HealthAlliance Hospital — Local services in City of Kingston

I was admitted to this hospital Monday, 10/30/23, via ambulance @ approx 6am. During stay asked for a toothbrush/toothpaste repeatedly & never once brushed my teeth during entire stay up to discharge (before I was ready) on 11/3/23. I had not eaten any food since the previous Friday, was not given any water, except for meds. Was not put on a saline drip, despite not having any water or food until late Wednesday after requesting it due to severe dizziness & my son was on phone w me & asked why I wasn’t on a saline drip (over 60 hours no fluids). I had not been washed or cleaned up at all, by anyone, only had my sheets changed by visiting nursing school students, because they saw the sheet was ripped. I had not eaten anything until Thursday & was unable to eat all liquids given. Sugar dropped to under 40 & I did not have a bowel movement the entire time & previous to coming in I had went several weeks without one. My pain medication was not given every 3 hours as I was promised it would due to that is how I’ve been taking my medications for over 10 years. My BP dropped to 80/50 which was due to no food, water, & medication Propranolol that was prescribed for Essential Tremors. Told them to stop the Propranolol & they did (found out not weaning off I could’ve caused stroke/heart attack) & my BP immediately responded & went up but I was still being denied morphine via IV, was waiting over 5 hours for pain med. Was told by a PA (no physician, PA for a Dr Goldstein) that I had a mass on my pancreas that was most likely cancerous but not to discuss w my family because they normally get “very upset about these things”. That is verbatim. I was treated horribly, was not ready to be discharged & yet was. Told all staff that came into room that my son would be picking me up no later than 8pm & that I couldn’t leave with anyone else due to not having my crutches which I need to walk. I immediately was told by a woman “what cab company do you want for pick up” - after stating I HAD TO WAIT FOR MY SON BECAUSE I CANNOT WALK WITHOUT A WALKER OR CRUTCHES & was told I would not be able to use a walker or crutches from hospital. I was unable to eat solid foods, constipated for weeks, not checked for blockage, pain was at 9/10 & was treated horrifically. Now, I am missing a white, cotton, waffle weave textured robe with a tie that hits below knee, believe size small, that was on the bed of Spellman 4 room 8. Not one person went over my personal affects with me to make sure I had everything. The robe was my Gram’s, I was wearing it when she passed away in my arms & is more sentimental than anything I can think of. I have called twice about the robe, it’s gone. I’ve seen my GP & he agreed I should not have been discharged & due to still having a distended stomach, severe abdominal pain, constipation, heartburn, severe dizziness & being unable to eat or take in enough fluids. I was forced to leave due to the PA or Dr making the decisions in my case refusing to give proper pain medication. I have never been treated so inhumane in all the years I’ve had CRPS, a neurological disease that majority of people working at hospital did not know anything about & had RN’s tell me they had to Google it. Majority of nurses were wonderful but did have a few that were nasty & dealt with an extremely nasty nurse in the ER that yelled I would get Tramadol & nothing stronger, despite ER doctor stating I would be receiving my meds as I do at home & morphine for break through pain & was promised by admitting Dr would receive exact medication regimen I do at home, along w IV morphine for break through pain. My pain level never went under 8, entire time I was in the hospital & was 9/10 the last two days consistently. Lack of pain med caused the CRPS to flare causing dystonia in hands & feet & lost consciousness. Filled out paperwork for financial hardship & they sent bill to collections, despite receiving a copy of income & being a for profit hospital, violation of NY State Law. Hospital is one of many, a monopoly that doesn’t care about...

It is astounding the level of malice and hatred of patients that is the policy of this institution. I was in a serious car accident in which I am a delivery driver snd had driven 13 hours that night. I was on my home almost home actually and I accidentally fell asleep, went off the road, and struck a tree head on. I woke up just before I struck the tree. I was concussed and disoriented and I was very close to my home (about a mile). I walked home and called the police in the morning. Yes I did not realize doing things in this order is technically illegal, however I complied with the investigation by police, I went and had sleep tests done and in the end the ticket was dropped.

While staying here you will hear nurses constantly shouting “THIS ISNT A HOTEL! Oh! I DONT CARE THIS ISNT A HOTEL!” This is the mantra of the hospital they say it so often you would swear it is in their training. They say this as the reason the reason they are anllowed to treat you like human garbage And my god, they really really don’t care. I mean maybe they are all sadists and get pleasure for patients being in pain. I mean I was in a lot of pain. Maybe the most I have ever been in. I had broken my back, I had serious and painful contusions all in my chest. I had been taking suboxone (the reason for which I would buy suboxone on the street is for the exact reason I am writing this review. Most in the medical field treat people who became addicts because our doctors prescribed us this stuff like trash.) for a couple years because I have serious back issues and am in a lot of pain. I am a millennial so I was prescribed addictive painkillers for years so I take suboxone as maintenance. I also took a non narcotic supplement for anxiety as I had just graduated from a private 4 year college. They gave me baclofen (a non narcotic gaba muscle relaxer) The doctors only gave me 10mg of Oxycodone every 6-8 hours. This is a tiny dose that is much less powerful than the suboxone I took every day. I had to have my girlfriend sneak me my suboxone dose every day because I was sick with withdrawal!! Then they would always always be late with pain meds so I had to go 8-10 hours in excruciating pain. It hurt to exist. It hurt to breathe. Every breath hurt. At one point they had just done yet another ex ray or mri and had to cover me in lead pads. This started really hurting and when I hit the pain meds button the nurse freaked out on me and shouted “ITS TOO EARLY YOU DONT GET THEM YET!!” Nobody told me I had to wait a certain number of hours before I could get a redose. I was in pain. At that point I lost it and as a 34 year old man I wept. I was there for 4 days and just hearing nurses be so mean to patients all day long made me sick to my stomach. All day long all I heard was “WELL! ITS NOT A HOTEL!” Basically “it’s not my job to make you feel comfortable so I’m not gonna!” I don’t care if I will die-I am never ever ever going to be a patient here again. I will refuse an ambulance if it comes here.

