Akron Children's Hospital — Local services in Akron

On October 31,2018 I brought my 5 year old son into the Emergency room. He had a terrible cough, some wheezing, and a fever. He has no chronic medical conditions, he’s overall been healthy all of his life. We were put in a fast track room, where we saw Jennifer Duve CNP. After a quick listen to his heart and lungs she said that he had croup. I had asked about xrays to see about pneumonia because of the wheezing, and she told me that they don’t want to do “unnecessary radiation”. She said that she didn’t hear the wheezing when she listened to him, so a breathing treatment wouldn’t help at this point, and he received decadron, which she explained that it was a steroid, and would work over the course of three days. But he was fine to continue all of his normal activities, such as school. Also, allow him to stand outside, the cold air would help to open up his airway.

A few days later pass, the wheezing has decreased some (I’m assuming due to the steroid) the cough is still there, his fever is higher than it first was, he’s vomiting due to the high fever, and he has body aches. I called the nurse line, I told them that he was diagnosed with croup, they told me that croup is a virus, these things are to be expected, keep an eye on him, and try to push fluids.

Every day he has a fever, he’s vomiting, he’s saying that his legs hurt, hes coughing, he’s wheezing. he’s not eating, because he’s not keeping anything down. But I’m being told “it’s croup, it’s a virus, it has to run its course”

On November 9, I took him into his pediatricians office, where she told me “I’ve never seen him like this” The night before he had 104 degree fever, he wasn’t keeping anything down, his color was drained, and he wasn’t his active self. They checked for strep, and influenza A and B, which both came back negative. So again, I’m told this is a virus, keep an eye on him, and try to push fluids. If he wasn’t better by November 11, she would like to see him back.

On November 10, he was still running a fever, an average of 103 all day, even with fever reducers, nothing was helping. He was barely drinking. The nurse line told me that is considered a “moderate fever” and to take him in to the hospital or call back if it reaches 105 degrees.

He went to sleep around 10pm, around midnight he woke up projectile vomiting, still had a fever, crying in pain from the body aches, and this was enough.

We got to Children’s ER about 12:45-1 am on November 11. Dr. Sarah Kline came in, was able to take one look at him, then looked at my husband and I and said “something’s going on, I wouldn’t plan on going home tonight” After listening to him, and assuring him that she was going to make sure she got him feeling better, She ordered blood cultures, x rays, IV fluids, and urine sample.

Dr. Kline was able to find that he didn’t have croup, but he did in fact have pneumonia. His ridiculously high fever that was causing his vomiting, had him so dehydrated that he had acute kidney injury, a high white blood cell count, indicating infection, and a heart murmur was also detected. With pneumonia, you should not be outside in the cold air, as previously suggested with the croup diagnosis.

After a 37 hour hospital stay, 3 bags of IV fluids, oral fluids, and IV antibiotics, my son was able to be discharged.

I feel if the proper testing (the x ray) was done on his first visit to the emergency room on October 31,2018, his pneumonia could have been caught sooner, he wouldn’t have gotten so miserably sick, and wouldn’t currently be terrified of ever being sick again.

I feel like a MD should review, and confirm the diagnosis made by the nurse practitioners. While I understand the dangers of radiation, I would not have asked for them if I didn’t feel that they were necessary for my son.

I hope this information is helpful for others, and can avoid situations like my son was in. Luckily, my son has always been very healthy. If he had been an infant, or a child with a suppressed immune system, we could have had a very different outcome from this...

