Morton Plant Hospital — Attraction in Clearwater

TLDR: My wife with Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD) and lifelong chronic medical conditions and traumas was discriminated against, ignored, and gaslit by members of her patient care team including her doctor. Very concerned with their own reputations and not with treating patients and helping them.

I will start this review by saying that the team in the ER was amazing and that they helped her quickly and Admitted her. That’s where the real problems begin. We went to the ER at 2 AM yesterday because my wife was in extreme pain due to what we thought was a UTI. She had already been to HCA twice and was prescribed two different antibiotics. None of them worked and the pain was worsening so we decided we needed to go to a better hospital, or so we thought.

The ER team was amazing And she had a room fairly quickly. They assessed her tested her urine and sent it off to be cultured. They determined she had a severe UTI and needed to be admitted. The plan was to give her a stronger anabiotic by IV and monitor her and address her pain as needed. Yesterday, her pain reached a level eight, which is very strong for her considering she had complex medical conditions her entire life and deals with pain on a daily basis. A level eight pain for her is excruciating beyond my comprehension. Yesterday all day they were trying to manage her pain with various things like ibuprofen, Tylenol, pyradine, And Toradol to no avail. They finally, after 10 excruciating hours of pain, Got the doctor to prescribe dilaudid. Which quickly brought the pain down from a level eight to a level three. This allowed her to fall asleep, which she hadn’t done in over 24 hours. She woke up the next morning without pain. After using the restroom, the pain quickly came back. After each use of the restroom, her pain got worse and worse. We reported this to the nurse and they asked if she would like more Dilaudid or Norco. My wife does not like using prescription drugs. She opted for Norco, which was a pill instead of the Dilaudid, because the pain wasn’t as bad as yesterday. The pain grew to a level 4 to 5, which was progress, However, after two hours, she reported the pain was back to a level six. The nurse asked if she wanted pyradine, To which she said yes. It did not work. The nurse told her that if it didn’t work within an hour to call her back and they would try Dilaudid again. About an hour later, the doctor came in and told her she was being discharged. There was no indication of infection in the culture and her CT scan was fine showing no concerning points. My wife is still at a level six pain level at this point. Because of her chronic health issues, she was not presenting as in pain. The doctor never asked if she was in pain. The doctor kept insisting they cannot prescribe her any Narcotics and that she could lose her license. We kept trying to say that we weren’t interested in narcotics. We were interested in a resolution as she was still in extreme pain. I asked the doctor if there was a urologist on call that could come and examine her. She told us that my wife would have to see a urologist and get a referral from her primary care doctor. Mind you, we are in the ER for extreme pain in the bladder. Why they would not issue a referral baffles me. And why they didn’t listen to us when we said we were not interested in medication also baffles me.

About 30 minutes later, my wife sees on her phone that the doctor’s report is available. She opens it up and The doctor said she was not in pain which was a lie.

i’m running out of characters, but then the nurse came in and said the same thing. we tried to say the doctors report was incorrect. The nurse started getting defensive and rude which caused my wife to have a trauma response which included swearing. I tried to go out and talk to the nurse and explain it was due to PTSD, but she scoffed and walked away while gesturing at me. My wife’s mom, Who has experienced the worst with her during her childhood chronic issues, Told us to go and that this was no longer a safe space for...

I was bought to the ER this morning by ambulance with excruciating flank pain. I was pleased to be assigned a room in the ER immediately upon arrival but this was unfortunately one of the few positives of the day I spent here. Ultimately I was diagnosed as having kidney stones, but not before:

1. A very relaxed approach by staff in administering pain medication..I was in absolute agony and received zero sympathy from staff. Jacob was my nurse, and he was polite and answered my questions but I felt the interactions lacked compassion

2. Staff at the scanning area asked whether I was able to get from my bed to the scanning machine myself or whether the pain was so much that they could slide me. When I opted for them to slide me, they were visibly irritated at having to do so, in spite of having offered themselves! Once in the scanning machine when the dye went in, the pain became unbearably excruciating and I was screaming and crying out. No one responded to my cries (through the intercom) but I could hear them in the background laughing and talking to one another. Eventually after minutes of scanning in agony, they walked over to me laughing and joking amongst one another, completely ignored I was crying in pain and told me I could now bring my arms down from above my head. I told them I was in severe pain and they dismissed it entirely and said they couldnt do anything about it and my nurse would need to deal with that. No sympathy, no compassion, completely inhumane.