The neuro surgeon who was assigned to me told me to get a suboxone doctor to prescribe me suboxone, and get prescribed baclofen so I could stop taking this Chinese made drug I was getting online. Mind you the reason I was doing that was I did not want to deal with any more doctors being jerks to me. Guess what!?

I kid you not the hospital 100% tried to gaslight me into believing the instructions given to me were different. Yep. I went to the doctor I had at the time who refused to care for me at all because I had gotten a suboxone doctor and actually kicked me out of the practice because I had gone into withdrawal and had argued with her. I came to the hospital to have them help me AND THEY JUST LIED AND LIED AND LIED 100% REFUSING TO HEPP ME.

SO WHAT DID I do?

Well I suffered.

I had to buy more drugs from China and I had to suffer until they got here. Then I had to lower the dose slowly and quit myself. It really sucked and I really had a terrible time.

These guys like watching people suffer in their...

THEY KILLED MY FATHER!!! THEY SENT HIM HOME WITH DOUBLE PNEUMONIA, SEVERE DEHYDRATION AND SEVERE KIDNEY FAILURE! WALKED IN & 3 DAYS LATER A COMPLETE VEGETABLE!! DIRTY NASTY PLACE! TOLD US HE WAS DEHYDRATED AND HAD A VIRUS, 3 HOURS LATER HE WAS ALL FIXED AND READY TO GO HOME LMAO!!! EXCUSE ME?? YOU FIXED A VIRUS AND SEVERE DEHYDRATION IN 3 HOURS?? DO NOT GO HERE!! HIRE A CIRCUS MONKEY TO HELP YOU INSTEAD, I PROMISE YOU WILL HET BETTER RESULTS…. READ BELOW This hospital is horrendous! My father is 78 years old and has Alzheimer’s, he went in for a mental evaluation and was able to walk, talk, eat, shower and go to the bathroom on his own. The first 5 days he was in there they did not give him any of his medications which were very important as they were for his heart, blood pressure, prostate and so on. These medications are also the type that cannot be just cut out cold turkey because of severe withdrawal symptoms. The day he went in I provided a list of medications, dosage and frequency but upon getting transferred to another unit they did not send any information about his meds with him “he was still in the same hospital just a different floor” soon after that he became unable to walk or move, eat, talk or use the bathroom anymore. They had given him so many antipsychotic drugs so they did not have to deal with his Alzheimer’s that he was basically in a coma. We were at the hospital every single day to visit and make sure he was being cared for but as soon as we would leave the care was over unfortunately. If we did not feed him his food would just sit there because he could not move at all. They told us that he was acting that way because of the progression of the Alzheimer’s “ I seriously doubt in 6-7 days it progressed so much he was a vegetable” they kept giving him medication we did not want him to have but as soon as the shift would change the next doctor or nurse would change the chart back to the same meds instead of finding out why they were no longer on the chart. Every day I asked if he was getting dehydrated because he had no IV drop or was not drinking and they said absolutely not. I continued to ask every day until one day they told us he was severely dehydrated and had an infection! “I asked every day about those two things and was told not to worry” his right arm was not supposed to be used for blood pressure or needles and there was even a big sign behind him saying so but they just kept using the right arm “this was due to blood clots in right arm” the list goes on and on and I would need to write a book to tell you everything. We tried to take him out of the hospital over and over but they said he was not clear to leave because of health reasons. All of the sudden one day they said he needs to be out the next day by noon because he has a clean bill of health lol “ He was released with a temperature, unable to walk, move, eat, talk or go to the bathroom” how did they expect us to all of the sudden care for someone in this condition? We rushed around and bought a hospital bed and all of the supplies we needed “thank god my parents have the money and planned for the future” not everyone is able to produce the money needed in snap to buy all of these things. Now he is home in a hospital bed and basically in a coma when before he went in was sleeping in a bed with my mother and eating at the dinner table on his own. There is never the same doctor there 2 days in a row so it’s a complete joke! Some of the nurses were very nice, compassionate and caring while others looked like they wanted to hang themselves and hated their job. If you love and care for whoever you are bringing there I WOULD NOT DO IT! Drive somewhere...