hlavine's Blog

Regardless if you are in a private hospital or a public hospital a patient should be treated with respect and dignity, above all, as a human being with feelings. Apparently Parkland Hospital hasn't heard of that yet.

24 hours after Katlin was born we requested to be discharged. I had had two children prior in a Vermont hospital and was always able to leave within 18 hours if their was not a medical reason to stay. We were told by a nurse that we could sign papers that basically said we were leaving without doctors consent (as hospital policy said we had to be there 36 hours) and that they couldn’t hold us unless there was a medical reason (certain illnesses and such) to not let us leave. This was also stated on the Patients Rights document that we were given.

When asked to leave they told us they would have the attending doctor look at our daughter and make the decision based on her health. So far she was healthy and happy and had been rooming in with me sense she was born. When Katlin came back in the room she had a bowel movement and I went to change her diaper. She had a plastic bag in her diaper to catch her stool and I freaked out because they hadn’t told me about it and I had no clue what was going on. My husband went to get a nurse and she came in and told me that she was hoping I wouldn’t find that until the social worker they had called arrived. At this point I was clueless and confused. A social worker? For what? The nurse told me that they suspected I was a drug user and then said, “You’ve been on floor 5 North in our PIP unit.” I have no idea what is on floor 5 or what a PIP Unit is. I let the nurse know that I had never been in that hospital before that time (the birth of my baby) and had no idea what she was talking about. The social worker came in about this time and told me the same thing that the nurse did.

Turns out I have a name “similar” to someone who has a history with this hospital and this social worker in particular. When they finally figured out that I was not the same person I asked if we were free to go then. Was told no, that if we left and took the baby they would call CPS for ‘medical neglect’ and the baby would be taken from us. We were told that we would be the 1st folks discharged in the morning as an apology. The next morning while waiting to be discharged (at 11am!) a Drug and Alcohol counselor came into the room and took me away for a ‘chat’ This chat was an evaluation. So even after admitting that they messed up they still dove into me as if I was a drug user.

Still after speaking with the D&A counselor, who said she believes it was a mix up and cleared me, they put it on my discharge papers that says that ‘maternal drug use suspected, cleared by S/W and D/C’ so now it’s on my medical records.

I was finally free to leave about 12:30pm, AFTER many others had already been discharged.

Parkland staff told me that 95% of their patients have drug problems so they are extra cautious, which I can understand, but to accuse and threaten without the facts, thats wrong. If their staff views every person that comes through their doors as a druggie then where are the patient rights? Where is the human compassion? If you go to Parkland I guess you should be expected to be treated as a piece of dirt first and a human second, if ever.

If the staff is so concerned about their patients drug use then why are they pushing drugs on their patients? I had an eperdual for the delivery and that night I asked for Tylenol because my back was very stiff. The nurse said "why don't I give you a couple Hydrocodone?" I said that I would rather not sense my daughter was rooming in with me, I wanted to stay alert. She said, "How about just one? Tylenol won't give you the relief you need." I asked if it would make me hazy and she said no. All I wanted was a few Tylenols and the nurse wanted to peddle heavy duty painkillers out.

Within 24 hours of giving birth I was wrongfully accused of being a drug addict and endangering my baby, they should have checked all of their records first or gone about questioning me very differently. I was threatened to have my baby taken away from me, first because they suspected I was who they thought I was and again when I wanted to leave after the baby was 24 hours old (btw, there was NO medical reason that they wanted her to stay, it was said to be “hospital policy” so how is that “medical neglect?” and was just generally treated like a piece of dirt, not a patient.

Talk about trying to throw someone into postpartum depression and add to that, the memory of my beautiful baby girls birth is tarnished by the stress these staff members put me through.