My mom was treated at HCG for Ovarian cancer, she expired within 3 weeks of chemo. Iâm not writing this in anger, but have thought about the sequence of events that led to my Momâs death. She was treated in 2008 for Stage IV Ovarian cancer successfully at a different hospital. Her entire medical history was presented to the oncologists. She developed renal failure within 4 days of the chemo. She was admitted to their ICU, was given dialysis there. She developed severe drowsiness in a few days at the ICU and was put on a ventilator as a preventive measure. Things took a turn for the worse from that point on. When she was in the ICU, the docs were asking about her previous surgery, the previous medical history, whether she had any heart problem, etc. In my humble opinion, this was something that the oncologists should have done in the first place - understood the patientâs medical history and planned chemo based on her health condition. When things had gone completely out of hand, the ICU docs kept recommedning that we should take my mom back home. This is after she was completely dependent on the ventilator and could not breathe on her own. I would have expected the oncologists to counsel us about the pros and cons of the chemo, the plan to help her after the chemo ie so that she did not develop infections after the chemo given that she was diabetic and hypertensive. They were extremely casual about how they treated her and put us through a lot of trauma when she had reached a state of no recovery. I pretty much lost faith in the hospital and its ability to plan treatment for patients like my mom. When my mom was in the ICU, we saw another person go through pretty much the exact same sequence of events. This patient died two days after my mom expired. I honestly believe that the whole process of treating my mom and putting her and us through so much pain was completely careless on their part.
We took my mom to HCG because we believed that she would be rid of the cancer. If there were concerns about her age and her ability to withstand the chemo, this should have been communicated to us when we approached the hospital for the initial review, not after she developed complications.