When a Hospital Is Bad for You

Reader Comments
Back to article

THE SAINT FRANCIS HOSPITAL IN CAPE GIRARDEAU, MISOURI WILL KILL YOU
I THINK TO GET HIRED THERE AS A NURSE YOU HAVE TO SMOKE CRACK
IT WILL KILL YOU SO WITH THE RESULTS YOU GETFROM THE SAINTFRANCIS HOSPITAL,

RON SLINKARD of MO 10:09PM May 23, 2013

Avoid hospitals where nurses follow Dr order blindly.
I went to St Joe in Bangor Me because I was told it had caring people being a Catholic hospital. My hip replacement went fine. But although I warned them that inserting my Foley would be tricky due to prior prostate removal, NO one was able to insert it and I had the most painful night of my life. The nurse in charge would not call a urologist until the surgeon approved, AND she would NOT bother the surgeon at home.
There is agony in desparately having to urinate, very tight bladder, yet no flow - you have spasms to pushing but no flow. Pain indescribable.
The nurse in charge also would not stop my IV, despite her and St Joe other experts failures to insert Foley. I took it out the IV myself, probably saved me from renal failure.
At 8 am the surgeon arrived, listened to me for 15 seconds, walked rapidly away, and blessedly returned with a disgruntled urologist, who installed the Foley tube in 3 minutes. RELIEF.
I asked to see records - they had left out the fact that I begged for a urologist and that they had failed to insert Foley.
Lesson here - Avoid any hospital where they follow orders blindly and do not consider the patient's needs first. Talk with prior patients, hang around the rooms, and most importantly, have a strong advocate present who can bring a lawyer around if needed. I had no one but myself; hours after a hip replacement, I was not a strong advocate, not being even able to move the lower part of my body.

David Harrison of ME 6:55AM December 25, 2012

you mention the criteria of my hospital

qutayba 5:59PM July 28, 2012

union city hosp will hang up on u in time of need and call police on u

fu of TN 10:52PM July 26, 2012

After reading all the above comments, I don't feel quite as bad about my own horribly nightmarish experience where I was misdiagnosed and treated as a drug seeker who refused to help myself by getting up when I actually had a severe migraine in addition to a spinal headache due to a spinal tap in that hospital's own ER and was in fact unable even to sit up due to the pain. Like other commenters, I was considered drug seeking despite refusing all pain medication (I saw that even the strongest medication, dilaudid, hadn't worked in the ER and didn't see any point in taking anything after that). I was also obviously considered crazy. Part of that was because I didn't just get up and walk out when they wrote my discharge orders-that was because I was simply not physically able to do so. I hadn't been able to sit up to sign the discharge papers, and I couldn't even roll over to get to the edge of the bed-not that that had stopped my discharge!
They forced me to sign the papers while lying forward over my bedside tray; and I was so delirious with pain I hadn't even known what I was signing-I could hardly even open my eyes. They were furious that I wouldn't get up and leave-even after seeing what I looked like while signing the discharge papers they didn't believe that I was really in pain. They probably would have gotten security to drag me out or something because my husband had herniated discs and couldn't do it, but I came up with a few magic words that forced them to keep me, words that also happened to be true. They did not care if I was physically capable of leaving-I had to think of something they did care about. It did not endear me to them, however, because they had to rewrite their paperwork. I was transferred to another floor, and the nurse or aide who transferred me deliberately raised my head even though I pleaded with her to lower it because raising it greatly increased my pain. I've worked in a hospital, and there was no reason why she could not have lowered my head to transfer me. One nurse later wrote in her notes that even after I said I no longer had a headache she thought I was still pretending to have it and that I needed to be followed closely by psych!
When I got my records I saw that they were not at all accurate-there were a number of inconsistencies that could be pointed out within the chart itself, even without me saying a word. I was not the only one who was treated that way. My roommate was not cared for properly, and I heard staff discussing a patient who had "coded" in another room and wondering if he might not have done so if his oxygen had been left on! I also heard a different patient verbally abused by a staff member to the point of what I would consider bullying.

Wondering of FL 3:40PM July 17, 2012

My husband was refused admittance when he went to ER with facial and upper body numbness and sudden severe onset of tremors in all limbs. Diagnosed earlier with CRPS from a failed IV with propofol injected 2 times into his forearm.
Are hospitals negligent when they do not treat pain as a true symptom?

amy of TN 10:38AM July 17, 2012

they should have YEARLY CHECKS for what hospital is above average than others. Or Quality checks, yearly, in each state.

terry of MI 9:42AM July 17, 2012

I cannot believe you included Johns Hopkins as Number 2 in your list.
Have you read the book "Collateral Damage: A Patient, a New Procedure, and the Learning Curve" by Dan Walter?
This book describes how the Chief of Cardiac Electrophysiology at Hopkins ripped out the Mytral Valve of Dan Walter's wife. She had been told the procedure was simple and that she would be home for supper. Instead, she woke up in the ICU after major Heart Surgery to repair the damage done by the Chief of C.E.
Hopkins should be at the bottom of your list.
There is something seriously wrong in your selection procedures.

SUSAN PALIN of KS 9:35AM July 17, 2012

You are incorrect in your selection of Wilmington hospital for your award. Please reveiw your selection again and ask to see all the records again. I am sure they did not show you all the patient records. My husband was a patient there from March 2011 through July 2011. Donald R. Donnelly (SFC Rtd.) Thank you for time and consideration.

Kathleen A Donnelly of DE 2:12PM May 14, 2012

I was left to suffer excruciating pain for hours at St Josephs hospital in Lewiston Idaho. I also saw them turn away a guy as he was writhing in pain. Others are taken out by the police. Idaho is a very humorless, angry, unhappy state. Most people are way out in the right wing ideologies and conservative politics so anyone liberal is treated in a very mean spirited way. you are not an evengelical, Mormon, or Republican,go out of state.

Mark of ID 1:15PM January 15, 2012