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Kaiser: Thrive... or Drive? (or Kaiser SR 1, Kaiser SF 0)
July 21, 2005I have to admit, I really like the new "Thrive" campaign that Kaiser Permanente is running in northern California.
With that said, you can imagine my surprise when I found my family's experience with the Kaiser facility in San Francisco last Wednesday night / early Thursday morning squarely at odds with the "Thrive" campaign's promises of caring and wellness.
In addition to "celebrating broccoli, SPF 30 sunscreen, all kinds of exercise, (and) faith in optimism...", apparently Kaiser SF also believes in the power of having a 38-week pregnant patient with contractions that are 3 minutes apart wait for 9 hours to be admitted to the hospital. They must also believe in empowering the patient to problem solve at 4 o'clock in the morning by offering the choice of going home (with contractions 3 minutes part) or *driving* to the nearest Kaiser facility, which is over an hour away. At 4 in the morning... on a foggy night... with a wife in major pain. The reason given was that they didn't have the staff to "offer us care".
What a truly crappy experience. Just poor. We were treated like we walked into a trauma unit with a paper cut.
When Sharon called to tell Kaiser SF L&D that she was coming in, she should have been told at that point to either stay home or go to another facility... seems pretty straightforward, doesn't it?
The crappy experience was personified by the attending labor and deliver physician that night. I won't name names, but I should. After several hours of waiting, she graced us with her presence and gave my wife one of the roughest physical exams I have ever seen. The doc was obviously frustrated by whatever else was going on in the unit that night, and she was definitely letting it affect her performance. She asked where we lived, and when we said Fairfax, she rolled her eyes and huffed... obviously hoping we were close enough to send home. Seriously, what a witch. To top it all off, as she was leaving the room, she stole the copy of People that someone had bought Sharon to pass the time. She just grabbed it and walked out. Truly weird.
When I asked Dr. Personality how we were supposed to manage Sharon's pain on the drive up north, she agreed to getting us an ambulance to Santa Rosa. Not optimal, but it was the best deal we had, so we took it. A little after 4 we were on our way out. To add insult to injury, Doctor Satan waited until the EMTs had Sharon on a gurney and on her way down the hall before announcing that she needed to do one final exam.
Words can't express the relief I felt as we left the facility. It was clear that the attending had zero interest or motivation in providing us care that night. She wanted us to be someone else's problem. Not exactly the experience Kaiser is going for, I have to think.
The scary thing is, the more people in Marin we tell this story to, the more we hear of similar experiences.
There is a happy ending...
The staff at Santa Rosa was fabulous. They took such good care of us and really made us feel comfortable during one of the most intense experiences our family has had.
Most importantly, we had a beautiful and healthy little girl.
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