2 /5 Christina Hager: I recently had an extremely negative experience in the Moore Haven center Florida Community Health Center located in Glades County Health Department.
On Sunday, my daughter began complaining of severe pain in her lower back molar. It kept her up Sunday night, and Monday morning she woke up with extreme swelling in her cheek and gum, so on Monday I began calling the provider listed on her insurance information for DentaQuest for an emergency appointment (the Moore Haven office!). I called 5 times on Monday between 8:40 am and 4:30 pm, left messages 4 times and spoke with a woman once who told me shed pass the message along for a callback. I waited until 7 pm and called one last time and put yet another call in to the answering service asking them to please call the doctor and ask if I should take my child to the ER for this. They refused because we were considered a new patient.
I called again 3 times Tuesday morning starting at 8 am, and left 3 more messages for a call back. In each of the 8 messages I left I described the swelling and pain and asked for an emergency visit. Not a word from anyone, so at 11:30 I picked my daughter up from school and went over to the office to wait to be seen. I sat for 45 minutes waiting for someone to help me before anyone spoke to me. The doctor happened to walk by the door and saw me through the window and asked if Id been helped to which I replied no. I explained the emergency situation to him, and asked if hed please check her out. I was told no because there were inmates coming in that afternoon. I asked if I could wait and he said no because theyd be there most of the rest of the day, and that the next doctor wouldnt be in until Monday. I asked him again to please just take a few minutes to check her out because of the swelling and pain (her gum was swollen almost over the tooth). Again he refused.
I had to drive all the way to Immokalee (where we were seen within 10 minutes of arrival, had 2 X-rays done within 15 minutes of arrival, and were seen by the doctor no more than 25 minutes after arrival).
Turns out my 5 year old has a severe infection in her back lower molar. An infection so bad that she has to have the entire tooth extracted.
I feel that a medical professional should care a little more about easing the pain of a small child than this Dr. Palacios did. If I didnt have the resources and ability to drive all the way to another dentist, my daughter would still be suffering and going untreated with an infection in her tooth until Monday (nearly a full week). I realize that its rare to happen, but an infection spreading to her bloodstream could cause extreme illness or potential death.
I am very disappointed that a county run facility allowed this to happen. The needs of criminals were placed above the needs of one small child that only needed 35 minutes of a medical doctors time.
This is unacceptable, and Dr. Palacios should be ashamed of himself as a doctor.
The center manager called me to explain that because of this issue, procedures were being changed so that it wouldnt happen to another family. She was kind and apologetic without making excuses or handing me platitudes. Even she said that there were options for my child. He could have brought us over to the pediatrician or put us in a back room where he could have at least taken a peek and prescribed her antibiotics.
This doctor needs to be held accountable for his actions, and understand that an emergency case involving a child, or anyone for that matter, should not be turned away, brushed off, or refused.