3. I was bought back to the room in the ER and just left there, no handover to the nurse nor anyone informed of how much pain I was in. I was screaming and crying out in pain (which I would never do, unless I was intensely suffering - I have a pretty high pain threshold). Staff just walked past my open door - some chose to just ignore my cries and not bother to even look at me, and others would walk past glancing in irritably. After 10mins of screaming in agony, I heard a member of staff say she was going to close the door because "the patient is being noisy" and she came into the room and said my nurse would be there soon and then slammed the door closed. I spent the next few mins sobbing partially through pain but also at the way I had been treated. Im sure people in prison hospitals are treated with more dignity than I was in that moment.

After 8hrs at the ER I was discharged with prescription for medication for the stone to pass itself. The ladies at reception, after the horrendous treatment throughout the day, were absolutely wonderful and helpful and took their time to help completing paperwork, as I am currently on holiday in Florida from Europe, with a European health insurance. They were patient, considerate and determined to be as helpful as they could.

This is my first trip to the US and sadly this 10day trip found me unexpectedly in the ER. I certainly hope that this is not a reflection of American healthcare. Im left utterly speechless and saddened at the inherent lack of any humanity by people who are doing some of the countries most amazing jobs. I have since read other reviews of peoples elderly parents being left for hours with injuries in the ER and other patients who have similarly experienced despicable behaviour from ER staff. I dont know if this is a training issue or whether Morton Plant needs to reassess its hiring criteria but this needs structural address.

All of your online review responses are equally as cold as your staff - standard text that this is escalated to hospital leadership and will be used to inform improvements and a standard request to complete an online form. Just to be clear - I have completed the form as well. Im lucky that we have great healthcare where Im from in Europe, and I sincerely hope that you will take feedback seriously and genuinely recognise the need to action this - as your citizens of Florida deserve much, much better...

I feel like someone purposely hurt my mom here. She's in a different floor now this admission and the one one prior a week before has been horrible for her. Week in May they jostled her around, pushed and man handled her with her freshly new hip. When she came home her hip was hurting she did not want to go back she was petrified of being tortured again by having her side repeatedly pushed on. I did not imaginen anyone knowing someone had surgery would treat someone that way and promised her I'd go with her she really needed to go back. Each day her leg got worse until she couldn't stand it anymore and it ended up having an infection and she had sepsis. The meds they put mom on were needed but made her out of it cognitively reading on them they can do that. A transport man and her nurse were quickly trying to move her after a procedure and despite being told her history and asked to slow down they still did it their way and rushed it. Their was a third lady in the RM but not sure how much of moms history she knew but she should of been aware with me asking them to slow down and be gentle. She screamed in pain. Her Ortho was called and she did an x ray. That was clear. Days later my mom's in pain. Somehow her hip was dislocated. My mom was so weak she couldn't pick up a straw or sit up etc. someone did that to her. She's thankfuly on a different floor and they are treating her with respect, taking time to move her gently, utilizing the bed and up and down and lifting her with the sheets. The other floors nurses literally grabbed her body to pull her back up and pushed on her side. I asked to file official complaints and have received nothing in writing. Two people called from her old floor and apologized. The hospital itelsef as a whole should be responding when they have nurses that are doing things that hurt patients Today my mom is still out of it but kept trying to tell about the two mean girls that come in hurt her and steal stuff. She's not all the way in her right mind but she's definitely scared of some there who hurt her from the other floor. Morton Plant is not as perfect as I thought it once was and how they follow up and through with complaints leaves a lot to be concerned with. If you are in the same boat reach out the Medicaid, Medicare, dept of health, the patience health insurance and I'm sure their a few that I am missing. I know my mom would not be where she is now without the admission in May being so cruel transporting her especially since I witnessed a push with my own eyes during this admission. I feel sick every time I know my mom was treated that way. It was a choice to do their jobs quicker rather than what was best for the patient. IV already called all theirs numbers and I am not happy with their follow up. I want to know who hurt my mom again and this time dislocated her hip. Just because they are supposed to be the best around don't trust them. I am a long time resident and can't believe this crap has even happened and the lack of follow up. Feel like they are just hoping we forget my mom's leg was dislocated after we wanted to file official complaints about the other nurse pushing on her side and...