Guest guest Posted February 4, 2010 Report Share Posted February 4, 2010 Has anyone been to see Dr Balzola? Sara Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted February 5, 2010 Report Share Posted February 5, 2010 We went to Dr Balzola for the actual endoscopy, because there seemed no prospect of anyone doing it here, and I have to echo some of the sentiments already on this thread. My impression of Dr Balzola himself was very good - a man who deeply cares about the kids, and who went to some trouble for us that he need not have. The team were competent and caring, and I cast no doubts on their professional or ethical integrity. I must stress that I do believe that a trip there is safe. But it was totally disorganised, and there was an utter lack of communication between team members and to us, which at times caused unnecessary great distress to our son, and made me extremely angry. Some details...One of our key drivers was to combine Joe being under heavy sedation with taking blood for tests, since it is absolutely impossible to take blood from Joe when he is conscious (believe me, impossible). This was done and the bloods were FedExed but, guess what, one of the blood samples was not handed to FedEx. So we are left with having paid for a very important DAN panel which we can not now complete. We were furious about that. The whole experience was extremely disorganised and hardly anyone spoke English. The experience for our son was traumatic and we were not informed of anything that was taking place. When we walked in to the clinic, people herded us in to a room to take blood, when we had expressly said before the entire trip that this would not be possible. We refused, and were then told we could not go ahead. I had to get on the phone to Balzola himself repeatedly to find out what was happening, and if I had been less forceful, who knows what would have happened. Later in the clinic, people would just walk in with colonic irrigation bags with absolutely no warning that this was necessary. And the thing that really annoyed me - when we went down to theatre, Joe was simply pulled from my arms by Dr Balzola before I had chance to get changed, so joe was absolutely terrified for the 2 minutes before he was forcible restrained and anaesthetised. No-one had prepared me or Joe for this. This all sounds negative - I must say that on the whole the team behaved competently, and did not do anything that they should not have. The problem was simply a total lack of communication. This all cost us around £3000 in total.regards,SimonOn Thu, Feb 4, 2010 at 7:54 PM, Sara Moroza- <Moroza-@...> wrote: Thanks for that, LHiggy. How much did you spend on tests? £1,500? Your experience sounds awful. Sorry you had to go through that and thanks for sharing. Sara lhiggy wrote: > > > I have been to Italy to see him. I found it all very disorganized. I > spent £1.500.00 in all the tests (blood, stools, Xtrays) required and > he never looked at them properly, just for 10 minutes when he saw us, > there was never a report. A few months after, I managed to do the > endoscopy over in England while I was waiting for Dr Balzola to give > us a date to do an endoscopy over there, Dr Balzola said he could give > me a second opinion, he said to send the slides and reports from > the endoscopy over here to him. So, I did. All my material was sent by > courier but it got lost somewhere in his hospital. I never got > anywhere with them. Maybe they are cheaper than the Thoughtful House > but the cheap will became expensive and frustrating. It was always > difficult to get someone who speak English to talk to us and once they > lost my stuff, I couldn;t really do much. I spent over £2.0000 for > nothing and a trip to ITaly (that it was very nice in fact). > > That was my experience, maybe other people were more luck than me. At > the time, we did fundraising to have the money to do the health tests > and travel to Italy. > > > > > > In a message dated 02/04/10 14:26:33 GMT Standard Time, > Moroza-@... writes: > > Has anyone been to see Dr Balzola? > Sara > > > ------------------------------------ > > DISCLAIMER > No information contained in this post is to be construed as > medical advice. If you need medical advice, please seek it from a > suitably qualified practitioner. > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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