Novant Health Presbyterian Medical Center — Local services in Charlotte

Do not go to this hospital if you actually need any form of help with health they’ll probably kill you or just give you no treatment. In April 2024 I went into the hospital with my parents (I am just a teenager so I needed parental assistance), with a severe concussion. I had Expressive aphasia and Receptive aphasia, a form of brain damage. Everything around me was confusing, i couldn’t verbally respond to the people around me i mostly was stuttering, and i couldn’t register absolutely anything happening on around me. When I got there, I waited in the waiting room for a few hours before they took me back to see what was going on. No one knew until weeks later that I had a full blown concussion because all they did was took my blood. No brain scans- MRIs, Neuropsychological Testing, CT scanning, & Neurodiagnostic Testing. I have been diagnosed with PTSD and anxiety in the past, so there was a mental patient screaming which the concussion affected my anxiety (studies shown that it affects it or causes it) and I the nurses refused to put me in a room or place me anywhere away from another dangerous patient and said very rude things to me. Later on they finally put me in a little room where they asked me medical questions. Since I had a severe concussion I was not able to answer them due to the lack of ability of brain function. Since they had no beds and didn’t feel the need to treat me for anything, I was thrown into a wheelchair, and thrown into the mental hospital! The nurse said there was no bed for me anyway, and later on we learned that she lied and wrote down I had “suicidal thoughts”, which was illegal for her to do since I never said that, and they would have had to ask me other questions if I had said so, and now my family is having to take legal action against this hospital and the nurse that caused all of this. I never got any form of treatment for my concussion and was left in the mental hospital for 5 days. Now let me tell you what the mental hospital was like! I was on my period but I was not aloud to have any female products or even underwear so I had to bleed everywhere, I wasn’t aloud to brush my teeth, shower, and didn’t eat for 5 days straight,(which they gave me food but small amounts but I never ended up eating and they would just take it back after 20 minutes of me not eating it so they didn’t quite care if I was getting any form of nutrients) I never got to brush my hair, which my hair is quite long and gets tangled. All of the nurses were so mean, they would say rude horrible things, and just open the curtain to see if you were just breathing and just simply walk away. The hospital tried to keep me there for finical gaining too when there was no absolute reason for me to even be a mental patient, i literally just had a concussion. Right before the hospital I left I looked at my mom and smiled happy to go home, the nurse CRYSTAL, held a paper between me and my moms faces so i couldn’t look at her anymore and said to me “You need to grow up and cope with life and that your mother is going to die and you will be all alone so you might as well stay here, now how are you going to cope in life? ANSWER ME ANSWER ME!” Right in front of my mother, to this day I will never forget what the nurse said to me. Why do you have her hired? Especially have her working with mental patients? Basically me and my family are taking legal action against this medical hospital. They never treated me for my concussion which I could have ended up with even worse neurological problems. This review is me speaking out on how they treated me at this hospital. It will only let me give one star review, but if I could I’d give it 0. Honestly go to Atrium, not Novant. I will not stop speaking up. Honestly you guys suck harder than Elton John.

Update: You guys screwed the insurance billing, I’m under my moms, I don’t have my own. You put it under my name and even spelt my name wrong, another mess to fix. Also heading home from work, saw you guys leave wheelchair patient out at the bus stop and left her waving for...

I still have depression and nightmares over how my mother was cared for and died due to negligence care there in 2013. (see more about this below) I had 2 years by law to sue for her negligence care that resulted in her death. But, after contacting multiple attorneys and being rejected after being told hospital born infection cases are difficult to win. I think it was because, lawyers, doctors, hospital CEOS run in the same social circles, which makes the whole holding them accountable political. Where are the lawyers and commissions that protect the rights of patients and there care in North Carolina? I talked to a lot of different organizations that encouraged me to sue, but warned it may be difficult to find an attorney in our small town environment that governs our city and state because of relationships of individuals in power. My aunt who retired from professional patient medical hospital care, also warned me of the lawyer/hospital personnel relationships. And said the records could disappear or be altered before a case was built as a cover up. Even thro, I was my mom appointed person for her care the hospital refused to give me records. My name is signed on all her paper work as the person to allow her information to be given to with her doctors and hospital. She losted use of her arms and hands while she was in the hospital. The social service rep. refused to allow me to sign the Power of Attorney, even after she repeatedly told them she wanted me as her Power of Attorney/Living Will representative. She told them that in front of the doctors and once in front of my aunt and uncle. Still they would not let me sign it based upon her verbal request, because she wasn't able to use her hands to sign first. She never got well enough to sign. So, I couldn't get her records.

