From Donna Davis
We are told as children that honesty is the best policy-things only get worse if you don’t tell the truth.
Communication with truth and transparency is the foundation that builds and maintains trust between healthcare providers and patients/families. If the truth is told from the onset when things go wrong, one doesn’t have to weigh their words carefully, dance around the issue or avoid a conversation. Future conversations are much easier and organic if the truth is told. We had an experience with this that we will never forget.
Our daughter was living in Calgary and we lived in the very far southeast corner of Sask. We received a call from the physician attending her in the ER that she had to have emergency surgery for a bowel obstruction. We said we would come immediately. He assured us that by the time we got to Calgary, the surgery would be complete and she would be resting on the ward. I mentioned that Deidre had a severe allergy to latex. The physician acknowledged that they were aware of her latex allergy.
Fortunately, we were able to get a flight and were in Calgary about 6 hours later. However, Deidre was not on the ward. We didn’t know where she was. Was she still in surgery? Did something go wrong? She was in ICU which was totally unexpected.
The nurse attending Deidre in the ICU approached us and told us that in the OR Deidre was exposed to latex which put her into anaphylactic shock. They were not able to extubate her thus her admission to ICU instead of the ward.
The honesty about what happened did not anger us. Instead, it instilled trust. Having lost our 19 year old son due to medical error our trust in the system had been compromised. This honest communication with us helped to restore our trust. We knew we could trust this organization, these health care providers, to tell us the truth. This meant the world to us. Although this took place many years ago, we will never forget the caring, compassionate and truthful conversation this nurse had with us. Honesty was the best policy.
