Being in Prison

Oops!  Did I say prison instead of hospital?  To me, the terms are interchangeable.   Let’s see how they are similar:

 

Check    Loss of basic human rights  (cannot decide your fate)

Check   Loss of bodily privacy (strip search similarities)

Check   Visiting privileges may be suspended

Check   Isolation

Check   Dictate what food you eat

Check   Daily inspections

Check   Parole hearings (discharge or dismissal)\

 

Okay, so let’s explore each of one of these individually.  I have not ever been an inmate of a county, state, or federal facility but I have had the unfortunate opportunity to be both an inmate and a visitor to the hospital-prison system.  As you may have read in earlier blogs, my husband had a heart attack late last summer.  During his incarceration and my subsequent dealings with the hospital, it did indeed feel like a prison to both of us.  I guess having a heart attack was not punishment enough.

 

First of all, we learned they don’t tell you everything you need to know.  Whether that is part of their plan or an accident, I am not really sure but I think it is part of their plan.  How could they do these events over and over again and make so many “mistakes?”

When they said he would be transferred to another hospital because they weren’t a full service hospital was true.  However, they said he would be going to the other hospital in order to evaluate his treatment options.  What they didn’t say is that neither he or I would be included or have the right to decide what treatment he would have.  That, to me, is a loss of basic human rights.  Do we not have the right to decide our life choices?  Apparently, if you are hospitalized, you lose that right.  Also, when they ask you about drugs you have had problems with in taking, they can decide “if” they will write down that information.  Since they knew what was in store for him at the other hospital and what drugs would be used, they did not write down that painkillers and Versed had adverse side effects.  They purposely put his life in danger because they wanted to be able to use fentanyl and Versed on him.  The helicopter crew gave him fentanyl when he did not need it as the cath labs like to receive their incoming patients drugged and cooperative with what is about to unfold.  That is the long and the short of their actions.   They decide what they will do, how they will do it, and who will be involved.  You are drugged and have no choice.  They also have made the decision on how you live out the rest of your life.   They took a man who believed in natural supplements although he hadn’t taken them in several years and who had no history of daily prescription drug use and made sure he would take some very powerful and damaging drugs for the rest of his life.  That seemed kind of unbelieving and miffed that at his age, he wasn’t already on a regimen of prescription drugs.  Drugs, after all, are big business.  It would be interesting to see how much doctors and hospitals receive from big drug companies for prescribing their miracle drugs that have devastating side effects.  You don’t have a say in prison who your guard is and who knows your business.  It is the same way in a hospital.  You are expected to be okay with whatever staff member they choose to treat you.  They don’t care if men have male nurses but mainly females patients have female nurses for intimate care.  You cannot object when they give your information to people not needing it like the people in the public hallway or a man (non medical)  they assign to your family who will not go.  He hears all your information even though he has been told to leave.  He does not share with your family what is happening to you.  It is a secret for only them to know.  The hospital later says they have a right to have whoever they choose to have your information.  That means if the only person available is a maintenance worker then they’ll send him to your family so he can have and hear all your private health information.  Once you enter their doors, you have no rights be you patient or visitor.

 

As a prisoner, you have to submit to stripping naked and letting a stranger(s) look your body over, make notes, and probe cavities.  You are then given a uniform to wear so you do not have your own personal clothing.  In a hospital, you are stripped naked.  You submit to strangers looking at your body, taking notes, and probing cavities even watching you pee and poo.  You may be given a flimsy gown or paper to wear.  Then again, like my husband, you may just lay naked and exposed for any and all to see until you become so cold that it affects your physical well-being.  They may choose to give you nothing at all to cover.  Mostly in a prison, the stripping is done in from of same sex onlookers but in a hospital male patients usually have to be naked for female strangers and onlookers.  My husband had 4 females in the cath lab and at least 2 other laughing females in his CCU room alone with him for hours while he was drugged.  And the one admitted that since she wasn’t able to figure out how to not expose him until I came into the room, he was naked and exposed for over 2 hours with these 2 females and all others who came and went from his room.  It is very stressful thinking about what and why they did, and thinking about all the things they could have done that he doesn’t remember.

 

Prisons decide if and when you can have visitors.  They can keep you in solitary confinement only allowing you to communicate with their chosen staff and not allowing you to communicate with your family.  Hospitals decide when and if you can have visitors.  They may keep you in isolation so you are more likely to be compliant with what they have in store for you and so your family cannot question what they have in store for you.  They also may keep you in isolation because they really don’t care if you see your family or they see you.  My husband was not allowed to see me nor I him before they forced him into having a procedure he had not agreed to nor wanted.  Afterwards, he was kept isolated from us, his family, for more than 2 hours with no reason given.  Usually it takes less than 30 minutes of secrecy to complete a transfer to a patient room.  And why does a transfer have to be done in secrecy?  It is like they think they are transferring a highly dangerous criminal whose gang will try to bust him out during transfer?

