'Extremely upset:' Palmyra family finds dead bugs, dirt, inside Wauwatosa hospital room following daughter's surgery

 

WAUWATOSA, Wis. (CBS 58) -- Bugs, dirt, and grime are the three words that you don't want to hear when you're discussing a hospital room, but for one Palmyra family, that became what they say was their reality after a visit to a Wauwatosa medical center.

Erin Teske-Wolf had taken her five-year-old daughter, Raelyn, to the Children's Hospital of Wisconsin for a surgery on April 5. 

After the surgery, Teske-Wolf said the two were taken to Room 1005 to stay in overnight.

But when they got into the room, Teske-Wolf said she immediately noticed the bathtub in the corner was ringed with black grime, the floor and baseboards were covered in dirt and dust, and the bedside table was sticky and gooey with an unknown substance. 

However, that ended up being the least of their problems. 

"When I woke up the next morning, I went to the bathroom to get ready and noticed, like little things stuck to the front of my sweatshirt," Teske-Wolf told CBS 58's Ellie Nakamoto-White. "I started pulling them off."

That's when she noticed little dark bugs scattered across the sheets of her pullout bed. 

"Coming into the night, the nurse brought me sheets and stuff for the pullout bed. I did pull the bed out when it was dark out. So, I did not have a chance to look at it before making my bed," Teske-Wolf said. "It's not something that I ever expected I would have to deal with while trying to help her recover from surgery."

Bugs, dirt, and grime are three words you DON'T want to hear about a hospital room... but that's the reality for one #Palmyra family whose overnight stay for their 5yo daughter's surgery turned into a patient's nightmare -- Their message, coming up only on @CBS58 at 9/10 pic.twitter.com/OFaCBpTTRs

— Ellie Nakamoto-White (@ellienw_news) April 9, 2023

Teske-Wolf said she "started crying" with how disgusting the situation was.

According to Teske-Wolf, two hospital employees came in and collected a handful of the bugs into a specimen jar. 

"Both said that they appear to be baby bedbugs, but that they did look dead," Teske-Wolf said, adding that local service Batzner Pest Control was called in for an inspection.

The hospital provided CBS 58 with this statement: 

Children’s is committed to providing clean and comforting spaces for our patients and their families. Our environmental services team will immediately address feedback when our standards are not being met. While a recent social post suggested bed bugs were present in a patient care room, an independent exterminator confirmed that no bed bugs were present the same day the concern was expressed.

But Teske-Wolf said she "was informed that the Batzner dog, which is what they use to search the room, will only alert them if they are alive bedbugs."

"All the things I found were not moving," Teske-Wolf said. "We're to the point where we're checking our mattresses, our furniture, I mean, multiple times a day, because we were just terrified that something could have possibly slipped home with us."

The family has filed complaints but said they were denied a copy of Batzner's report. 

Now they are working on finding another independent exterminator to examine the bugs.

"It's painful, it's super annoying, and it's something you shouldn't have to be dealing with. Even though people come in and out with diseases and who knows, they're supposed to be some of the cleanest facilities that we have to the public," said her husband, Justin. "For you coming in and supposed to be dealing with the procedure, and you come out and have to deal with something even possibly worse is not right to say the least."