HOSPITAL SAYS YOU HAVE COVID WHEN ADMITTED – EVEN WHEN YOU DON’T

ITALY – Andrea Pylant lives in Italy, Texas.

Her 90-year-old mother lives with her. 

This past weekend, Pylant noticed her mother was gaining fluid weight on her body. 

They had an appointment scheduled for Oct. 14 with her cardiologist, but she knew her mother needed attention before that time.

“She had so much fluid on her body it was starting to make her feel short of breath,” Pylant explained.

Her mother, Doris Potter, and she decided she needed to go to the hospital due to concerns about her weight gain, legs swelling, shortness of breath and her kidneys.

Potter’s doctor agreed. 

Potter told her doctor she felt she needed IV Lasix to help remove fluid from her body. 

Even though she was already on Lasix at home, she was still gaining fluid weight of about 20 pounds over the past month.

Pylant took her mother to Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas where she was usually taken due to this type of heart issue. When mother and daughter arrived at the hospital, Pylant told the nurse her mother was having Congestive Heart Failure. 

“We were immediately put into triage, then into a room in ER. The nurse and doctor told us they were admitting mom into the ER,” Pylant explained. “The doctor told me because she had shortness of breath, she was required to have a COVID test. I looked her in the eye and said, ‘You and I both know she is having CHF from the information I just gave you. She does not need a COVID test.’ The doctor explained it was, ‘No big deal,’ she would be tested, and I would need to leave while they performed the test. She stated it would take a little while for the results and when it came back negative, I would be allowed back in the room. I said it sounded like a good deal as I was hungry and would go grab a bite to eat and would be back. The doctor asked her assistant to make sure she got my phone number so I could be called when the test results came back negative so I could come back in.”

That is when the COVID-19 drama began.

Pylant waited three hours and still had not received a call.  

When she arrived back at the hospital, she asked for her mother’s test results. She was told her mother had been moved to the COVID floor and she would not be allowed to see her. She was given the number to her mother’s room.

“After being in the parking lot for over five hours, I left and went home. I was told they would perform another COVID test on my mother Sunday at 2 p.m. Her first COVID-19 test came back negative,” Pylant said. “Why did they need to do another test? Also, let me just say, my mother had not been out of our house since March 14, 2020. We knew it was CHF, not COVID. The doctor knew it was CHF, not COVID. So, what happens – we go to the hospital for help with CHF and are put on the COVID floor to expose her to COVID.”

The 90-year-old woman with the negative COVID test still had to endure another COVID test – all while her heart condition was the main issue. 

When Pylant talked to her mother on Sunday (the next day), she said the nurse came in around 4 a.m. and did another COVID test.

Pylant arrived back at the hospital and found that again, her mother’s COVID-19 test was negative.

They had moved her to a new room however, this time to the main building and a room that had previously been used for COVID patients.

Pylant asked, “Are the hospital’s procedures to expose the elderly to COVID as much as possible? It seems as though this hospital has adopted New York’s procedures in making sure to expose the elderly and put them in situations in the hope they will contract COVID.”

Later that evening after Pylant had visited her mother and gone home, she received a phone call from a hospital case worker to let he know her mother had officially been admitted to the hospital for observation. She stated that Potter would be released on Monday. 

“I asked how that was possible, a doctor/cardiologist had not even talked to us,” Pylant said angrily. “I was told that my mother’s chart indicated a doctor came by between 1 and 1:30 p.m. and examined her. Let me make this perfectly clear, a doctor did not come to my mother’s room that day. And yes, mom is 90 years old, but she is fully alert and aware of everything going on. We did not see a doctor that day. The case worker suggested maybe I had looked away when the doctor came in. What? I turned my head for 10 seconds and mom had a full examination and her heart and lungs checked without either of us knowing it? Really?”

Finally as of Tuesday, Potter’s medicine had been slightly adjusted. She has lost some fluid weight. 

Overall, Pylant said, “Mom and I both have felt that because of her age, she is being treated like a second-class patient. The message we received from the doctors has been – she is on her way out, no need to spend much time on her case. Also, while in ER, the TV did not work. When my mother was moved to the COVID unit, the TV did not work.

“COVID is not the excuse for every person who needs medical treatment no matter how much money the hospital gets when they write ‘COVID’ on the medical report.”