 

Prisons have set meals and set times you can eat.  Hospitals will decide what type of diet they will allow you have.  They will let you order from a selection of bland and tasteless food and make a note if you don’t eat it because it is too nasty to eat.  During my husband’s incarceration, he was told he had to order from a certain group.  However, when he would try to order, they in turn would tell him that food item was not allowed.  If he didn’t replace it with what with the item they deemed acceptable, they would send another gross item in its place not caring whether he wanted it or not.  It is a pattern in a hospital prison of not caring what the patient wants.

 

At prisons, there may certain times during the day that they conduct roll call or count heads.  At hospitals, they make daily rounds with medical students and other nameless individuals.  Unlike a prison, you may have to be exposed to these strangers as they all have the right to be curious and you are the object on which they are furthering their education in order to make big money.  You, in return, get nothing out of it except having more of your personal dignity stripped away.  In hospitals, they will wake you up to ask if you are sleeping.  They come and go all day and all night.  You never are without them unless you need them.

 

Prisons have parole hearings where you can go and tell them how you have improved and how sorry you are for whatever you did.  You also know in advance when your sentence is over if there is no parole involved.  In a hospital, you have no idea when they may decide that you can go.  Your family has to be ready at all times to pick you up but yet hospital don’t think having them visit or keeping them informed is important.  They may dangle incentives in front of you so you can leave early such as agreeing to be part of more intrusive programs where they can contact you once you leave the hospital so they may gather more data for their registries.  If you don’t cooperate, chances are you will be leaving later than sooner.  They do not like no for answer.  They discuss the “release from hospital prison” and let you know what they have decided.  As in any parole or release, there are terms you must agree to before they actually let you out.  You must set up appointments and agree to further treatment.  It is like they really can’t let you go without making sure they own you forever.

 

As you can see, there are many similarities between prisons and hospitals.  The differences between the are striking.  Prisons you don’t have to pay to go to but hospitals you pay huge money in order to be there.  Prisons don’t want you to return but hospitals need for you to return as you are their cash cow.  Prisoners have rights but hospital patients don’t.  Oftentimes, patients are too ill to defend themselves and the laws are stacked against them.  Lawmakers don’t care about hospital patients being abused and mistreated but have passed laws over the years for prison reform.

 

It is time that reform is done.  Patients should not be treated worse than prisoners.  A patient’s only crime is getting ill.

Cardiac Catheterization Lab Experience

Although you don’t have to be given anything,it is standard operating procedure in the US to be given “conscious sedation”.  Having done my research, I have found a lot of other countries don’t require “conscious sedation.”  We all know that “conscious sedation” is more or less a zombie state that enables them to control you without you remembering much of what happened.  There is really not pain with a cath but rather pressure from the insertion of the different devices such as sheaths.  They say they use painkillers as they don’t want the patient to feel any pain but that was a lie in this case.  I’ll explain later.  They also  used lidocaine to numb one of my husband’s groins but not the other according to the medical records.  The use of lidocaine is probably all that is necessary.  Here is my husband’s story as he was allowed to remember:

He began feeling funny during his ambulance transport.  Once they landed, he felt as though he was floating above and watching what was going on.  He remembers that no one from the hospital from hell was there to greet him- the captive- and his jailers.  They finally flagged down a nurse getting into her car in a parking lot and she badged them in.  They wondered the hall until they finally found some people who directed them to the cath lab.  The ambulance jailers (I call them this as they gave him fentanyl w/o his knowledge and against what he had stated he wanted done) transferred him directly to the cold, metal cath lab table.  He remembers no Informed Consent being given although they say in him medical records that they went through the whole thing.  They say in his medical records multiple times that he was alert to person, place/event, and time.  If this was the case, why wasn’t the Informed Consent signed by him.  Why was it signed by 2 of the heifers 5 minutes after one of the heifers entered it onto the computer systems saying it had been done when in reality, it wasn’t done or signed.  They said it was an emergency and that he had verbally given his approval.  The doctor signature is unreadable and has no date or time.  He was drugged and at that point would have say “yes” anything when prompted correctly.  I am quite sure that are aware of how fentanyl makes a patient react and adjust their questions accordingly.  That is why they like them to have fentanyl prior to arrival as it makes them compliant and unable to think, question, or resist.  The 4 women rn heifers started readying him for what he didn’t know during the time supposedly they were getting Informed Consent.  Informed Consent should be done free from pressure and coercion but apparently laying naked on the procedure table being readied for a procedure you need to give consent to is acceptable to them but confusing to a drugged and intimidating to a opiate drugged individual.  Immediately upon arrival, they stripped him of his clothes without asking or even giving him the chance to do it himself.  They stuffed his clothes into a pink garbage bag (pink is kind of symbolic of the abuse of power by these female heifers–the cath lab is a world ran by women).  They left him naked without a gown or blanket, exposed to a room of people.  How can one give Informed Consent naked, exposed, and drugged?  I know how he is when he has drugs a lot less stronger than fentanyl so I know he was in no position to comprehend or give legal binding consent.  At this point, they were going to make sure he had not totally wasted their Saturday night by being called in and he choosing another method.