There are many people of color with horror stories about poor care at this hospital. These stories go back decades to even I was a child, (am over 60). So, do the math. That's why CMC was always been the preferred hospital of choice for people of color in Charlotte, having money, race, religion or great insurance wasn't required to receive great service there, ever!

As it shouldn't be in any hospital. Novant Healthcare aka Presbyterian Hospital have some serious patient care improvements to do for sure! My Novant doctor said "I always thought they were the best." I said "not for people of color". Especially, if you old, poor or lower middle class. I told her they have always preferred the rich and well to do. Its how people of color who grew up here see them. I thought it was changing until my mom died of negligence care. She said she feared she wasn't going home, she did get released for short time but was still very sick and they knew it, she and I questioned her release because her 14 days of treatment was not completed. But, was told.the nursing home would take over. She still had a hospital born IV treated infection that had not been completely treated before her release.

She complained daily about her care and was in alot if pain from being placed in a wrong bed for over a week due to a chart mixup. We tried to tell them the bed purpose was not meant for her. Finally, a great nurse checked her chart and discovered the person the bed was meant for papers were accidentally put in her files. We tried to tell everyone from the nurses to the doctors for over a week!!! She didn't have surgery do why put her in a bed for surgery patients (as they called the bed). We only had one doctor that she loved that cared for her for a week and resolved her pain issues and bed issue. He was great. It was another great doctor in ICU that informed us of the infection treatment incompletion, he showed me her records. But, it was too far gone by the time her improper release to the nursing home, landed her back in ICU! Before, her untimely release from the hospital, she told me she wasn't going to make it home and she didn't. Rest in peace...

While I appreciate that they did finally get my mother a diagnosis after months of us chasing our tails, I was very disturbed by how her case was handled.

Even before getting an accurate biopsy result or staging, they told my mother that she had cancer and that there was nothing to be done. It took a full week from when they identified the mass in her stomach on CT to when we finally got the diagnosis of metastatic gastric cancer. In the meantime, there seemed to be no sense of urgency. Medical oncology was not brought on until she had already decided on hospice care.

But it's what happened after she died that led me to writing this review. My dad was alone with her when she died and he was beyond devastated. I had to reach out to the funeral home and to get my aunt, so it took me about 2 hours to get to the room. Outside of a couple of nurses, who had come in to get him off of the floor and onto the bench and sat with him for a few minutes, no one was brought in to comfort him or to try and get him out of the room. They didn't even cover her. When I came in my dad had passed out on the bench and when we tapped his shoulder, he came to, saw her body and immediately started wailing. He didn't respond to us and his breathing was irregular. I ran to the nursing station and reported that I am very concerned for his mental and physical well being and that he isn't coherent, only to be informed that he isn't a patient. Meanwhile, I can clearly hear him from the nurse's station, which means that so could all of the patients and visitors on the oncology floor-- I can only imagine how that must have felt for them to listen to that for 2+ hours. I had to demand that they call a chaplain or someone from grief services before someone was finally brought in. It took me and my aunt forcibly insisting that he is not in any state to be taken home before any sort of concern was shown. They left him alone to traumatize himself again and again for over two hours, I cannot begin to emphasize how cruel that is.

The chaplain at least was very kind and he and the nurse who had bothered to get my dad off of the floor helped arrange for my dad to be checked out by the emergency department so that we could ensure he was safe to go home. He had to be taken in a wheelchair with my aunt because he couldn't walk on his own.

I filled out the paperwork and sat with my mom's body until my dad was cleared by the emergency room and could return. I wanted to stay with her until the funeral director came, but we couldn't keep dad in that room and I had to prioritize getting him home. However, I had called the funeral director to let them know to expect a call from Novant, and I had filled out the hospital paperwork to release her body with the express orders that any calls should be going to me. I figured that was done and so I went about continuing to make preparations for the funeral and caring for my dad.

I was NOT expecting to get a call from the Funeral Director the following morning stating that Novant never contacted him to pick up her body and that he was getting worried but they wouldn't give him details when he called. So, less then 24 hours after losing my mother, I had to go through the horrifying process of trying to figure out just what Novant had done with my mom's body. Turns out the paperwork was never sent down from oncology. It took me actually sobbing and half shouting at the person who'd taken the call to get her to change her tone from "oh we'll get it taken care of as soon as possible" to "I'm calling them now." I can only imagine how my dad would have reacted had he been the one called.

Losing my mother was traumatic enough, I didn't need this in addition. I worked with head and neck cancer patients for 3 years, so I am at least familiar with how the system is supposed to function and how to advocate for my mom and my family. I am gravely concerned for the families who don't have...