Should I say anything?

[tindel]

I ended up spending a week in hospital after having DS by emcs due to having preeclampsia. As a result, I got to know most of the staff on the ward, who were for the most part, absolutely lovely. There were a couple of issues, and most of them can be mainly traced to one specific doctor. Namely, in order of severity:

This doctor told me I needed to go for a scan on Monday (bank holiday weekend) and I ended up not going until late Thursday afternoon after I and a couple of the midwives had to chase it up (I appreciate this may not have been the doctor's fault)

The midwife discharged me, wrote up the paperwork, told me to call DH to come and get me. The doctor then comes in 15 minutes later and tells me I need to stay an extra night. I got quite cross and tearful, so a compromise was reached so I did leave a few hours later than initially planned.

When I looked at the prescriptions written out by this doctor, one of the drugs had the wrong dosage, as an extra zero had been added. I queried it with maternity triage and they confirmed it was an error and taking the wrong amount "would probably kill me!". I flagged it with the pharmacist and got the right amount in the end without having to go back.

My question is WIBU to say something to the hospital and should I specifically name this doctor? There was no real harm done in the end, so I'm not sure I want to make a formal complaint, but I wondered about flagging it through PALS instead? Or am I obsessing on some relatively minor incidents out of a week of amazing care from an overstretched, but kind and compassionate team? This doctor was quite pleasant when I spoke to them, if a bit unsure (he seemed quite young).

What do you think?

IMO, the incorrect dose is the most concerning and not a trivial matter. Pharmacists are trained to notice these kinds of error so even if you hadn't noticed it probably would've have been before the drugs were dispensed. However, the doctor should know that s/he made a mistake and you should notify the hospital. It is up to his/her managers to decide whether this is a 'one off' or evidence of more serious failings. Leave it to them to take the appropriate action to protect future patients' safety.

I think they will have noted it and treated it as a near miss, since you called them so it should be on file.

The only thing that I think is the doctors fault is the incorrect dosage. Which should have been recorded. Maybe make the call to make sure it was, if you feel you need to.

If it was a non emergency scan then Unfortunatly sometimes things can't happen that day.

The midwife shouldn't have agreed to discharge without talking to your consultant.

The meds is concerning, where you actually given the drugs or just see it written up? If it was the first complain if it was the second maybe worth mentioning but at the same time it would have probably been picked up by the pharmasist.

To be honest, the nurse or midwife probably shouldn't have told you that you could go before checking with the doctor - so that's not really his fault. I expect that the referral for the scan was not done - hence the long wait. And the above poster is right - the prescription error would have been picked up in pharmacy, and flagged to the doctor in question.
If I were you, I would write a general complaint to the ward about their discharge procedure, and ask if you could clarify why you waited so long for the scan you expected to have on the Monday. There may well be a reasonable explanation for that, but you do deserve to hear it.

Thanks everyone, that is helpful. Re my discharge, I think the midwife said she had ok'd it with a doctor, but I honestly can't say for definite. Re the drugs, they gave me written prescriptions, as I had some left at home from being admitted the previous week.

I think I will send a short email flagging the issues, but will also emphasise overall how fantastic the care was.

Definitely need to make them aware of the drug error - stop him doing it again ?

They can't prevent you from leaving hospital. I know - they 'lost' my notes on the day I went home with dd, and kept fobbing me off about discharging me. In the end we got sick of waiting and walked out.

Definitely report the drug thing.