He remembers seeing people standing around (the 3 ambulance jailers stayed and watched for awhile as apparently they need to watch their patients when they are naked) and others coming and going.  He remembers hearing some of them talking but he doesn’t remember anyone talking to him.  He remembers one female voice in a mask telling him she was going to shave him.  He wondered why but wasn’t able to vocalize his question as the drugs had done what they intended–to make him cooperative, compliant, and not a problem.  In other words, no patient questions or participation allowed.  She shaved his whole pubic region and thighs not just the little area as described in most cath lab sites.  They also did not cover his penis up from their exposure.  No thought about allowing him his dignity because he was just an object not a human with feelings or considerations.  Most cath labs say in their literature that they respect the patient’s privacy but this also was not the case.  They use drugs such as Versed that erases most memories so they don’t have to respect the patient.  He stay exposed until they finally draped him around for the procedure.  He was probably exposed for around 30 minutes if you judge by the medical records when it actually listed the draping.  He remembers how cold he was and how upset he was that he was exposed without thought to his bodily privacy.  He felt humiliated.  However, the fentanyl had done its job and rendered his thoughts just that–he was unable to find his voice or the energy to resist. 

He remembers the pressure of the sheath insertions but says it did not hurt although the bruises on both groins and his thighs said otherwise.  I have never seen such blackness and the area was about 12 inches in diameter on both groins w/ hard lumps that are still present months afterwards.  He said he was scared, alone, and wondering why and what was happening.  No one communicated or comforted him.  The put 2 more IVs in him so he had a total of 4–2 in each bend of his elbows.  Hospital from hell did not note their IV insertions but the perverted nurse signed that she was present at the original hospital when they inserted it (no–just another lie from her).  He remembers wondering if I had okayed what was happening to him but I hadn’t.  He remembers wanting to see me but couldn’t form the words to ask.  He remembers being scared and cold until he finally started trembling violently.  He remembers seeing the screen of his heart and wondering what was going on.

He remembers after the dr. was gone still laying on the cath table (he laid there for about 50 minutes after the procedure ended according to MRs).  He remembers once again that he was laying there naked, exposed, and cold.  He remembers a female heifer voice telling him they were going to do some suturing and it would hurt a lot.  (Remember their reasoning for conscious sedation is for the patient to feel no pain–well that’s a big lie.)  He remembers even in his fog, how badly the suturing of 3 areas hurt.  They chose not to use any numbing agent as they for some reason wanted it to hurt.  Maybe because as the doctor told me, they really resented being there on a Saturday night.  (So remember that you should schedule having a heart attack during weekday hours.)  He remembers eventually being transferred, still naked, to a gurney.  He remembers them throwing a gown and then a blanket over him.  He remembers them telling him he would get to see his family shortly.  That too was a lie as it wasn’t until well over 2 hours later that we finally flagged down someone so we could find out what had happened to him.  They apparently didn’t care about his mental well being either. 

By the way heifer is the nicest term I can consistently call these RNs.  Because of the Versed and fentanyl, his memories are limited.  He did hypnosis sessions that helped him regain these.  The sessions were very traumatic for him and me but he and I needed answers.  The hypnotist was very careful as to not suggest things to him but rather let him tell his story at his own pace.

Now I know that some may have issues with this story.  We have issues with this story as it is what happened to my husband.   This story should never have happened to him.  I want to tell this story to others because I want them to be aware of what can happen.  This may be the exception to the rule or this may happen more often than we realize.  I don’t know but I do know it can and did happen so everyone should be aware.  We weren’t and this is the result.  Mistreatment, abuse, and the lack of Informed Consent.  Everytime I think or tell this story, I cry because these medical things were so cruel, abusive, and violating to especially my husband.  What I suffered pales in comparison.  The drugs weren’t necessary as he is a big boy and if he had been allowed to exercise his basic human right to freedom to choose his treatment, he would have been okay w/o the drugs.  

He will never be the same again because of what they did to him physically and emotionally.  He had a procedure done without his consent.  The cath lab RNs were abusive, sexually inappropriate, and had a total lack of compassion for him.  If he had been female, this type of over exposure would not have happened.  If he had been female patient, then that female patient would not have been left alone and drugged with 4 male RNs.  They would have kept a female covered up.  I might mention that the transferring hospital sent paperwork to this large Catholic hospital that my husband was gay by stating his spouse was a “husband.”  This may be what prompted him receiving this violative and abusive treatment.  Or it could be that some female nurses like to torture and control especially older males for some sort of issue they suffer from emotionally.

I will say that having seem pictures of some of these heifers, they look like to me they could have issues with me.  One of them, the scrub, when I saw her had the most unpleasant, ugly expression on her overly made-up face.  Her face could launch a thousand nightmares.  If you think I am being unkind, it was earned by them so I will not apologize or even feel somewhat bad about my personal remarks.  They don’t deserve any humanity as they give none in their care.