My complaint:
My wife had arrived at Richland Memorial Hospital ER Thursday night around midnight. She’s in heart failure , was stopping breathing , with 0 2 sats in low 80’s and has a serious infection in her face .Not only did it take us 5 hours to get into the back, but upon finally entering back of we, patients were lying in beds in halls, on the floor and piled up everywhere. Finally made it to the red zone after Dr in er saw how serious her condition was. Friday she was told that she couldn’t eat or drink due to possible surgery, and she hadn’t eaten or drank anything for 2 days prior due to swelling of throat and tongue. She calmly waited for surgeon to check her ct scan and after evaluation of scan released her from no eat drink. This was Saturday early afternoon. He informed us that we would be moved into room upstairs in stepdown unit from ICU. By Sunday, the following morning, she had still had not even been offered ice chips, days later. I calmly walked to the nurses desks and asked the nurse if she could please get my dying wife some food or at least ice chips and in a very ugly tone, exclaimed, no she is on a no drinkeat restriction. I told her nicely that almost 20 hours earlier her surgeon said that she could eatdrink anything she would like, and once again very rudely told me that she couldn’t get her anything. I then exclaimed to the nurse that she needed to do her job and take care of my dying wife and get her something to eatdrink. My wife was in fact very irritated due to the statement this nurse said next. She told my wife that if someone else comes in worse shape that they would move her in the hall and give the other person her room upstairs. My wife then got out of bed to walk around the ward to stretch and decompress from the nurses lack of compassion. The nurse then ,not spoke ,but yelled my wife’s name extremely loud and said you cant walk around . ( I feel certain that breaks all hippa regulations) so we came back over to the area where we were being staged and I proceeded to tell the nurse what a poor bedside manner she had, and I did tell her she had no business in this line of work. She had security escort me from hospital and my wife would no longer stay in the facility. I received a no trespassing notice and my wife has been sent back there after taking her to another hospital that said only Richland could treat this problem due to the gravity of the situation. She’s on her deathbed for Thanksgiving and now I cannot be with her for final days. I am beyond upset because this is very unexceptable that I can’t be there with the love of my life and I would like to know what government agency I can contact to pursue. The security guard that escorted me out even said this nurse is always very rude , even to her and I would like to have this documented for further investigation
Suggested solution:
Very stern reprimanding, and permission to re-enter property to be with my wife during these difficult times. Investigation of number of negative reviews for nurse Jennifer P.
