MemorialCare Long Beach Medical Center Emergency Room — Attraction in Long Beach

Horrific ER Experience – Neglect, Dismissiveness & Medical Misconduct

My 27-year-old niece is four weeks post-surgery and was experiencing severe pain, swelling, and light bleeding from the incision site. Instead of receiving timely, compassionate care, she endured hours of neglect, dismissal, and outright mistreatment until she couldn't take it anymore and left to go to another ER.

Hypertensive Crisis Ignored:

When they finally took her vitals, her blood pressure was a life-threatening 186/120, a hypertensive crisis requiring immediate attention. No one addressed it. They simply gave her a single non-narcotic pain reliever and sent her back to wait even longer without any further monitoring or intervention.

Disrespect, Stereotyping & Medical Negligence:

She clearly stated she did not want narcotics but needed pain relief. Instead of taking her condition seriously, staff judged and dismissed her, likely due to her neck tattoo and her transparency about taking Suboxone, a medication for opioid dependence. Later, the front desk staff gave contradictory wait times, first saying there were three people ahead, then suddenly seven or more, all while others were being discharged. It became clear she was being treated differently based on bias, not medical urgency.

None of her medical concerns were addressed:

Post-surgical pain, swelling, and bleeding? Ignored. Hypertensive crisis? Ignored. Any actual medical evaluation? Didn’t happen. After hours of being treated with rudeness, condescension, and total disregard for her well-being, she left in tears, unable to endure the neglect and mistreatment any longer.

Fraudulent & Slanderous Medical Documentation:

The most egregious action of all? Dr. Justin falsely documented in her MyChart that she "eloped"—a completely inaccurate and damaging term.

In medical records, "eloped" implies a psychiatric patient fled the hospital, rather than a patient leaving out of frustration due to medical neglect. The proper term, AMA (Against Medical Advice), wasn’t even appropriate since she was never actually given medical advice or treatment. Now, this false label is in her records for all future providers to see, potentially affecting her future care.

She IS Medical Staff - She Knows ER & Psych Protocol as a medical team member:

Ironically, my niece has worked in an ER trauma center in North Carolina for two years and previously worked in psych. She knows hospital protocol and was fully aware of how wrong this treatment was. Instead of treating her as an informed patient, they assumed she was an ignorant junkie and dismissed her legitimate suffering.

This Will Not Be Ignored:

This incident will be escalated to the highest levels within Long Beach Memorial Hospital’s administration and beyond.

This ER displayed:

-Medical negligence – Ignoring a hypertensive crisis and post-surgical complications. -Discrimination and stereotyping – Judging a patient by tattoos and medication history instead of treating her condition. -False and damaging medical documentation – Falsely labeling a patient as "eloped" instead of documenting the real issue: she was neglected and abandoned by medical staff. -Poor facility conditions – A freezing cold waiting room that made an already unbearable experience even worse.

Long, Unbearable Wait in Freezing Conditions:

During this horrific experience, having to wait in a freezing cold waiting room was not ideal - It's inhumane at best. The automatic sliding doors remained open, and there was no heat inside.

Instead of wasting money on a remodel, this hospital should have invested in better staff and proper patient care. Avoid this ER at all costs.

P.S. To the PR department - Aren't you getting tired of apologizing to the hundreds of negative reviews? This facility should be closed down. Being open puts the public in harms way by your inability to provide proper, efficient, effective medical care. Stop wasting the...

I would leave zero stars if I could. Staff will hurt you more than help you here. After waiting 14 hours being told I couldn’t eat, nearly throwing up in an MRI, being ignored for another 4 hours with stabbing chest pains being told I couldn’t eat, receiving no medicine for 4 hours, gritting my teeth through a second MRI — a young emergency room doc with no information says they’re discharging me with what I already told them, that I have migraines.

