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The bad: Guy has car wreck, wakes up in hospital. Finds out his name bracelet is has wrong person (apparently a woman) on it, and that person is scheduled for chest surgery that day to remove "potentially cancerous mass." Doc and nurse apparently not taking hint that something is out of whack, so man and his wife decide to check out and go elsewhere for treatment.

The ugly: Nurse calls hospital security, and they end up threatening him, shoving him to the floor, and beating him in an elevator where his wife couldn't see. When hospital administrator finally figures out what's going on, she offers him a private room and "any type of drug he wanted, just to name the pain killer." He declined, signed a release for leaving against medical advice, and getting assaulted again for refusing to give the incorrect ID bracelet back.

Lawsuit in progress.

It's all allegations right now, but holy cow.

I don't have a tally at my fingertips, but seems like Prince George's County pops up in the news for weird/bad things like this pretty often...

If these factual claims are correct, I sure wish I had this case and it was in Texas!

Chas.

It does happen....

I was in the hospital in Jacksonville, NC in March of 2004. On the day of my abdominal surgery, I happened to glance at the myriad of different colored bracelets I was now wearing and noticed that my birthday was wrong. Then I noticed my name had also changed. Apparently, I had on the ID bracelet for the old guy across the hall. My wife went beserk...to say the least. After the smoke cleared and the noise died down, we got a proper ID and I survived having more than a little of my innards removed. I don't know what happened to the old guy across the hall?

You just never know...

Actually, at my last hospital stay, I noticed that my ID bracelet WAS wrong while I was being wheeled from Admissions to my room. Right name, wrong birthdate. Made me four months older than I really am. Egads! When I got to the room, I told the nurse, and 10 min later I had a new one with the right date. Didn't even get scolded, much less beaten. In fact the nurse said sorry for the problem.

And Mr. Cotton...don't want to spoil your fun, but I am glad a hospital like in my OP is NOT in Texas...

I had a large kidney stone lodged in my right ureter, and they preformed a basket cystoscopy to remove it. Because this resulted in a laceration to the ureter, I woke up with a Foley (bladder) catheter AND a kidney catheter in place. Nurses came in and checked the outputs of the catheters on an hourly basis, and it appeared that I was putting out the required amount of liquid, which they dutifully noted in the log before they left.

Unfortunately, they never emptied the containers, until one of the nurses noticed that the Foley bag was just about full, so she emptied it, and then noticed that the kidney container was at the same level as the last hour.

Of course during the preceding several hours I had been suffering more and more pain, and had been complaining about it, only to be told that I was not due for more pain meds yet.

The last nurse finally decided that I needed a consult with the doctor, who finally came in, and determined that there was probably a blood clot blocking the kidney cath, and he ordered what is called a "Retrograde Infusion" which means that they would force fluid up the catheter while observing it on a scope of some sort, hopefully flushing away the clot and breaking it up so it would flow through this extremely narrow tube.

The technician in the radiology room told me he was going to do an IVP (an Intra Venous Pylogram) which adds liquid to an already swollen to almost bursting kidney. I refused to let the technician touch me, and eventually was taken back to my room, where the doctor showed up a little while later wanting to know why I had refused the RI. When I told him that they had been trying to do n IVP he was disbelieving, until he called radiology and found out that they actually were going to try to kill me.

He apologized and told me that I was lucky that I knew what was going on, or I would at minimum have been hurt bad.

I never got an apology from radiology.

I get real careful about that kind of stuff since then.

My tale of woe is not near as bad as the original post or what's been posted so far.

I had a mountain bike wreck years ago, did an endo on a downhill, landed on my head (cracked my helmet, yes, that's what happened to me! lol) and my right shoulder. I'm dazed but I get up and walk back to my vehicle, had a riding buddy drive me home, dropped off the bike, went to the hospital as my right shoulder is disfigured and REALLY hurts. Went to the ER, got x-rays, held sandbags with my hands (to stretch everything out for the x-ray). Doc tells me I have a separated shoulder, here's some pain meds and an arm sling...you'll be fine. Well the next day is Thanksgiving, I'm drugged up and riding with my parents to the family gathering. My dad senses that I'm REALLY in ALOT of pain and that something still doesn't look right in my shoulder (besides the separation). He hooks a U-turn and takes me to another medical center, they x-ray it and come back with a diagnosis of shoulder DISLOCATION as well! So, my arm bone has been out of socket since the night before and Baylor Grapevine MISSED it! I get a nice dose of pain meds and get laid out and my arm bone gets torqued back in, all is well with the world!

