Legal Question in Medical Malpractice in Oregon

My mom had a stroke on Sunday morning, and Monday afternoon. She was rushed to a hospital and put into immediate care. The hospital put her in an induced coma "sedated" for a short period of time, roughly 14 hours.During this time, and from every day beyond this, I was asking to have her switched to another hospital which would have more neurologists that would be better suited to assist her. When she awoke-ish on Tuesday morning, she was not fully aware, which is too be expected with a stroke victom. Her left side wasn't functioning, but she was responding to commands, such as squeeze my hand, wiggle your foot, squeeze multiple times, wiggle your fingers. She responded to these commands, even attempted to open her eyes for us. That same day, with multiple witnesses in the room, a Neurologist (the only one in town at the time) came to us and said "Your mom is still there. Her personality and mobility will be there. It hit a portion of her brain that should only affect smaller memories like her favorite song. She probably won't be able to write poetry." I asked him a few questions of my own like when the respirator could come off, where she'd need rehab (which turned out to be in the town they were refusing to send her to in the first place.) We asked the nurses (since we could NEVER get ahold of the doctor) if it was normal for her not to be able to open her eyes, to which they responded "We don't know." Quite helpful. Wednesday morning, things were seeming worse. She was not responding to commands anymore, and they were starting to tell us that her mind must have been slipping. We asked if there was anything they could do about it, again to which they respond "we don't know." Thursday morning comes around, things are really tense, she's not responding. A nurse comes in the room and tells us how they had to sedate my mom once again because "her bed got wet, she got very annoyed with us." The bed got wet because her catheter had come out, and piddle was released onto the bed. To which we were not told about until after she was sedated again, which was something she really did not need. We were trying to get her to respond to us, they were telling us she was slipping, when in actuality she had been sedated.... Thursday, mid afternoon. The nurse comes in and says they're going to take her down for a CT scan, to which we reply "Why didn't you guys do this when you noticed her eyes were not opening in the first place?" They gave me a fairly run around answer at the time, and whisked her away down stairs for a whole 10 minutes before bringing her back up to the room. They said they would have the response in just a few hours. My wife and I go out, and eventually get a call that we need to hurry to the hospital. We are told that she is dying, that this is her time. That we can not get her to respond, and that her brain is swelling up and will soon cause a bleed. They pull my little sister and I into a room, since my wife was clearly upset and throwing questions at them they could not answer. While my sister and I were in the backroom talking to two different nurses, please note again this is not a doctor, supposedly we have to wait another hour and a half until the doctor will show up.

So the nurse is talking to my little sister saying again how this was just her time, and that we needed to accept that there was nothing any other hospital would be doing different than what they were doing. When I asked why they did not refer her over anywhere else, they would say they were doing their best with her at the hospital she was in. When I asked why there was no CT scan after they noticed the regression, and they said that they were just hoping other things would happen. This does not seem like a very acceptable answer. I didn't give in but I wasn't going to argue with a nurse anymore, they told me "We called every hospital we could, we're waiting to hear back from a doctor from (way far away) to say if there's anything we can do." to which I replied "So we are supposed to sit back and watch her die then?" The answer baffled me... "Yes." Again I was not accepting this answer, I immediately got on the phone and attempted contacting other neurosurgeons, and to my success, I finally got ahold of one willing to accept her, just so long as I got the doctors refferal. I still have yet to speak with this doctor in the first place, so I had to await the time for him to arrive and continue the "Your mom is dying." speech.

My wife had gone home to pick up our six year old son, because they told us that this was the last time that we would be able to say our goodbyes with her alive. My son cried his eyes out by the side of that bed being told she was going to pass away that night, well I got this feeling while we were there that she was responding. She grabbed my sons hand. We asked her to squeeze, she squeezed! We asked her to open her eyes, and she was once again trying to open her eyes and you could see the strain in it. She was there, she was responding. The sedative that we weren't informed about until WAY too late was worn off and my mom was there.

Well, I passed the message off to the nurses about the doctor that would see him, and low and behold he finally gives it the OK for her to be sent to the proper hospital for care. First time I get to meet the guy, and he's coming into the room to tell me about how they're getting ready to fly her out, and then turns around and acts like it was his idea to have her sent there... The same guy telling me less than an hour and a half before that "You need to give in and let go, it's her time." So I start asking him questions, such as why he didn't think it was okay for her to not get a CT scan after the first bout of her not opening her eyes and he says "Well she was on the ground for 3 days. so..' I interrupter him there, she was down for 29 hours exact. This guy, who wasn't even a neurologist, was saying I should let my mom die, because he didn't even know how long she had been down. She didn't get the care she needed because they were wrong about how long she was down. The proper information was given when she was first brought in, the ambulance even confirmed it. I hate to re-use this word, but again, baffled. Well, my mom was flown out of that hospital right away, and within a half an hour she was in surgery. She is now currently in ICU healing up from the surgery, but she lived, and is going to continue to do so.

The doctors in the first hospital completely let her down by 1, not having the right information, 2 not giving the CT scan when it was more than needed, insurance covered it just fine. 3 lying and saying they called everyone when, I was the one that did that. 4 Telling us she was going to die, and that there was nothing we could do but watch. 5 Not really trying at all to save her life in the end. It took my hard work to get her transferred to a better doctor and he's the one that saved her life. I feel as though my mother was neglected when it came to this situation, things could have been better taken care of. She should not have been sedated again when they were trying to keep her awake for commands! All of this slowed down progress, and made it so they noticed the swelling in her brain a lot later than they should have. If I had not acted, she would have died tonight.

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