St. Francis Medical Center, You're Housekeeping Sucks!

My grandmother came by ambulance to the OSF (Saint Francis) Emergency Room Saturday afternoon after a nasty spill.

The first day I visited, the day she was admitted, I parked in the deck and walked in expecting to hitch a ride on the hall trolley to the old admitting area and ask where I could find her. But when I walked in, the hall to the new Children's Hospital was open and I was told I could ask at their new admitting desk. So, I walked the hallway noticing vibrant colors, a new gift shop (mainly for children) and how beautiful the floors looked and how clean the windows were. When I got to the desk, they said she was still in a room in the ER and a staff member from admitting, offered to personally escort me to her room. Again, more very vibrant colors, clean hallways, sterile environment and no funky smells. As it is generally understood...what a hospital should be!

Yesterday...
When I visited, I was there in the afternoon around 3 PM to 5 PM and had noticed the floors were dirty and there was some nasty unidentifiable stuff on the privacy curtain near the lower right corner. The most noticeable flaw with housekeeping was the stench I was smelling. Supposedly, the staff had her out of bed to use a commode and had not emptied it. So, there it sat, in the corner of her room (and they aren't big rooms!) and it STUNK. Badly. I did mention it when the charge nurse was in and she got another nurse to empty the pan and change the padding under my grandmother in her bed. The nursing staff was attentive to her needs and because of her reason for being on that floor. However, the housekeeping staff, I never saw.

Today's visit...
My grandmother is, to my understanding, on an intermediate neurology floor. I took the 'C' Elevator (outside the main gift shop) to the 3rd Floor. According to the nurse caring for my grandmother, on the shift in which I visited today, there were 16 beds on that hall which were filled, housekeeping should have been by already. There were 2 employees appropriated for bathing all 16 of those patients, which should happen in the morning hours. According to a relative who had stayed in the room with my grandmother overnight, someone had come in and emptied the trash, but had done nothing else to clean the room. My relative had been using their own Clorox Wipes to wipe off the bedside table, the arms and safety rungs of the bed, the visitors chairs (which turned the Clorox Wipes black!) and really awful areas of the floor which had not been attended to since they had arrived the night before. I had not visited the bathroom, as it said 'patients only' on a sign on the door, but I did use the hand sanitizer on the wall every time I got up or left and came back into the room. And I took my clothes off in our laundry room when I got home before entering the rest of our house and exposing our children to what I encountered. Need I say more about house cleaning?

I received a phone call from the relative who remained with my grandmother after I left and they said she had been moved to another room on that floor, one with a lesser need for observation (no monitor hook-ups) and that the room was a bit cleaner. There were no obvious stains on the floor. They were hoping to have her up and walking and would bathe her in her new room after that. I certainly hope housekeeping gets to the last room before they fill her bed again! Oh..and don't forget to change the sheets. Her head injury was oozing (as is normal I was assured) and the pillow cases (on two of the pillows) had quite obviously not been changed today. I realize it is not the nursing staff's job to maintain cleanliness in the room, however, I don't see it as 'healthy' to try and treat a patient in a filthy environment.

I'm sure there will be a review filled out before she leaves and I hope my grandmother's Durable Power of Healthcare let's the house keeping staff know how disappointed we have been.