My son has been coming to Akron Children’s hospital for over 20yrs. He had had multiple surgeries and procedures from many different departments. The surgeons and doctors are top notch. They have many wonderful nurses and therapists. That being said. The hospital has changed over the last 20yrs and some is definitely for the better. Much more advanced procedures and equipment are available as well as a cleaner more modern building. There are many things that have gotten much worse by my observation over this time as well. Most importantly being supportive non bias attitudes towards patients and patient families. I understand completely things can turn in an instant in any situation that could take you to a Children’s Hospital to begin with. We as parents or patients can not fault staff when natural occurring events happen and they are not ideal. That would be unrealistic and far from reality. I say that before saying not every employee is or can be as qualified or as good as the next, but when a system can not identify and take action towards the employee because of staffing issues or just plain bias on account of being on the same”team” it becomes a safety issue. Over the last 20 years and countless surgeries I have seen many critical situations and many well trained employees step up and do a great job. This is on a serious decline in this hospital. Much less caring and educated nursing and therapists and no compassion or empathy for patients has driven me to write this public review. Without going into personal specifics, this decline has turned my trust into distrust. I would recommend if possible looking at all options of all hospitals even other Children’s hospitals if your child has a long term recovery after any serious surgery. You may need to go to another state or even Rainbow Babies in Cleveland to find that other option or at least a second opinion. Understandably emergency situations take you where they take you and this hospital has many talented and dedicated professionals that are perfectly able to care for the patient in that situation. But if you’re planning a surgery and have other options, explore them, ask questions, and stick around for a while and watch the aftercare. What I find here now is more of a us against them attitude and a complete disregard for patients concerns. Staffing is more important than safety concerns is basically what I was was just told by the manager of the department that I am dealing with. Depending on how the rest of this stay goes this review may be updated but the two stars are here to stay. This was a four to five star facility for many years. The nicer the building gets the more lackluster the care gets in my opinion. Also I am totally expecting the generic response that all honest reviews get of our patient care staff cares and contact them. Well for the record I have and they are the biggest advocate for their Team not the patient. Thank you for reading my review.

Edit: I didn’t get the generic response. Probably because I just had this conversation this morning with the powers that be and they know exactly who and where I am. I encourage everyone reading reviews as patients to look for the common theme throughout the reviews about staffing issues and how the hospital has gone downhill over the years. I promise I had not even seem those until after my original review was posted. Seems as if I am not the only parent or patient who has noticed this due to how obvious it is. Also to comment on this review sounds good as a response to this review, I have not been contacted like stated in the comment nor do I care to be at this point. Thanks again for taking time to read my...

It’s unfortunate that one aspect of Akron Children’s can cause such a detrimental view- but it really has in this situation. I didn’t even want to give 1 Star. Akron Children’s “CARE” team has erroneously accused my stepdaughter of shaking her baby. She brought her baby in immediately for care after he went headfirst off of a 31in high bed, while visit at my house. He was transferred from an outside local ER to Akron children’s after subdural brain hemorrhage was noted. Dr Welco and the “CARE” team including other members from the ER- specifically Heather Schroeber APRN being one, had made their decision about what caused my grandson’s injuries and neglected to listen to my daughter when describing the mechanism of his fall. He did not “roll off the bed.” They refuse to acknowledge other possible (or in the case the actual) mechanisms of injury and reported to CPS that the ONLY way this injuries happened was from shaking. This is not only a medically false statement, but also in reality completely false and untrue- and this type of care and assessment is abhorrent, and they should be ashamed. He crawled off, nearly a 3ft elevation landing directly on his forehead. My kids were home and heard the thump when he fell from other areas of the house. The sheer velocity and weight of his body coming to a complete dead stop on such a small surface area is the definition of blunt force head trauma. This is simply physics. His previously normal level of consciousness was altered quickly, and his mom did exactly what she should have in seeking care within 30 minutes of the fall. This group of medical providers’ decided cause of injury, has completely upended this young sweet family’s life and future. They intentionally have completely overlooked other data including obviously evidence of the fall (forehead scalp bruising), worse unilateral injuries(because the impact was more right side of the baby’s head.) Babies who are shaken, tend to have a different presentation of these injuries more equally bilateral in nature…. But all of this has been ignored because it didn’t fit the narrative that these providers had set in their minds. Because of their report- the CPS case workers stated that they will not end the investigation until they have a person to charge with shaking him- this person whom does not exist.

*We do have an ombudsman case open, which I will say that office has been very kind and follows up well. It will likely not result in anything as these providers were already unwilling to do their due diligence and discuss other possible etiologies when making their report. It’s clear that they have a God Complex and are not willing to admit they may have made a mistake in...