web exclusive: Hudson Horror
“I walked back to Hudson Health Center; I had to sit down several times because of shortness of breath. My fingers felt numb. I was going to pass out. I was diagnosed with anxiety and told the symptoms were due to hyperventilating,” Molly Millsop, former Ohio journalism student, explained.
Molly was in Athens for less than a week when she awoke September 6 experiencing an unexplainable pain in her arm and nausea and dizziness. She called her father; he told her to go to Hudson. While there, she was given anti-nausea medicine, diagnosed with a sore throat and muscle strain, and dismissed to return to her dorm.
Later that day she got worse, experiencing cold chills and feverishness. After struggling back to Hudson, Molly expressed her fear and concern over her pains to her doctor. Her re-diagnosis? Anxiety.
“Once they thought they had the diagnosis of anxiety, they tried giving me time to calm down, and then wanted to get me out of the health center,” Molly said, adding, “When I made it clear I wasn’t going back to my dorm yet, I got very little additional care. I was sitting on the floor gasping, and had to call for help three times before someone came in. I was checked on when I rang a bell they gave me after this, but my main complaint¬–the pain in my arm–was largely ignored.”
After around three hours at Hudson that afternoon, Molly went to the O’Bleness emergency room against the advice of Hudson. They immediately ordered x-rays and blood work when they saw her. The results showed she had a condition called necrotizing fasciitis, more commonly known as flesh-eating bacteria. The infection is very rare, and symptoms can include intense pain, swollen tissue, nausea, fever and swelling of the skin. The disease spreads stealthily, starting out small, but can rapidly progress through the body, eventually causing death.
“I started to lose feeling in my hand while in the helicopter and I don’t remember anything after landing besides being told they would try to save my arm, if possible.”
Once O’Bleness realized the direness of the situation, they arranged a chopper to Ohio State University Medical Center, pumping Molly full of Morphine and antibiotics in the meantime. But it didn’t really help. “The medication barely cut the pain at this point,” Molly said. “I started to lose feeling in my hand while in the helicopter and I don’t remember anything after landing besides being told they would try to save my arm, if possible.”
At the time of this incident, Hudson Health Center was nearing the end of a requested assessment of its building and services by Keeling and Associates, an organization that provides customized services to universities and organizations for improving efficiency. The report produced, called “The Keeling Report,” was finished and released in October of 2007.
The report pointed out Hudson failed to effectively serve the student population due to a lack of sufficient funds, making it impossible to fill the large demand in Athens. A survey conducted with the report found that students often felt rushed and felt Hudson was inferior to other health centers.
“I do feel that the amount of time Hudson was able to give to me was limited. It may explain why they encouraged me to leave the health center, so that they would have the time and space for other patients,” Molly said. “I feel they were trying to make enough time to see every patient, knowing students have classes to get to. But in my case [this] had detrimental effects, and could be a harmful issue for other patients.”
A group of executives from all three branches at Hudson began meeting regularly to reflect on the Keeling Report. This cohesion between branches was essential to improving Hudson and produced more efficient results, Jacqueline Legg, business manager of Hudson, said. They discussed changes to improve their services and how to obtain more money to back these improvements.
“We began a process of putting committees together to begin a plan for how to approach funding the health center. For services to be enhanced, somewhere along the line you have to stop reducing how much money you have and stabilize,” Legg said.
The Well-Being plan, a mandatory 40 dollar per quarter payment that eliminates co-pay, was introduced; Hudson also revised their insurance program. Now almost 75 percent of students have insurance useable at Hudson.
“You have to learn how you can best ultimately serve the student,” Legg said. “We understand the students have extremely short periods of time to get their work done. At one point during spring, we hope for students able to sign up for treatment online and still maintain a walk in clinic.”
But no matter how many improvements are made to the facilities, the nature of the medical field mandates a repetitive, slow process.
“What the students struggle with, you have to raise the right questions to get the root of the problem. The first time a person comes in with ‘x’ thing wrong, you can treat it with this, the second time they come in with the same issue you have to begin questioning, the third time then you have to begin saying what’s going on here,” Legg said.
Direct link: http://backdropmag.com/features/web-exclusive-hudson-horror/