Henry Mayo Part II: Surgery at a “Small Community Hospital”

This was originally published in November, 2008 as part of a four commentary series chronicling my and my wife’s experiences at Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital. It is an accurate account of a four day stay at the hospital which started in the emergency room, nearly five hours of surgery and then 3 days recovery in a hospital room. This part two in a series of commentaries, the number of commentaries is yet to be determined, on our experiences with Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital. Part I was titled “The ER: Ammo and Water!” which covered the accident, paramedics, and emergency room treatment.

After my wife, Nancy, received immediate care for her injury, which included twisting her foot back into place in the emergency room (ER), we waited a while until a room was assigned to her. During that wait there was an influx of Sheriff Deputies into the ER with at least three prisoners from the local jail. Yes, it was a rough and tumble crowd!

What I don’t understand is why they just don’t have a permanent ER at the jail. Doesn’t it make more sense to treat most jailhouse injuries at the jail? The inmates that came into the Henry Mayo ER didn’t look all that bad. I would think cuts, bruises, etc. could be handled at the jail; you know, throw an old x-ray machine in a room, some lab equipment, a Swingline stapler, some band-aids and sewing thread and you’re pretty much set up. Right!?

Fortunately Nancy got a room shortly after the inmates arrived and we left the ER rather quickly. Once again we traversed the rat’s maze of corridors to an elevated that initially didn’t want to work once we got in and the doors closed. After a few tries of the buttons and opening the doors a couple of times it finally decided to work and take us up to the second floor.

We exited the elevated and proceeded down a long hallway to basically an elevated, enclosed hallway that connected what is the main hospital to a newer, add on pavilion. I’m thinking the architect was a guy named Rube Goldberg! Again, this gets back to my assertion that the hospital is just a ball of rubber bands with a hodge-podge of add on buildings.

The room was just inside the pavilion at the end of the, no doubt expensive, elevated hallway. We waited in the room for a couple of hours until it was time to go to pre-op. My sister brought our two daughters so they could visit with their mother before the surgery.

At about 6:15 PM on Friday, several orderlies showed up to take Nancy to the pre-op area just outside the surgical suits on the second floor on the opposite side of the pricey, yet stark elevated hallway. They put us in a small private room.

Here is the shocking thing. Someone we have known, not a family member, wondered into the post-op area with out anyone stopping them. Let’s forget for a moment that it is more or less inappropriate, inconsiderate, rude, and rather brazen for this person to invade our privacy, especially since my wife was drugged up on morphine and other medications. Somebody just freely walked in off the street and into the pre-op area! That’s just not right and is one example of the lax security at Henry Mayo.

Add to this the fact that I asked an employee the next day to use his security card to open a doorway to a stairwell and you have the makings of an eventual bad situation. That’s right; I was to lazy to walk all the way around to the proper entrance and this employee just happened to be walking by at the right moment. Never asked who I was or if I had ID; how hard would it have been to say no you have to go around to the entrance. Instead he swiped his security card to unlock a door to a stairwell.

If you go to other hospitals, for instance Tarzana, you have to check in and get a visitors badge. They don’t allow anybody to enter their facility and roam around. Is Henry Mayo that bad off that they can’t have some semblance of a security process or is the hodge-podge of buildings just that porous, with so many ways in and out, to cover effectively?

I don’t know; all I know is that it was effortless to breeze in and out of Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital. Let’s just pray that some thug doesn’t wonder in off the street and starts robbing people or worse.

But hey, the phrase that we kept hearing from various care givers is that we were at a “small community hospital”. Again, I have nothing but praise for the Doctors, Nurses and caregivers we encountered but we do not live in a small community like it was 25 or so years ago.

We live in a growing suburban community on the fringes of a major metropolitan area and we all deserve to have a medical center that can fully serve our community; one where the skilled caregivers at Henry Mayo can fully utilize their talents with a modern up-to-date facility. It needs to be a medical facility that can handle the current and future population of SCV in an effective, efficient manner.

Part 3 will detail some interesting issues at Henry Mayo ranging from pain management problems to faulty communication.

Dave Bossert- Commentary

Dave Bossert is a community volunteer who serves on a number of boards and councils. His commentaries represent his own opinions and not necessarily the views of any organization he may be affiliated with or those of the West Ranch Beacon.