despite the time constraints, Molitch-Hou said hospitalists need to clearly communicate their care plans to their patients and families to ensure compliance. He said hospital physicians need to remember the reason they went into medicine and focus on the positives. Those are keys to having a long career in hospital medicine, he said, 'and for me, having variety in my week-to-week responsibilities has kept the job fresh.' Between Empathy and Burnout As a hospitalist working in a cancer hospital for the last 9 years, Nikhil Sood, MD, said one of his most persistent challenges is 'managing clinical uncertainty amid high emotional intensity.' 'On particularly tough days, when I feel mentally and physically drained after a difficult conversation about prognosis and care goals with a family, it becomes harder to be fully present, listen intentionally, or provide the high level of care I expect of myself,' said Sood, an internist and hospitalist at Banner Gateway Medical Center in Gilbert, Arizona. Unlike in general medicine, the symptoms of his patients tend to be specific to the individual and don't always align with typical textbook patterns, Sood said. 'Each decision comes with substantial weight and little margin for mistakes,' he said. Many oncology patients are immunocompromised, and complications may escalate quickly from seemingly benign symptoms, such as a low-grade fever or vague abdominal pain, he said. 'Symptoms frequently represent a delicate balance between disease progression, treatment side effects, and secondary issues, such as infections, thromboses, or metabolic imbalances,' he said. Lab results can be ambiguous with imaging yielding inconclusive findings. 'Layers of uncertainty often obscure the 'right' answer,' said Sood. 'As a hospitalist, I am expected to swiftly navigate these gray areas, assimilating comprehensive oncologic histories and making urgent choices in the absence of perfect information, all while ensuring compassionate communication with patients and their families.' Meanwhile, many of his patients and their families are knowledgeable, highly engaged, and expect informed answers, he said. 'Delivering bad news is a routine part of my work, yet it never feels ordinary. Compassion fatigue is a genuine concern, and I continuously navigate the fine line between empathy and burnout.' Sood said he's grateful to his employer for understanding the intense challenges of oncology care and offering social outings, regular wellness initiatives, and 'a culture that prioritizes mental health and self-care.' Despite the challenges, Sood finds his role 'profoundly meaningful and rewarding,' he said. 'The privilege of being part of a patient's most vulnerable moments — whether filled with hope or heartbreak — is something I always value.'
