Do they really care?

LIZ BUNCE contacted RTN after reading the recent story of Hungarian-born Andrea Toth who is suing Torrevieja hospital for alleged negligence after her husband, Germán González, died following a supposedly simple operation. Liz’s own husband Fred died on 4th March this year after losing a six-month battle against cancer. She feels that his case was mismanaged from the start, with alleged misdiagnosis, lack of information and a total lack of care by the nursing staff at the hospital.

Losing a loved one to a terminal illness is a sad and heart-wrenching experience, made worse when the health system you trust to provide answers, treatment and support lets you down and turns the end of a life, something that we all wish could be peaceful and without suffering, into a horrific and terrifying ordeal.

WARNING

Liz acknowledges that Fred would probably still have died. However, she would like to warn readers of her experience so that other families can avoid similar distress and the traumatising memories that haunt Liz on a daily basis. “I’ve been through months of hell,” she said, “and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. It was a truly scary time. I felt they were torturing him rather than helping him.

 Fred, an active and healthy man living on the Costa Blanca since 2006, began to feel discomfort, as if he had a lump in the prostate area, around the end of September 2010. He visited his GP in Quesada, was given a cursory examination and was told he was “constipated,” before being prescribed some laxative sachets, despite informing the doctor that he ate a healthy diet full of fruit and vegetables. Liz feels that this is where the whole horror and neglect began, becoming steadily worse. 

Appointments were given for blood tests two weeks later, with a wait for results. He was diagnosed at the end of October with a “severe urine infection.” Their relief was immense, yet short-lived - within a matter of weeks Fred was in such pain that he was taken to A&E: once again he was prescribed antibiotics and told to “go home.”

A stream of emergency visits to Torrevieja hospital and the GP in Quesada followed, with more talk of infection, very little information, now with abruptness and what felt like annoyance by many of the hospital staff. Fred’s condition worsened…

 On 23rd December the couple were finally given an appointment to see a urologist at the hospital, hopeful to at last receive some help.

“You will never live without a catheter and I have to take your prostate out,” was the consultant’s greeting. They were offered another appointment for 25th January. But severe back pain, dark red blood in the catheter bag, unable to urinate, exhaustion and weight loss led to Fred’s admittance to hospital, where tests were carried out. ‘Infection’ was mentioned; the doctor swept in and out without a backward glance; and Fred was virtually ignored by hospital nurses.

At the end of January the word ‘cancer’ emerged, only due to the fact that the couple’s son pinned down the doctor in the corridor to drag information out of him.

To list all of the incidents of lack of care, unprofessionalism, discrepancies and mismanagement would fill this newspaper. Fred was fading away before his family’s eyes and it seemed that no one wanted to listen or talk to them.

FLUENT

And the doctor spoke fluent English and so the language barrier was not a problem!

Fred was discharged on 18th February and although the family was informed that he was “dying” by one doctor, he was told by another that he would “live for one to two years.”

He died two weeks later.

RTN has been in constant contact with Torrevieja Hospital following its promise to respond regarding this case “as soon as possible.”

Two weeks on, the hospital has failed to offer a reply, comment or acknowledge RTN’s numerous phone calls and emails.