Von Voigtlander Women's Hospital — Local services in Ann Arbor

I had eclampsia. My blood pressures were 210/120 - stroke and seizure level. Instead of taking me for a c-section, they refused my requests and forced me to be induced. After 3 long, painful days in hard labor with bed rest, magnesium, pitocin, a failed epidural, ignored c-section requests, manual flipping and rotation of my son, and many other “tricks,” I pushed for 4.5 hours to have my son lodged, facing upward, in my pelvis. My son’s neck was compressed and I was rushed to a c-section. I wasn’t cut the standard 4 inch incision and I hemorrhaged on the OR table. My son was in danger. I was in danger. I couldn’t stop convulsing and my son was born not breathing. He had to be resuscitated and “worked on” as the doctors say. He didn’t pass any of his apgar scores. They also forgot to check his blood sugar at birth, which happened to be dangerously low by the time a nurse was reminded to check it. My son was lethargic, severely bruised and stopped breathing multiple times 24 hours after birth. He was later rushed to the NICU. In the NICU is where I learned that my placenta was sent to pathology (without my knowledge or consent). U of M had let me labor too long - my placenta was infected from prolonged ruptured membranes, it was failing, and the gas levels in the umbilical cord where too low; therefore my son wasn’t getting adequate oxygen. After a scary NICU stay, my son was able to come home. Upon leaving the hospital on blood pressure medication, I was seeing floaters in my right eye. At my postpartum appointment I was told they were related to my blood pressure and eclampsia, and that I should follow up with my primary care doctor. My primary care confirmed it was blood pressure related. I switched medication again. And again. And again. It took months after birth for my blood pressure to finally stabilize. I thought everything had finally calmed down, until one morning in October I woke up and couldn’t see out of my right eye. My eye had hemorrhaged and my retina detached. A wonderful retina specialist performed two surgeries over the last 4 months to save my vision. Unfortunately, there was too much damage to save my eye. It is believed that my elevated blood pressures and strenuous labor caused these effects on my eyes.

Before posting this I tried placing a patient complaint with U of M after my son’s birth and they essentially blamed it on my diabetes and didn’t answer my questions as to why a nurse threw out my medication and tried to say I took it after birth, overdosed my insulin and caused my sugar to severely drop resulting in needing IV d-50 (dextrose), a nurse openly admitting she didn’t know how to use the sliding scale they use to dose insulin through a drip, a nurse practitioner saying that my son stopped breathing because he must “be mad” and laughed, and a doctor threatening me that I wouldn’t be able to hold my son after birth if I didn’t follow all of their orders. U of M later sent me a letter that depicted very false information and incorrectly stated my son’s birthdate. I then moved on to lawyers, and now I just want to make everyone aware of the incidents that took place at U of M Von Voigtlanders...

My delivery at Von Voightlander was the most horrific experience in my life. I begged for an epidural for 2.5 hours and never received one. The attending physician never made it to my delivery room, even after the baby was born. My nurse, Tiffany, was incredibly unprofessional and had a complete lack of empathy for a laboring mother. For that reason, I rate this hospital 0 stars.

I contacted the Head of Nursing in Triage and Patient Relations on several occasions regarding the negligence and malpractice. Head of Nursing's investigation revealed that the hospital was not busy on the night I had my baby. The Head of Anesthesiology also stated that "there was no reason why I should not have had an epidural." Regardless of their findings, there was no apology from the hospital. After Patient Relations was contacted, the board decided that adequate care was provided.

I would not recommend this hospital to any woman who wants to have a good birth experience.

Some of what occurred:

After arriving at triage, I was left in the receiving room alone for over 90 minutes while I was in immense pain after requesting an epidural. We called ahead to inform triage that we were on our way, yet this did not help the staff provide better care.

Sent my husband to go find any staff member to come check on me after 30 minutes. Each of the 3 times someone came into the room, they asked me what procedures the last staff member had completed and if I had planned on an epidural even though I had requested one multiple times.

In the delivery room, Nurse Tiffany was very annoyed that I was in pain, had a complete lack of empathy, wanted me to be quiet, told me that "the contractions don't last forever, you know", told me to sit still with my hands on top of my legs during my contractions or I cannot have an epidural, and refused to support me emotionally or help make me feel better in any way. I continued to ask how long it would take for the epidural to get here as I was clearly in immense pain, and she said "we're not withholding it, you know." When I explained this to the Head of Nursing, I was told that I "must have misread her intentions."

The attending physician did not make it to my room, even after the birth of my baby

After the delivery, I inquired when we will be moving to the recovery room, to which Nurse Tiffany replied: "I need to check you in first."

The investigation into my complaint took 6 months, and we had to follow up many times to get any results. While Head of Anesthesiology concluded that "there is no reason why the patient should not have had an epidural," Patient Relations determined that "Adequate care was provided."

The hospital was never able to provide any explanation as to why my stay in triage was so long and without care, and why the attending physician never made it to my delivery. The Head of Nursing simply blamed it on "a systematic error, and that no individual was at fault."

Based on these findings, it is clear that the hospital will not apologize or make right a situation especially if they are at fault for negligence and...

I truly wish I was able to give this a better rating. I had high hopes when accompanying my mother to what I thought was one of the best hospitals in the state for her surgery. Unfortunately, I was quite disappointed.

TLDR: the care itself (surgery) was fine but the communication was horrendous and wait times were ridiculous.

We arrived in advance of the check in time and were told we’d be helped quickly. We waited for 1.5 hours without any updates. When the nurse came to take her, I was told I was not allowed to accompany her despite originally being told I could. I was asked to wait for a “short bit of time” without any indication as to how long that would be.

After surgery was complete, we received a string of updates with conflicting information. We were told we could see her and we started getting ready to go the hospital and then we were told we couldn’t see her yet. This happened twice. After being told we could come the third time, I packed up and went and didn’t wait for them to change their mind (again).

Upon arrival at the hospital, we went where we were told to go. However, no one knew where she was. I had to explain she had likely left post-op and was now in a room and had to ask them to call whoever knows who is in what room to figure out where she was. After about 30 minutes, they were finally able to locate her.

Her stay was relatively uneventful, mostly because I came and helped out when she needed it. When planning for discharge, I asked if she could stay an additional day because she was woozy, would have a difficult time with pain on the drive home, and she wasn’t fully with it. The nurse said that probably wouldn’t happen. When I asked why I was essentially told “the hospital wants to make as much money as possible and we’d rather fill the bed with someone we can make more money on.” There wasn’t genuine empathy for her condition. Instead, she was a number and the medical attention she would receive would be based upon finances. This is truly a disgrace.

During discharge prep, I specifically asked for her prescription to be sent to our pharmacy at home, which is a 2 hour drive away. They sent it to the hospital we were in. And, they waited until we arrived for discharge to send the prescription in. They had 5 hours to send it in before we got there, but didn’t feel the need to do so.

I’m currently standing in the pharmacy waiting for a prescription that was supposed to be filled at a different pharmacy. It’s been over an hour wait. We have a 2 hour drive home with someone who has just been through extensive abdominal surgery. I think displeased is putting it lightly.

I don’t share this to be mean. Individuals should be able to make informed healthcare decisions. Personally, I would never use this hospital again and what I saw made me afraid to even consider having a child here. Reading reviews, it is apparent others feel the same way. I’d suggest going elsewhere for your...