- Before wound care began he described a pain level of 10+ like getting your finger on a hot stove all over his calf and that he had not been able to sleep the night before due to pain;
- When the nurse began unwrapping the dressings, he jumped with each touch, furrowed his brow, and grabbed the arm rests of his wheelchair, and said, “I wish I had a leather belt I could bite on so I don’t scream.”
- When he was offered lunch he declined it saying that he couldn’t eat because he was so nauseous from the pain.
- When they began to work on the other leg, he said, ‘Oh my f***ing God, this hurts.” When asked if he was okay, he replied, “No, I am not okay. This hurts like holy hell.” While the nurse continued to dress the leg, he writhed in pain and moaned.
St. Anthony’s fails to treat resident’s pain during wound care
IDPH has cited and fined St. Anthony’s Nursing & Rehabilitation Center in Rock Island for failing to treat a resident for pain during wound care. Click the link in the prior sentence to check out the actual citation issued by IDPH. It is really disturbing reading.
The resident at issue was suffering from cellulitis of both lower legs. As a result there were open, weeping blisters on both legs. He was sent to the hospital for treatment and when he was discharged, he received a prescription for Norco, a pain medication. He ripped it up believing that this was the same order that he had before he went to the hospital. When he came back from the hospital, the pain medication was discontinued. Despite the fact that the discharge instructions included continuing pain medication for supportive care, no one from the nursing home called the doctor or the hospital to resolve the discrepancy. As a result he did not receive the pain medication that was ordered for him.
The citation graphically describes the results of what happened when he began to receive wound care without the pain medication: