IU Health Bloomington Hospital — Attraction in Bloomington

I had recent extensive emergency surgery at the Bloomington Hospital. Here is what went good: the surgeon was great converting my minor surgery into major and fixing the life-threatening problem I had. Here is what went bad: They called my pharmacy to get a complete med list with milligrams and dosage and missed some of them including the meds I take for chronic insomnia. Therefore, I was awake the entire night following my surgery. They also switched out the Prilosec I take for heartburn for Zertec which doesn’t work for me. After 3 days of telling them I had to have my husband bring mine in from home. The machine they had my stuff hooked to went off approximately every 30 minutes (2 out of 10 times the nurses actually needed to know about it). The staff seemed baffled by this and went through troubleshooting steps that didn’t work. I got a roommate the last couple of days and her machine went off that much too. It was interesting listening to the aids tell her the same things they told me in the same order. After my surgery, I had a drain tube that was connected to a small bottle. No one checked this bottle and I was unaware I had it. Result: the bottle filled up and I was laying on it. That resulted in it leaking all over my bed undetected for 2 days. I’m sure that wasn’t good for my wound which was supposed to be draining. In my room behind my bed, there was a clear bottle connected to the wall. It had fluid in it that looked similar to what had been draining from my wound. No idea how long it had been there but it looked like it had mold in it. None of the light switches on my bed worked. The only light in my room was surgery room bright. The switch was on the wall by my roommate’s so my light got turned on constantly by mistake. The bathroom was filthy. There was an empty bag of saline that laid in the sink for 3 days. During my 5 days there, not one time did anyone offer to give me a bath of any kind or brush my teeth. On the 3rd day, they came in and told me that they had to move me to a different room. So they walked me down the hall and around a corner to a new room. Five minutes later, a very nervous head nurse came in and said they had to move me back to my old room. She offered to let them move me in the bed I was in. I said that would be great since my old bed was dirty and hadn’t been changed. On day 4, I was finally offered my first solid food. It arrived on a plastic plate with a plastic cover. Everything tasted like old Tupperware Which I couldn’t eat. I have stayed in that hospital many times over the years and the food has always been very good. Not anymore. The evening after I ate the food, my stomach gave it all back up. I started vomiting. My kind roommate and her husband asked if I needed help. They called the nurse while I held a pillow to the staples running up and down my stomach. My nurse came in and seemed very methodical in taking care of the logistics of my situation - checking my vitals, turning off alarms on my machine, etc. My ROOMMATE’s nurse actually seemed to care about ME. She was very sympaetic and even got me a wet rag to clean my face. No one checked to see if I had gotten vomit on my gown. Calling the nurse rarely got the nurse to my room. My last full day there, I called and asked for ice (I was back on ice only). The aid that answered the phone said she would tell my nurse. Having been told this for days with no result, I called again after 15 minutes, the aid acted like she told her but would tell her again. After 15 more minutes, I called again. Finally after an hour, my nurse happened to come into my room. I told her I needed some ice. She acted like this was completely new information. 3 times, my husband happened to walk by the nurses’ station and heard the nurses standing around complaining about the patients while alarms were going off on the switchboard. I got shots in my stomach for blood thinner. The trainee nurse who did my last shot stabbed me like a steak. The most painful shot I’ve ever had. After 5 weeks, I still...

Absolutely Horrible Experience – Will Never Return

My wife and I recently gave birth to our second son at IU Health, and due to health complications, he spent three weeks in the NICU. What should have been a time of support and care turned into one of the most stressful and disappointing experiences of our lives.

From the moment we arrived, the care was appalling:

• During labor, my wife had a nurse who was outright rude and condescending. She refused to let my wife reposition herself for pain relief and treated her like a nuisance rather than a patient in the middle of childbirth.

• Epidural failure: My wife begged for an epidural for over two hours. The anesthesiologist on staff was “busy,” and IU Health had no backup system to call in another one. She suffered in excruciating pain and ended up delivering our son just minutes after they finally administered it—by then, it barely took the edge off. How does a major hospital not have protocols in place for urgent pain management?

• Pushing politics over patient comfort: In the most vulnerable moment of our lives—my wife actively pushing during labor—the hospital brought in a transgender individual without asking if we were comfortable with that. We are aware this is a "progressive" hospital, but medical care should prioritize patients’ needs and comfort, not push agendas in sensitive, intimate moments.

• NICU negligence: The NICU was a rollercoaster. While some nurses were kind, others—specifically Kaitlyn and Cathe—were shockingly rude and unhelpful. We were exhausted, overwhelmed parents trying to care for our son. These nurses told us we wouldn’t get help feeding or changing him if we were present, even threatening to kick me out of a chair if we asked for help. They berated us about keeping a strict feeding schedule (contradicting the doctor’s orders to feed on demand), turned on harsh overhead lights while we tried to rest, and ripped open curtains, removing all privacy. Some nurses left our baby crying for long stretches before checking on him.

Thankfully, the social worker took our complaints seriously and helped change our assigned nurses. Without her, we don’t know how we would’ve made it through.

• Dr. Kunkel’s attitude was disgraceful. We walked into our son's room while she was loudly chatting about a personal story with a nurse. She didn’t acknowledge us for several minutes and only addressed us after finishing her gossip. Completely unprofessional and dismissive.

• Food service was a joke. Nearly every meal had missing items or was completely wrong. And when we called to correct it, we were treated like we were scamming them. In reality, we were just trying to get basic nourishment after being up for 24–36 hours at a time.

Overall, we felt disrespected, unheard, and neglected. IU Health failed to meet even basic expectations for care, communication, or compassion. We will absolutely not be returning for future births or any major medical care.

The only bright spots were a small handful of nurses and the social workers. But beyond that, our experience was...

My Bf, a black man, called ambulance for an emergency last night, they didn’t have sirens on and I’ve seen the city bus drive faster than them. As we pull up an emt asked my bf to rate his pain 1-10, and the emt next to me says to himself ‘everybody’s near death’ in a sarcastic tone, which already irritated me because that is weird and disrespectful to say. We get into the em room, they aggressively drag him onto the bed, and the nurse tells us a few minutes, all the while my bf is moaning in pain. 5-10 min later she comes in with an attitude, and during the questionnaire, my boyfriend asked her a question as loud as day, and she completely ignored him. He asked it again and she turned and got in his face, put her hands all in his face saying ‘I didn’t hear you’ instead of just answering the question. Somehow they made it seem like he was being disrespectful, even though he can’t barely move or talk, and it becomes a whole spectacle even though I was telling the nurse that he’s your patient and it was disrespectful for her to get an attitude like that. His pain was so bad that he didn’t want to live, and instead of administering medication, they put a cop in the room for ‘safety’, and then moved us down the the ‘suicide watch’ ward and left us there for at least an hour. I want you to remember, this is the suicide ward, where ppl who want to die go in the hospital. They had the tv on blast, no remote, no covers, the room had like a garage door as a wall that’s pushing in cold air all over him, small, cramped room with 2 uncomfortable chairs and no light switch. I personally would be even more suicidal being in that room. They finally came in and doped him up, didn’t explain any of the medication just started putting it in him. I went to use the bathroom and asked a nurse where it was, she responded rudely ‘I don’t know, somewhere down there.’ And made me feel bad for asking FOR THE BATHROOM even though she wasn’t busy, and even if she was, what happened to being polite? I go in the ‘suicide ward’ bathroom and it’s beyond dirty. NO toilet paper, NO towels, barely any soap coming out the dispenser, tp clogging the sink… and when I finally get out of there, 2 nurses are blocking the hallway having a conversation, see me waiting for them to move so I can go by, and decide to take their time finishing up their talk. I’ve never seen such a Unsanitary, UNORGANIZED, IMPOLITE, and CARELESS hospital, with careless, rude, and probably racist employees. Never have I had an experience like this, where the hospital gives excuses for their behavior, doesn’t even know which room to put us in, will just treat you any way and hope you don’t have a voice or someone with you to speak for you. They need new and more employees, people who actually want to help people, people who will CLEAN bathrooms and emergency rooms, and they need a new protocol entirely for how they admit people in because at least 3 nurses seemed lost on where to put him, who’s doing what, and they seemed to be not communicating with eachother. American hospital...