John Deutzman's Blog

OMG!

My friend's father-in-law had this same situation, at St. Joseph's hospital in Paterson; except he really did die of a heart attack!
Having all of the signs of a heart attack, they made him wait in the waiting room, and after begging to be seen for over an hour, he told them he was leaving to find another hospital. The staff asked him to sign himself out, so he did.
Right after he left the hospital he dropped dead on the spot!
When the family went to an attorney to sue the hospital, the attorney told them "If he didn't sign himself out, you would have a huge case, but because he signed himself out, you have no case"! Can you believe that?

I have another friend who went to the same hospital gushing blood all over the waiting room, having a miscarriage, and they told her to take a seat. She waited 15 minutes and was losing blood very rapidly, so she forced her way through the ER doors, and sat on a hospital bed, and refused to leave. They had no choice but to help her.

I'm glad you brought attention to this problem, because the local newspapers would not write about the unnecessary death that happened to my friend's father-in-law. St Joseph's Hospital was one of their biggest paying advertisers, and they couldn't risk losing their sponsors.

Jane

I would have seriously made a complaint to the hospitals administration. I took my 6 yr old into Albert Einstein here in the BX for chest pains and she was seen in less than a minute.. Turns out it was an allergic reaction to some meds, but even the next day at home I had a call from the emergency doc who took care of her, he asked if she was ok, and gave me a # to call in case of anything! I was so surprised and felt so good about how we were treated that I wrote a very nice letter to the hospital, thanking them for the great staff they had.

I have had really bad experiences with other hospitals here in my boro..I can relate BIG time.

A friend of mine who also worked in a police dept. was going under for an operation and kept repeating, Don't kill me, Don't kill me. We both heard horror hospital stories for many years - found them more scary than Stephen King.
My niece brought her son to a NYC hospital. He was shot in the eye with a b-b. She had 60 thousand in cash with her but they refused to treat him until she produced an insurance card.

At 3AM I was in a hospital with a friend who had a heart attack. I looked at the monitor, saw it was not turned on, told the doctor who snarled at me that I was a doctor wannabe. I blew - Not only doctors can read - I can - it says OFF - the man is turning blue, you jackass. (I'm not in the mood for jokes at that hour).

Last summer - walking past a room, smelled that sweet/sickening smell of someone going into diabetic shock - aide was feeding the man fruit cocktail in heavy syrup - he was a diabetic.

Before it was taken over, locals didn't call the hospital Wallkill Hosp. but rather WillKill. Jokes?? Not sure - just the thought of going to a hospital is healing to me. Just the thought and I am careful when I am using machinery. Careful to take care of my health.

I understand that an average of Only 700,000 die per year from mistakes made from doctors.

There are also many good hospitals/doctors but they are like cops and wont do anything about the deadbeats. Blue code and white code.

John, I know whereof you speak. I am one of the old-time nurses who was trained at the bedside in a hospital school of nursing. We never used to see this type behavior, but I guess it's common today - and I blame it on several things: 1)nurses not taught to care, 2) personnel so insecure they have to "show you who's boss", 3)society's descent into crude public discourse. Let me tell you, though, I've had two very difficult times with hospitals when my husband was the patient, and both were big university teaching hospitals. To resolve the issue with his broken neck, we finally transferred him to a little 90 bed hospital where he had surgery and went home a week later. The university hospital seemed incapable of deciding what to do about this broken neck and there was a lot more chaos than competence, I'll tell you that! I could write a book about the last encounter with university hospitals - I'm talking about California (the neck) and Texas (the ultimate death). You had good reason to be upset. You know, not everyone can be seen as soon as a friend or loved one wants, but their fears can be allayed by the APPEARANCE of someone actually caring whether or not you are in pain or are dying. Hope things will change. Hugs :)

Bronx Girl.

I've had very psotive hospital/doctor experinces but none of them involved the emergency room. I'm sure they would appreciate hearing from you.

Daniel,

This happened to me around Christmas time. I reposted this blog after the latest emergency room death.

John

Down in Florida a few times I got the feeling that some of the emergency room people enjoyed making people wait and suffer...Some sort of control freak thing.