Home Health 101

Ok so let me vent a little of my weeks frustration with the wonderful folks at Home Health. Here is how my week went down. Monday was the normal day for labs to be drawn and Will's PICC dressing to be changed. It was no big surprise when our Nurse called to say she would be late again. Not really a surprise since every week she is at LEAST 15-30 min late. She then called back to say she would not be able to make it since her car broke down. Ok I'll give her that one. So instead she sent another wonderful Nurse. This Nurse was at least way more efficient in drawing labs (its bad when we can pick apart everything they do wrong) but had some major difficulties changing the PICC dressing. Granted she doesn't usually work with Pediatrics but she left without the dressing even being pushed down and adhering to Will's little arm. Humm, so if I remember correctly that's a BAD thing in lieu of preventing air/germs/icky stuff from getting sent straight into Will's body and getting pumped all throughout him. Call me crazy but I just wasn't going to let this fly. I tape it down and wrap it up and called our normal Nurse first thing Tuesday morning (per her instructions if there were any problems with the dressing change). She of course didn't answer so I left her a message. My amazing nursing skills were holding up pretty well so I wait patiently for her to call me back. Finally Wednesday afternoon she calls me and lets me know she will come Thursday between 1030-1100am. I ask her if I should call the scheduling department and she says no, she will just take care of it. Ok no biggie, whats another day right? So we wait. And wait. And why not wait some more. With our nurses track record I plan on her being late so by the time 1130am rolls around I am a little annoyed. I call her up and she politely tells me she forgot and will not be able to make it. So now I am really getting upset. She explains that she will have the Nurse Friday come and change it. Ok so really, whats ANOTHER day? I told her Will had a check up at 2 so they needed be here in the morning. So this morning I wake up and wait, and wait, and wait. At 1100am I wise up and decided to call scheduling and double check things. To my surprise a Nurse WAS scheduling to come see us (yeah for something being done right) and they paged the Nurse to have her call me. I was a little less than ecstatic when Nurse #2 (the incompetent dressing change one) calls me back. She then proceeds to tell me to pretty much just put a band aid on it, wrap it up, and wait till Monday. Easy for her to say right? It's not her little baby that's sick. So instead of arguing to have her come and "attempt" another dressing change, I hang up and bust into tears. Seriously what are these people thinking? As if things aren't hard enough lets throw this in the mix too. It is frustrating that people cant just do their job. Ya know the job we are paying them to do. So Mike is going to "take care of things" and hopefully chew some peoples butts out along the way. Until the Will and I wait, trying to be patient.