Link to complaint posted on this website on Jan 15 2018

Nov 8th 2017 complaint ↓
https://www.hospitalcomplaints.ca/index.php/2018/01/15/stigmatized-at-the-napanee-hospital-emergency-with-the-help-of-ems-employees/

Nov 23 2017 Napanee Hospital response ↓
https://www.dropbox.com/s/b2tl7xvf6chore5/hospital%20response.jpg?dl=0

Dec 4 2017 My reply ↓
Dear Ms. Manion,

Thank you for your response letter dated November 23,2017 and I appreciate your invitation to contact you directly by telephone. I suffer from extreme anxiety and a disability which means I am unable to conduct personal direct communications by either phone or in person, and therefore my only means of communication that maintains a somewhat reduced level of anxiety is with written letters.

I appreciate that you have noted that my concerns have been heard and taken seriously.
This, however, does not clearly indicate what steps or actions that may have taken place to correct the information on my records. That would include the actions that may have been taken in the hospital and with the EMS services to ensure that this kind of arbitrary judgement does not happen again and mistakenly placed in my medical records the way it did on my Nov. 5th 2017 visit to the LACGH Emergency.

You mentioned in your letter that it was the EMS who informed staff that they were
met by the patient’s husband. There was no discussion at the time regarding my relationship status, nor did they ask my friend. I can only assume that someone made an inaccurate judgement of my single status, which is unacceptable. And to make matters worse, they passed the incorrect information on to your staff according to your letter.

It is very important to me that my medical records are correctly maintained and provide an accurate representation of my medical and social status. While your letter emphasizes that for staff safety you cannot provide their names, which I somewhat understand, and yet you have not even provided the name of the physician(s) that were treating me. The lack of action to remedy my records, or provide some kind of proof that your organization & contacts have done so indicate clearly that it is more important for you to protect staff information than it is to protect patient information.

As stated, I have anxiety issues and a disability which limit me from personal interaction and the only options you have provided me for further communication, review of my records, and to ensure correction of errors on my files is by giving me two telephone extensions for yourself and the Health Records department. Although I understand this may be a regular practice, I will emphasize that I have made every effort to let you/staff know of my conditions and I see little to no effort to assist a patient to navigate the system to ensure that the patient’s medical record is accessible and accurately representing my identity.

Are you in communication with the EMS services and Hospital staff/doctors to ensure that my records are corrected? I understand from your letter they “heard” my concerns but beyond that I am unaware of your actions to remedy the situation and it is difficult enough for me to write this letter let alone go here and there to piece things together to get the inaccuracies corrected on my medical files.

If your abilities within the organization are limited in any way to address my concerns, please let me know by mail who the appropriate contact should be.