By now you may have heard that Glenn welcomed his first grandchild into the world earlier this week. Lorelai Rose DiDonato was born at 3:18pm on Tuesday at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas.
Glenn, who has been treated at the hospital in the past, was relieved his daughter would be delivering her child at world-class facility, but, on radio this morning, Glenn shared that his daughter’s experience was marred by the harsh words and actions of a nurse at the hospital. Glenn decided to share that story because “you’re only as good as the weakest link in your chain.”
“I want to tell you a story about what happened to my daughter two nights ago at a very good hospital. Baylor University and Baylor Hospital is a very good hospital. We give money to research at Baylor Hospital. We respect the people at Baylor,” Glenn said. “I want to make this very clear: Baylor is a great hospital. Every single person we have run into – from the person at the front door to the person at the cafeteria, everyone has been great. Except this one nurse.”
Glenn explained that he decided to tell the story because he wants to the hospital takes the report lodged by his daughter’s doctor against the nurse seriously and to ensure that this does not happen to someone else’s daughter is not treated this way.
“Anybody who's had a child knows how traumatic it is for a mom. The night nurse comes in and she's immediately cold and callous and says, ‘This isn't going to work and this is going to hurt, but you're just going to have to get through it,’” Glenn explained in regards to his daughter breast feeding. “Tim, my daughter's husband, who is a remarkable man -- my gosh, is he a remarkable man… tries to, you know, make things better because he sees his wife starting to crater. And he says, ‘How can I help when we get home? How do we store her milk? Would it be okay if I, like, got a little refrigerator and put it by the bed because I want to feed at night.’ And the nurse looked at him and said, ‘You can't help. She's got to do it.’”
The nurse went on to ask Tim how old he was and how long he and Hannah have been married. After explaining that they had just celebrated their one-year anniversary, the nurse brusquely responded, "So this wasn't a planned pregnancy."
“Excuse me? So this wasn't a planned pregnancy? Excuse me,” Glenn said disgusted.
But the nurse wasn’t done. She went on to advise the couple “to not shake the baby” or else they would end up on the news.
“I'm sorry. Do my children look like baby-shakers,” Glenn asked. “Tim, I know, wanted to rip this woman's head off as my daughter is, you know, cratering, he's just silent, doesn't say anything because he does not want to escalate this because he's trying to care for his wife.”
“So my daughter is having her first breast-feeding experience with, I don't know, somebody who lost their heart on something? I don't know,” he continued. “And everybody has a bad day, but you don't do that job and have a bad day.”
The following morning, Hannah explained what had happened to her OBGYN, who quickly reported the nurse’s unacceptable behavior. Ultimately, however, Glenn questioned what the future of medicine holds, if this kind of behavior occurs at one of the premiere private hospitals in the country.
“Baylor Hospital, you are far, far better than that… We've all had your hospital care. You are a collection of amazing people, you really are. I mean I have seen you in action. I have seen your nurses pray with my family. I have seen things I've never seen in a hospital before,” Glenn said. “Baylor is one of the best hospitals I've ever seen. And there's no excuse for that. None.”
“Now, here's the other reason why I tell you this,” Glenn continued. “This hospital needs to remove this person. But you need to understand that that's what the free market does. You can complain, and when you complain, something happens. It gets bad when there is a union that protects the bad nurses… But if it's a federal union worker, which, it will be soon when we have one single-payer system and it is all federalized and unionized, you are going to pray for the day when that was the worst nurse you would run into.”