I literally can’t see, I’ve never had a migraine symptom like this, they did nothing to address my lack of vision, took 4 hours to give me the Zofran / Reglan and antacid I asked for to address the burning stabbing chest pain and nausea that was preventing me from laying still in an hour long MRI, probably because nurses told me I couldn’t eat — for 20 hours. This is the hospital where I was born. I came because my mother (a former ER attending and chief medical officer) told me that my vision problems (double and triple vision for a month any time I put on my glasses or tried to focus) were so severe that I should go to an emergency room.

I asked to speak with the neurologist and the nurses refused. Two female nurses savaged my veins and left me bleeding on the sheets so I had to get up and find another nurse (a kind young man) to apply pressure to the IV site. When I asked to speak to a supervisor, they called me rude and called security, forcing me out of the hospital for asking for better care, without my shoes or wallet at 2am in the pitch black night, when I still couldn’t see.

Complete and utter incompetence, lack of compassion, no medical care, intentional infliction of emotional and physical distress to a patient who reported being an assault victim by threatening her with assault. While I was waiting in the parking lot for my mother to pick me up, the security staff of the hospital sent goons in a truck to follow me, chase me, tell me their “father was gonna come take care of me,” threatening to kill me until I called the police, reported them, they got in their truck and fled.

The 2-3 male security guards out in front of the ER did nothing to help me, a patient and a thin, frail woman alone at night. The security guards talked to the men who threatened my life (who I couldn’t see). That will be clear on the security footage, which the hospital has probably already erased.

Honestly a Hell on Earth. Not worth anyone’s time or tax dollars. I’ve already reported this location to state authorities and filed a report with the police. I am considering legal action for battery and felony threat of assault, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Ignore the comment from the hospital posted in early August 2025. They say the “investigation” is “in review” and refuse to provide the security footage from the night in question even now, in mid August 2025.

Meaningless apologies and empty promises to “provide feedback” for this sick joke of a “care team” would never be sufficient. If Memorial had competent public affairs or legal teams, they would issue me a formal apology in writing taking accountability for their employees’ criminal harassment, assault, and failure to provide basic medical care. This hospital’s grave yard team forced me out into the dark, unable to see, without my shoes or wallet, providing me no medical care for my lack of vision, because a cruel female nurse who wasn’t a part of my team didn’t like that I asked to see a supervising doctor when she was not able to explain or provide treatment for my...

I had to take my son here for a head laceration. The only reason he did not go straight to an urgent care is because the time of night...they were all closed. So, we waited. No big deal to wait. There are many dying and he was not one of them. However, while waiting in the waiting room, I listened with my young son as staff talked repeatedly about "Schweddy Balls" from the SNL skit while one couldn't stop saying "Schweddy Balls" for like two straight minutes. These are the staff members, not clients. Then watching the PA eating chips with her bare hands in the station going straight to rooms to provide care and back to eating chips without a single moment of hand sanitation was a bit gross. The worst part of the visit was the fact that they injected my son's head with lidocaine and IMMEDIATELY put in staples. This was a bit traumatizing for my son especially since I prepped him to assume that the shots will hurt, but then he should only feel pressure afterwards. Instead he got pain throughout...every stab, every staple in his 10 year old head. When I brought this to the attention of the hospital, assuming they would like to ensure their patients get better care than that, they basically sent me a letter after investigation saying "Although the effects of lidocaine to act as a numbing medication occur within 1-2 minutes, we truly regret any discomfort (my son's name) experienced." Thus, communicating they feel it should have worked (despite not even a minute passing). Also, in my 6 years in emergency medicine, especially when dealing with a child, it is nice to check you actually numbed the area before proceeding. So, the worst part of all is that the hospital does not care to improve their patient care...which says the most. One person doing something wrong is one thing, but an investigative team deeming it unimportant if care was provided properly is quite sad. I just moved to the area, but will be sure to learn who the Pediatric Chairman of their ED is and hope nobody on the grievance committee have a family member...