Looking at this hospice, it is tranquil, dignified, and still. Unfortunately, two individuals…read moretarnish the empathetic pillars on which hospices are built. They managed to sully an already life-changing, sorrowful event further. The only reason this is getting two stars is that most of the staff were wonderful to my father, especially Chamaine, who was genuine and humane. I cannot say the same about Nurse Kate Tuttle, who was in charge of his case.
My father came into this hospice facility in agony and was unable to control the escalating pain at home. After two days, he was still in consistent, high-level pain, but we still received a text that he was "ready to go home." When I arrived, my father was still howling in agony. I spoke with the social worker and Kate and asked how he could be released while still in anguish. She said he could control it at home. I wondered how, if they'd been delivering pain meds through his port? She pointedly told me she had switched him to oral medications. Mind you, we were outside of his room, where his distressed moans were audible. I told her they clearly weren't cutting it. She argued that a patient who is eating, talking, and walking should not be in a hospice facility. I mentioned that patient comfort is their prime directive, and that he was there to achieve some semblance of it. I told her that he was unable to lie down because the cancer-ridden bones in his back made it impossible. Instead, in an agitated and increasingly confused state, he shuffled about mindlessly. I said they couldn't ignore his pain, and dropping him to oral meds when he hadn't even achieved a baseline for livability seemed cruel. It seemed like a means to an end to satisfy Medicare, rather than it being in his best interest. I told her that he had said that his pain was at a level 8, and she mockingly said, "He ALWAYS says he's at an 8." The social worker echoed this sentiment. I was horrified at the utter disregard for his suffering. My father had multiple myeloma, which is one of the most painful cancers. I responded, "Have you considered it's because he IS always at an 8?" At one point, they said he would never achieve a zero on the pain scale, which made me point out that there are many numbers between 0 and 8. Why introduce a metric like that if you aren't willing to use it to inform your decisions? And if this is your business, why not make sure you know the nuances of different terminal illnesses as they arise? The things my father was displaying were part and parcel to the end of life for his specific, rare disease.
Furthermore, Kate reduced his meds from numerous to just 1 mg of Dilaudid. That was it to combat suffering at the end-stage of painful bone cancer. He wasn't sleeping, he had anxiety, and she gave him nothing to bring comfort in those areas until we brought it up. Otherwise, they did not budge, and for an agonizing two days, instead of focusing on my forever goodbye to my father, I instead worried that they would send him home with no adequate relief as he began to deteriorate before my eyes. After those two days, they started treating him effectively so he could be at peace. When all was said and done, despite their assertions that he was not near enough to death to be there, he passed just three days later. My last days with my father were marred by unnecessary worry and fear, as if there wasn't enough of that already. It was highly unprofessional and a gross negligence of what they claim to do. Despite the incompetence of the people giving the orders, the staff enacting them were kind and compassionate, and ultimately, and luckily, they were the ones who had face time with my father and eased him out of his pain.