I eventually get the bill from Baylor, I send them the diagnosis from the other place...the doctor calls me up and profusely apologizes and says "don't worry about the bill, any part of it." I'm not the sue type, I recovered, all is well.

jimlongley wrote: ...
I get real careful about that kind of stuff since then.

Hospitals are large, complex organizations, and usually your doctor is not actually part of that organization, he just has privileges to work there. And the more specialists and technicians you have working on you, the more places information can go astray. Thus accurate commmunications can be a problem. It always pays to ask about everything that is going on, double check all the procedures and medicines they want to throw at you, and generally be on top of your own condition as much as possible. If you are too sick/injured, then spouse/relative, whathaveyou.

All I can say is WOW. Sounds like two thugs who thought a "security guard" patch on their shoulder made them as "awesome" as cops.

I read this to my wife (who's in medical school) as one of those "don't pull this crap" stories. She was appalled by how they treated the patient.

The last time I was in a hospital for surgery, it seemed that every single person I talked to down the line asked me the same questions:

-What is your name & DOB.
-What are you here for.

Seriously, like 10+ people, and every one asked me those questions.
I got very good at answering them XD

And they required I answered, they wouldn't just name something and have me nod or otherwise agree.
I always wondered why, but now I see. They wanted to verify that what I was expecting matched with the paperwork!
Now I'm happy that they did that! =D

I've worked in the healthcare field for 10 years. Bottom line: Always have someone with you as an advocate who is willing to sleep in a chair next to your bed. That person is usually a loved one, but should be someone who isn't afraid to confront medical personnel, ask obnoxious questions, and should be at least briefed on how to recognize when infection control procedures are being ignored. You may be too out of it to do these things for yourself. With the current rate of increase in resistant bacteria, it will soon be even more important to prevent infection because treating it successfully may not happen.

TexasGal wrote:I've worked in the healthcare field for 10 years. Bottom line: Always have someone with you as an advocate who is willing to sleep in a chair next to your bed. That person is usually a loved one, but should be someone who isn't afraid to confront medical personnel, ask obnoxious questions, and should be at least briefed on how to recognize when infection control procedures are being ignored. You may be too out of it to do these things for yourself. With the current rate of increase in resistant bacteria, it will soon be even more important to prevent infection because treating it successfully may not happen.

TexasGal. What you say is so true! Any one admitted to the hospital has got to have a constant companion and advocate while in any hospital to protect the patient and speak for them when they can't. They should ask what every medication to be give in - or what procedure they are about to do - or what IV bag they are hanging and why - etc. And the infection rate from hospital sources is unbelievably high because too many staff are not following the basic hygiene guidelines. Those infections can be worse than the reason you went to the hospital. If you ever go to the hospital, be aware and careful and take a good advocate.

TexasGal wrote:I've worked in the healthcare field for 10 years. Bottom line: Always have someone with you as an advocate who is willing to sleep in a chair next to your bed. That person is usually a loved one, but should be someone who isn't afraid to confront medical personnel, ask obnoxious questions, and should be at least briefed on how to recognize when infection control procedures are being ignored. You may be too out of it to do these things for yourself. With the current rate of increase in resistant bacteria, it will soon be even more important to prevent infection because treating it successfully may not happen.

After my wife's thyroidectomy, I was sleeping in the chair in her room, when a little vampire snuck in to take blood at 2300. Didn't matter that the draw was supposed to take place at 2100, or that she had just, finally, gotten to sleep a few minutes before, this young "lady" proceeded over my protest.

My wife has very narrow and hard to penetrate veins, so her iv was not very well placed and it was not flowing well, which resulted in her being dehydrated. This meant that her veins were even harder to hit, and this little girl poked my beloved wife in the hand until she moaned and started to cry, at which point I stood up and told her I thought it was time she stopped torturing my wife. She mumbled something and ran from the room, leaving my wife bleeding onto the floor.

