Raylyn Clark’s 3-year-old daughter, who has Type 1 diabetes , was hospitalized in March 2023 after her tonsils were removed. Clark expected the medical staff to have a general understanding of her daughter’s diabetic needs, especially since she had received her diabetes diagnoses from the same hospital in 2022. But this time things were different.
Clark, a Kansas mother of three who was with her daughter throughout her hospitalization, says she had to advocate extensively to ensure her daughter received the right diabetic care. At one point, when her daughter’s blood sugar levels plummeted, Clark asked for the doctor to be paged but was taken aback by the hospital staff’s nonchalant response. “They needed to understand that she could have serious complications — and the doctor just sauntered in — and then it took a good 30 minutes until they brought her the glucose bag,” Clark said.
Clark reported that she had a Glucagon shot that she always carries with her and was going to use it if they didn’t bring the glucose, but she never expected to have to rely on her daughter’s emergency medication while in a hospital. Her experience is not an anomaly. Though patients report they generally trust their primary care doctor, concerns over patient care in U.
S. hospitals have risen. Recent studies show medical errors are a significant problem in hospitals nationwide.
A study in The New England Journal of medicine found that nearly 1 in 4 patients experienced a harmful.