Tuesday, August 25, 2009

The First Fall

"You won't have time to give her the shot! She delivers quick after her water breaks!"

"Shut up! Your just the father and I'm a doctor..."

My second son is born. His head misses the needle of the syringe held in the doctor's hand by less than a inch. My newborn son falls towards the floor. The so called doctor drops the syringe and catches my son three inches from the floor.

As my son fell from his mother I see that he is a boy. I am standing 15 feet away from this bungee jump delivery. I have been arguing for hours with people that had no business calling themselves doctors.

Seven hours earlier I'm in the delivery room.

Next to the birthing room was the delivery room (Babies weren't delivered in the delivery room).
A doctor walks in smoking a pipe and my very pregnant wife of a few hours into the past of my second son's birth turns green.

"Get out!"

"Do you know who I am?"

"I don't care who you are or what your title is! Get out of this room with that pipe!"

"I'll be back, this is my hospital!"

"I'm your boss. You work for me. I'm firing you! Find me a doctor that isn't a idiot with a smoking pipe!"

The doctor with a smoking pipe didn't come back but he convinced 40 doctors that my unborn son was dying and I was endangering the child by my attitude towards him.

This was of course a lie as he never examined my wife and I refused to let him or any doctor do an emergency C-section on my wife with no proof she needed one.

I was in a war of words and threats to save the life of my child. I believe the Smoking Pipe Doctor would kill my child out of spite because I dared insulted him.

"If you don't calm down sir, I'll call the police and have you removed from the hospital."

"I have done nothing wrong today. How many laws have you broken in the last few hours."

Doctor after doctor tried to intimidate with lies and I threw the truth back in their faces.

Finally one good doctor came and induced labor. He was a enemy of the smoking pipe doctor and was called from vacation to handle the mess the fool had made.

The good doctor had left to return to his vacation and a group of fools delivered my son.

The student doctor that caught my son inches from the floor began to brag about delivering his first baby and then a few minutes later began to make fun of my wife and I for being poor.

He complained about how little money he was going to make off my wife and I with our low income plan. I finally lost my temper and asked the student doctor to step outside.

"Are you threatening me?"

"It's more like a promise to show you how I can put the tip of your nose on your right cheek bone. All day long my wife and I have been insulted and I believe you would be wise not to say another word to either one of us."

Somehow my son survived that birthday. I remember the student doctor walking away without saying another word. Years later the hospital closed and the building was demolished.

My youngest son Micheal Sterling Vollrath turned 26 the day I began to write this post.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

This sounds to amazing to my ears.

Of course there are assholes in Swedish birth care as well with no business being there, but what you describe is very far from my experiences.

Now, not to forget, it was 26 years ago.

Maybe it was like that here as well, when I was born (36 years ago).

Robert A Vollrath said...

This was the worst hospital in Kansas City Missouri and I was glad to hear it was shut down.

My oldest son Mark was born at the same hospital and that was a wonderful memory.

I don't know what happened in three years between my sons births but my ex-wife and I were in a living nightmare with my second born.

I've had more good doctors than bad and I didn't write this story as a comment on health care in America.

I have no clue how to fix the current crisis in health care in my country and I don't if anyone has a good answer to the problems we face.

Doctors in my corner of the world have saved my left arm and left eye.
Rebuilt my nose and cured more than one infection in my lungs.

I have never sued a doctor or nurse as I believe this has raised our health care in this country.

The doctors in this story tried to bill me over $400.00 in additional care but I asked for the names of all the doctors in the hospital that examined my ex-wife and they dropped the additional charges.

Unknown said...

One is so vulnerable in a hospital...

Maybe some working there forget this?

Robert A Vollrath said...

As you know I'm writing a script on another medical mishap and with all the health care talk in the USA this lead me to this post.

I do believe most doctors and nurses stop listening to their patients after a time leading to bad health care.

I'm talking only about the health care in Western Missouri USA.

To be fair to the doctors and nurses (my youngest son is a nurse)laws protecting doctors from unfair lawsuits is weak in Missouri.

For three years my mother tried to get help as she needed surgery to fix a medical condition and doctors were afraid to touch her or they might get sued.

Finally she found a good doctor that did the surgery. He was the first doctor that listen to her in years.