When the nursing supervisor and IV supervisor showed up a few minutes later claiming I was terrorizing the nurse, my first reaction was to request an immediate interview with senior hospital administration, and then I escalated upward.

I guess I was lucky they didn't have me frisked, but the hospital didn't have a valid sign.

Eventually they backed down and apologized, particularly after they had used such modifiers as "in most cases the veins are easy to find" and "this sort of thing doesn't happen often" I had a real party with those. I also took pictures of the resultant subcutaneous bleeding from where the ham handed incompetent had injured my wife.

They even charged us for the blood draw, which I had removed from the bill.

Now I need to have another cup of coffee and calm down.

Sometimes, you don't even have to STAY in the hospital. I went in for outpatient surgery to repair a left ingroinal hernia. I was released that afternoon.

A week later, the IV site that they had used for the surgery swelled up above my elbow due to flibitus. The cure? I was hospitalized for a week while they ran IV antibiotics through me. Had the vein infection gone just a little further, it could have reached my heart and killed me.

They couldn't understand why I won't let a nurse trainee remove the IV from me at discharge time from the hospital stay.

My wife was in the same hospital for a hysterectomy. She complained afterward about her ear hurting much worse than her surgery site. She ended up having to have surgery to repair her ruptured ear drum. Unfortunately for us, there was no way that we could trace back the cause for her ear drum damage to the hospital but she had no problems with that ear before the surgery. I was with her the whole time of her stay in the hositpal and guarded her like a junk yard dog. Apparently, I should have asked to be present in the surgery itself, too.

I'm thinking it's time to get a medical alert bracelet....

chasfm11 wrote:Sometimes, you don't even have to STAY in the hospital. I went in for outpatient surgery to repair a left ingroinal hernia. I was released that afternoon.

A week later, the IV site that they had used for the surgery swelled up above my elbow due to flibitus. The cure? I was hospitalized for a week while they ran IV antibiotics through me. Had the vein infection gone just a little further, it could have reached my heart and killed me.

They couldn't understand why I won't let a nurse trainee remove the IV from me at discharge time from the hospital stay.

My wife was in the same hospital for a hysterectomy. She complained afterward about her ear hurting much worse than her surgery site. She ended up having to have surgery to repair her ruptured ear drum. Unfortunately for us, there was no way that we could trace back the cause for her ear drum damage to the hospital but she had no problems with that ear before the surgery. I was with her the whole time of her stay in the hositpal and guarded her like a junk yard dog. Apparently, I should have asked to be present in the surgery itself, too.

Good luck finding out what happened. The pressure to protect the hospital and doctor is huge. I was one of those nurse trainees about 12 years ago. You should be less worried about one of those fresh faced and excited students and way more worried by the jaded career nurse who hasn't cared about patient welfare for quite some time if ever. We all bring our ethics or lack thereof to the workplace. I got a good look at the truth of modern nursing as a student nurse. I had a perfect 4.0 College GPA and a score in the 98%percentile on the nursing aptitude test. After two years of science courses, I got into a respected nursing program. I had worked hard and was so excited. Patient care was and is the most rewarding thing I could think of to do. It took only one long semester of nursing at a local major hospital to make me change my major. The last time I was in for surgery, I had to stand my ground with a nurse who wanted to inspect my inflamed incision. I happened to be awake and saw that she came in in a hurry and shut the filthy door (actually had dark brown stain from numerous hands) with her palm and fingers wearing gloves she wore into the room from God knows where. She kept insisting they were clean when they certainly were not! She reached for my raw skin three times with me fending her off. She finally angrily left the room and ran into my doctor outside to whom she even had the audacity to complain loudly that I would not let her check my incision. He knew my background and ignored her. You see, she had been slack about inspecting my incision for the chart and got caught not having it done when she saw him coming to the floor. She was playing catch up and didn't want to take time to do it right. By complaining about me, she was trying to brand me as a combative patient. This is a good way to get others to ignore whatever you say. It even goes in your chart. Let me tell you when I got through talking to the infection control official, she got her due. The higher ups want your nurses to wash their hands, use sanitizer, and don fresh clean gloves in your presence before touching your broken skin, or anything that goes into your body.