We received more specific information today on what, exactly, the hold up is with planning my grandmother's funeral. The hospital mistakenly gave the funeral home the name of the ER doctor on duty the night my grandmother was admitted to the hospital, instead of the name of the doctor who actually treated her once she was admitted to ICU, as I told you all yesterday. Then the funeral home guy that apparently has our family's "account" was out of the office for some reason Tuesday and Wednesday, so it wasn't until he off-handedly mentioned to my mother yesterday who he was trying to get ahold of that the mistake was caught. He finally got the contact information for the right doctor...who was out sick yesterday. My mom called the funeral home this morning for an update, and when she found out that there was none, decided to call the hospital herself to find out what it is that they are (not) doing over there. The woman she spoke with very nicely told her that the doctor had indeed faxed the required paperwork to the funeral home, and that my mother shouldn't be calling the hospital, as that was the job of the funeral home.
WELL MAYBE SHE WOULDN'T HAVE TO CALL THE HOSPITAL IF Y'ALL COULD COLLECTIVELY GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER!?!!!!
I'm sorry, I don't know what came over me there...
My mother calls the funeral home back, and surprise, surprise, the funeral home says that no, actually, they have not received any paperwork from the hospital, but they assure my mother they will stay on top of it. About an hour later they call my mom back and tell her that the reason she had been told that the paperwork had been sent was because the hospital had confused my grandmother with another patient.
Shocker.
Finally, finally a little later the right doctor faxed over the necessary paperwork. Except it was written in the fine penmanship doctors are so renowned for, and the funeral home couldn't read it. So they had to call him back to get clarification. That actually only took another couple of hours instead of a couple of days (another shocker), and now the funeral home has to send it to the state, who has to ratify it, and send it to the doctor for yet another signature, and then once the state receives the signed paperwork back from the doctor they can send it back to the funeral home, and we can actually bury Grandmom.
Maybe we can still bury her Monday, maybe we can bury her Wednesday. It's still up in the air. That's okay, Grandmom can just ferment awhile longer, which, I'm sure she absolutely loves, since she was the biggest hygiene enforcer in my life growing up and made me wash places I didn't know dirt could get to when I was a kid, so I'm sure she doesn't mind a little prolonged decay...
Idiots.
Anyway, thanks everyone for listening to me these past couple of days. I know it's been oh so uplifting. I'll stop griping eventually, I promise.
3 comments:
Girl, gripe all you want. Don't apologize. You have every right to rant. Hope all works out soon.
This sounds all to familiar. You'd think they'd get it right at some point.
I'm so sorry that the passing of your Grandma has turned into such a drama. It is so annoying when you have to deal with incompetent people - especially when they feel the need to be rude to disguise their incompetence! Was that by any chance a Kaiser Hospital?
When my mother-in-law, Jo Ann, was dying of cancer, I found a very annoying doctor at Kaiser in Baldwin Park. I stood at the counter of the nurses' station for 30 minutes, waiting to discuss Jo Ann's prognosis. The nurses informed her that I was waiting to speak with her. She never looked up at me or even acknowledged that I was there. She just continued on with her paperwork. Multiple nurses asked if I needed help, but the doctor never even spoke to me! Eventually I had to leave with no information about Jo Ann's condition. Rush hour traffic was piling up & I had to go pick my son up from my Mom's house. I was so mad when I left there. I complained to everyone I could! Ooh, just thinking about it is making me tense up!!!!
I hope that you'll be able to settle all of the paperwork issues soon & lay your Grandma to rest.
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