Discharge & Readmission at UMMC

Mom was discharged after 3 nights at the UMMC and scheduled for readmission on Sunday. She was overjoyed when the doctor said she could be discharged. She experienced low grade fever ever since she was admitted and it persisted after discharge. I called Dr Tee on Friday night and informed him about the fever and he advised me to send her back to UMMC but due to mom's reluctance to do so, I gave her panadol to bring the fever down. The next morning Dr Tee called me and told mom to get readmitted immediately.

When we reached UMMC, we headed straight to Surgical Unit on 7th Floor, the unit where we were discharged earlier. We were then asked to get registered for readmission at Discharge and Admission Unit on 2nd Floor. It was a Public Holiday so not all counters were opened. I waited one hour to make upfront deposit of RM500 for the scheduled surgery.

There was only a houseman on duty during Saturdays and Sundays and the Outpatient Unit downstairs were closed for the weekends and Public Holiday. The houseman told me that urine sample and an chest X-Ray were to be taken and that mom's fluctuated temperature was due to infection in the colon and antibiotic was given.

Mom was given two bags of blood due to low haemoglobin count and had been on Sodium Lactate drip since this morning. She was not allowed to eat due to the infection and also due to preparation for mom's operation scheduled for this Monday or Tuesday.

I was horrified to hear from the patient's husband opposite my mom's that the patient had a surgery for removal of cancerous tumour in the ovary at UMSC end of last year. UMSC is a private specialist hospital under the wing of UMMC. According to the husband, RM30+k had been spent on the previous surgery and it could be due to wrong diagnosis that the tumour was now discovered in the stomach. CT Scan was not performed prior to the surgery. It could also due to the fact that the cancer cells had spread to other areas of the body.