Needed gallbladder surgery, got laxatives: patient

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This article was published 26/01/2018 (2952 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Winnipeg man recovering from an urgent gallbladder surgery said the procedure would have happened months sooner if health-care workers at Seven Oaks General Hospital hadn’t twice dismissed his pain.

Laudimere Baldo first visited the Seven Oaks emergency department last August after waking up in the middle of the night with bad pain, almost as if he was constipated, but worse.

From the get-go, he said, ER staff were curt and dismissive.

One doctor, Baldo said, even told him, “you know, all that moaning and groaning’s not going to get you help any quicker.”

In the end, he said he was sent home with laxatives and a promise that “it’ll pass.”

It did, Baldo said, after he took the pills and drank a full bottle of castor oil and waited it out.

That became his go-to when the pain kept recurring.

He didn’t want to return to the hospital, he said, since the staff had made it clear they thought it was just constipation.

His wife, Sheena, forced him to go back a few weeks ago when the pain became so bad that he started vomiting.

She said a nurse over Health Links actually recommended they call an ambulance, but she opted to drive her husband instead.

Sheena said Baldo was exhibiting intense pain and still throwing up repeatedly while waiting in the ER to be seen, but that didn’t seem to prompt the more immediate care she felt was warranted.

Once he was admitted, Baldo said it was the same care providers as before, and he immediately worried they wouldn’t take him seriously.

“He was making a conscious effort not to moan,” Sheena said, but at one point he did and “the nurse said to the doctor, ‘Do you remember that guy from last time?’”

Again he was sent home with laxatives and a promise that “it’ll pass.” When it didn’t, Sheena dragged him to a walk-in clinic.

That doctor, the couple said, immediately directed them to Health Sciences Centre where Baldo was told he had gallstones that were close to rupturing. He was slotted in for surgery within a day.

Now, the father of five is recovering at home, his frustration over his delayed care mounting every time he needs help while sitting down to hold his seven-month-old daughter, who he can’t hold while standing.

Sheena, meanwhile, is determined to make sure nobody else is made to feel “dumb” for coming for care. She’s written to the hospital, to the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority and even to the health minister’s office.

The couple hopes to have a meeting with administrators at Seven Oaks in the near future, which a WRHA spokeswoman confirmed would happen.

“We are very sorry to hear about this patient’s experience,” reads a statement from Seven Oaks.

jane.gerster@freepress.mb.ca