this ever happen to you?

[pdpatty]

Bummer,went for treatment ,had to be there at 5:30AM. Tracy,my tech for today was working on machine. She flushed it 5 times and thing wouldn't work right. She said they switched the other machine for that chair just Thurs. Nurse went in back to get another machine and after sticking me and flushing machine(took about 30 mins) that machine WOULDT work.
They put my blood back ,sent me home and I have to be back in there at 10:15 for an empty chair to get my full treatment.
Well gotta go,hope this one works!

[willieandwinnie]

pdpatty, sorry you had to go through that. Yes, we had that problem once when Len was going to clinic. Thank goodness they didn't stick him. The machine and it's replacement wouldn't pass the testing so we had to go back later in the same day for treatment. We had the same problem once when we were doing it at home, the machine wouldn't calibrate correctly and we had to wait for techs to come out in the afternoon to repair it. We just waited until the next day to do his treatment. It does suck though. Hope your treatment runs smoothly today. 

[del]

Willieandwinnie are you still using the Fresenius 2008H machine at home. Think I read somewhere that's what you were using.That's the same machine we use. Seems to be very reliable -haven't had many problems at all.  What type of RO do you use.  We have a Gambro.

[willieandwinnie]

del, Len had his transplant in Sept 07  and they came and took away the machines in December. I hated to see them go, my security blanket, so to speak. We had the 2008H and an GE RO (we stuffed it in a closet because it was kind of loud), the H was very reliable. In Aug 07 we were trained on the new Fresenius Baby K, and Len and I both hated it. 7 days after our training and 3 days before clinic was going to deliver new machine we got the phone call. (I thank God everyday). 

I wish you continued sucess for the 2008H.

[Stacy Without An E]

This strikes me as an issue with servicing the machines.  We have a gentleman who works full time at our clinic, so I've never experienced something this ridiculous.  Is your center profit or non-profit?  A friend of mine goes to Dialysis in the East Bay at a profit Dialysis center and the cut corners everywhere.  Patient care shouldn't be sacrifices and you shouldn't have to put with that lack of readiness simply because a center wants to save ten cents here or twenty cents there.

[willieandwinnie]

Stacy, our clinic does (or did) have full time techs, they service 5 or 6 clinics located hundreds of miles apart. We had one tech that we really loved and he got to the point he would walk me through some of the calibrating tricks (sometimes it work and other times it did not). He was great about coming as quickly as he could, but the one time, some board burned up and he had to go to another state to get a spare. I'm not defending our clinic one bit (they are for profit, and it showed everywhere), but the techs worked hard and were short handed (spread really thin). I could of taken Len to clinic for treatment but he declined and said he'd wait until they got his machine fixed. I totally agree that patient care would never be sacrificed and they did offer us an option.