Stupid doctors!

My 92-year-old grandmother is in hospital because she has had anaemia since October but her silly GP hadn't said a thing until last Tuesday when my mother picked up the results of her latest analysis and saw for herself (he still wouldn't have mentioned it if my mother hadn't seen it by chance!). My grandmother had been complaining about things for ages now, but we thought it was just old age. Now it turns out that the iron in her blood is at 15 when the minimum levels are at 55 (and a maximum of 140) so it was virtually impossible for her to move at all - all her energies are practically gone! Tuesday the doctor refused to let her stay in the hospital but yesterday night we had to phone for another one to come and see her and he said that he would have left her in hospital and have her have a blood transfusion. So this morning my mum hurried to get the doctor to put her in hospital and still he refused!! Fortunately, there's a service for elderly people and my mother phoned and they acted immediately and sent an ambulance in no time at all.

Now she has been in hospital since this morning, they have been making tests and all that - she will have to get that blood transfusion but she might have a bleeding ulcer so that would really be no use - and all the doctors there agree that her GP is a fool! We haven't been able to see her, although my mum is going back there right now since it seems they're sending her to a room soon.

But I can't believe a GP didn't do anything about her anaemia. He said he hadn't because "she was just so old...". And also the iron pills he had prescribed are not good for her so they were doing more harm than good.

Hmph!!

He didn't do anything about it because she was so old??? WTF???

Yeah, and he went as far as plainly stating that to my mother!! My mother says she could have slapped him in the face. He's an odious man, though. My uncle is going to put in a complain tomorrow.

And he should file a complaint. My god. I can imagine your mother could slapped him

My God - getting old is bad enough without someone "helping you along" or making it worse. File a big complaint against the Doctor. I hope your Grandmother improves.

Kathleen

Yes, and even if it wasn't his decision, I could sort of see what he means if my grandmother was in a really bad condition. But she isn't! All the doctors that have seen her before we found out about the anaemia said she was in perfect health for her age! Grumpy she may be, but her head works perfectly well too.

Thanks, I really hope she gets better, but if the root of it all turns out to be an ulcer the doctors say they're not sure about operating on her at her age, so we'll see. I'm hoping for the best, of course

I usually detest the mentioning of legal action over a lot of medical mishaps because a lot of it is just money-grubbing but, in this particular case, I'd say sue the b-astard!

doctors and anaemia are terrible.....

spanish doctors are also pretty bad.
my grandad moved over there last year to retire with my grandma and while i was over there visiting my grandad went to see the doctor with what they told him was just a muscle strain...

now we find out after he ended up spending a month in hospital and losing loads of weight as well as a TB scare that actually that pulled muscle is actually a hiatus hernia, meaning his stomach is protruding up through his oesophogus which is actually quite easy to diagnose....

ack...

I have a sort of chronic anaemia myself and had it diagnosed quite easily.

As for the Spanish doctors being pretty bad - well, that would really depend on the doctor, not the nationality It works badly but there are good doctors around, really - although some of them can be quite arrogant too.

what kind of doc was that who didn't do anything against an anaemia??????? there are a dozen of causes for anaemia which can be diagnosed easily and cheaply from normal i.v. blood- ulcers are classic for anaemia in older persons and treating the low FE-level doesn't make sense there... that guy really is an idiot...

and taking a hiatus hernia for a muscle strain is strange as well-

but i better stop talking now- only god knows what stuff i'm gonna do to poor patients....