Dear Midtown Medical Center...

Early this week I fell ill and had to call an ambulance to transport me to the Columbus Regional Emergency Center - Midtown. It was one of the most horrific experiences of my life! I contacted the Quality Management Department at Midtown Medical Center, and a Coordinator swiftly returned my call and recorded my grievances. 

I appreciate the administrator's attentiveness, but the damage is done. I'm sure others in the Columbus and Phenix City area have similar stories, so I would like to share the unfortunate facts of my ordeal. 

My Formal Complaint

Good afternoon,

My name is Carrice Quinnie, and I had the unfortunate experience of choosing Columbus Regional for my emergency care on May 29, 2017.  

Around 11 am, I called 911 for transportation to the ER because I was experiencing chest and side pain.  I’m a single mother of three girls, and I had no transportation.  The EMS responded immediately and loaded me onto their emergency vehicle. Upon arriving at the EMS entrance of Columbus Regional Midtown Emergency room,  I WALKED into the front entrance and was nonchalantly told to sit in the chairs to my left. 

The EMS partners were two men, one Caucasian and the other African-American.  They both kept their backs to me and were laughing and talking at the front triage desk to the right of the ER EMS entrance. There were three nurses at the desk. 

All three were women around their twenties or early thirties. An elderly man was to the left on a stretcher.   When I hobbled in a Hawaiian or young Asian nurse taking his vitals and then turn to an EMS that was sitting in a chair and rolled her eyes at him displaying her irritation with the elderly patient on the stretcher.

I still was standing because it pained me to sit down and the chairs were hard and had no cushions.  Many nurses and attendants passed me in the hall, and no one asked if I needed anything or if I had been helped.  My pain was consistent, but the intensity came in waves.  When the pain was so unbearable and moaned uncontrollably and one, short, brown hair, petite, Caucasian nurse, clapped her small hands at me like I was her puppy, and told me “Shut up, be quiet, you can’t do that!!! We have people up here hurting!”  I cried back to her, “I’m hurting too, I’m at the hospital!”

I’m never sick, and I’ve had two children with no epidural.  So I can handle pain.  This pain was so intense it was beyond anything I had ever felt. 

I suppose the three nurses and the two EMS, after about 20 minutes, were tired of my moaning, that the other Caucasian, brown-wavy haired nurse, murmured to the African American EMS, “You can take her to MMR1, MMR2, or MMR3 take your pick, I don’t care.”   (I not sure about the room numbers)

The African American EMS worker waited for another 10 minutes and told me, “Come on ma’am you can come around here.”  I was never asked to get in a wheelchair.  The African American EMS worker walked five paces in front of me as I dragged my purse, crumbled over in pain as we walked down the corridors of the ER. 
  

We passed one nurses station, the security guard was in disbelief. I could see the pain and disgust in his eyes as I walked passed him crying and moaning. We also passed a Physician, and he also looked at the EMS worker with disdain and disgust as to why a patient in obvious pain would be walking with her belongings down the corridors. 

When he got to the door of the examination room, he gestured, “ you can sit in here somewhere.”  He then went to the nurse's station across from my examination room with his back turned to me and continued to type on a tablet. 

After about 10 minutes, the Nurse Practitioner came in to take my vital signs. She asked me some questions about my pain.  She tried to exam me, but she could not. Due to my excruciating pain, I started vomit.  She gave me a bag to vomit in, and she said, she would request me some pain medicine.
   

Later my mom and my middle daughter came into the room and said they could hear me moaning and vomiting in the main lobby.   I now started to sweat because of the pain and my mom notice I also started bleeding from my vagina, as I shifted on the examination chair.  Shortly after, I was asked to move to another room across the hall. 

I asked the nurse for a wheel chair. I was exhausted!  I was afraid I would faint in front of my daughter, and she was already afraid.  My daughter, Briana, was so concerned while waiting in the examination room, she took it upon herself to go to the nurse's station and ask if I would get some pain medication.  A nurse came in with my daughter and told me medicine was ordered, but someone had to pull it.

Once in the second room, my mother told a nurse, I was bleeding.  I was never given underwear or a sanitary napkin. My blood was drawn, and I gave a urine sample.  My urine had visible blood in it, and still, no sanitary napkins were offered.  I was given an IV with morphine, I was told.  I was later told a CT scan was ordered.

The CT technician was very nice and showed genuine concern for my condition and my lack of undergarments.   

When returning to the room, I waited for results. I was informed nothing was found, and all my test came back normal. Now we just had to wait on the CT results.  

My mother asked the Nurse Practitioner could she leave to pick up my youngest daughter and would I be OK in the examination room.  The Nurse Practitioner assured my mother, I would be fine.  I was really in and out of comprehension due to the pain medication.

The next thing I remember a transport technician entered the room and asked, “Are you waiting for your mother?”  I said, “yes.”  She quickly said,  "Ok you can wait for her in the lobby."

I explained the Nurse Practitioner told my mother, I would be here when she returned, I was bleeding, and I didn’t have on a bra or underwear.  The transportation technician, said, “I'll wrap a blanket around you.”

I’m a mother of three girls.  I would never want a woman to endure what I did that day! 

I was finally wheeled to the front waiting area of Columbus Regional Emergency Room.  I had just received morphine, and now I had to find a seat among strangers while wearing no undergarments and experiencing a bloody discharge from my vagina.  I didn’t know if I had a blood stain on my dress or not. 

I saw a friend of my mother’s in the lobby, and she looked at me in amazement as to why was I in the main lobby.  She gave me her seat, and I just sat with my head down in embarrassment and called my mother.  I explained to my current circumstances. She asked if they gave me a sanitary napkin, I told her no.  She said she would call a family friend, Dr. XXXXXX and tell him what was going on.

I was told later, Dr. XXXXXX returned from his vacation and came up to the hospital looking for me, but was in shock due to the fact, I was released without them giving me a diagnosis for my intense pain.

After getting home, the next day.  I shared my story with family, friends, and coworkers.  Many said the same thing:

“ The Medical Center is horrible!! Those young nurses think they are better than everyone and they treat you like trash.”

“The Medical Center is terrible.”  The nurses don’t care about you, and they treat and talk to you any way they like.” 

“ The Medical Center nurses have no compassion, the next time you need to go to a hospital go to St. Francis!”   

My coworkers also say the same thing:

“I know you are talking about the Medical Center! My mom was sick, and I had to take her there, and the nurses were so rude! I wanted to complain, but I didn’t know how to go about it. Next time just go to St. Francis.”

“Never go to the Medical Center!  I wish you had called me; first I would have taken you to St. Francis myself, Carrice!!  The Medical Center is horrible.  I went there once, and I will never go there again unless they have to air-lift me”.

I had two of my three children at the Medical Center.  I have the Medical Center as the place of choice on my children’s emergency medical care forms at their schools.  But I will surely change that this upcoming school year.  I will never trust the care of my beloved children to a hospital who would employ such a heartless, immature, poorly trained, unprofessional nursing staff.

I will be writing a blog post about my experience at Columbus Regional, and I hope I can spread the word before anyone experiences what I endured.

Regretfully,

Carrice Quinnie

I know this may be graphic, but this was the only way I could honestly express my concern and outrage.  I hope this never happens to anyone again and I hope the young, 
callous nursing staff is strongly reprimanded and trained properly. 
I understand it takes a very special kind of person to work in healthcare. One must be compassionate, mature, and have

the ability to overcome personal biases and prejudices. 

 I hope Midtown Medical does what it takes to make sure they recruit and employ individuals with the aforementioned personality traits.