Royal Hospice Care

Anonymous10120

We used Royal Hospice Care Glendale for my mom. One of my mom's causes of death is the UTI. There were a couple of their nurses who would come and see her, and 2 of them are really nice. She was on her medication for 6 months, everything was fine, then she started acting confused again and her behavior was changing. So I was expressing my concern to the lady that was managing the hospice and explained things to her, and she said that it was just because my mother's dementia was progressing. The nurses that were coming by were saying that most of the time when the patient shows a sharp decline, it's usually because of a UTI. We couldn't meet his primary care doctor who was only doing telephone appointments. So I requested a urinalysis through the hospice, but nothing happened. Then I asked them again, days went by and finally I talked to the medicine nurse who was really good about calling the hospice and checking. They gave him the name of the nurse that was supposed to do it. So when he called and checked with that nurse, the nurse had no idea that she was supposed to come and collect my mom's urine. When I called the hospice again, they said that they're sorry for the confusion and someone is coming. When the other nurse came, I asked about it again and they asked if I had a cup, we didn't have a cup and thought they would bring that. So we had to wait another 2-3 days for a pharmacy to deliver a cup. And by the time they finally delivered the cup, we had to try to set it up again for a nurse to come and collect the urine. So that took a whole week and when the doctor said we could bring her in, my mom couldn't walk anymore, she was stuck in the bed, and she wasn't eating. I just feel like because they knew that my mom was a terminal patient, there are things that didn't seem like an urgency. It took a week and half but the hospice never did a urinalysis on her. Even when she stopped eating and drinking, they basically were trying to tell me to let her stay in the bed and starve to death in so many words. I had to beg them to send somebody to come and do the IV. The nurses meant well, but I felt like there's a disconnect between them and whoever is in the office.