Family drives 4-hours to hospital due to long wait for care

By Jennifer Kveglis

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    COLLIER COUNTY, Florida (WBBH) — A Golden Gate Estates family was faced with a difficult choice as hospitals fill up with COVID-19 patients. It was either wait hours for their son to be seen in a local hospital or drive to Miami.

9-year-old Jacob Arledge has autism and Stage 3 T-cell Lymphoma cancer. Usually, he receives treatment in Miami. But on Monday, he was in Naples when he had a fever. His family took him to NCH North Naples, where his mom, Joann Greenberg said she experienced the second scariest moment of her life.

“…being told that they have no availability. But we were welcome to wait in the lobby,” Greenberg said, “I said ma’am, he’s in dire need of attention now, we can’t wait.”

Greenberg said last May she learned Jacob went from healthy and vibrant to sick in no time.

“It was an aggressively large tumor that grew very fast,” she said, “It was the size of a watermelon. He had literally 17% lung capacity out of two lungs.”

For the next month and a half, a Nicklaus Children’s Hospital room was “home.” A few weeks ago, the family returned to their actual home in Golden Gate Estates.

Greenberg said all was well until Monday when Jacob ran a 103-degree fever. He was taken to NCH North Naples Pediatric Unit, where she said a nurse told her there’s a wait for a bed.

“At that point, I was shaken with distraught,” Greenberg said.

They hopped in the car and drove back to the Miami Hospital. The trek took them four hours

“We left at a really bad hour. Traffic time…pouring down rain…” Greenberg said.

He was taken in immediately. Tuesday she said she still feels panicked and disappointed.

“I know I’m not the only mom and child that has a gravely sick child that we rely on this hospital and their care and their professionals to help our children in such a dire need,” she said.

Jacob remains in the hospital in Miami.

After our original story aired, NCH provided us this statement:

“In spite of the rising cases of COVID patients admitted to our hospitals, NCH continues to have available bed capacity to be able to care for our community. Additionally, NCH does not turn away ANY patient in immediate need of hospitalization for any illness, injury or ailment. We triage patients that present to our Emergency Departments following strict national guidelines. There are many variables that impact the timing of when beds are available.”

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