Prisma Health Richland Hospital — Local services in Columbia

They like to give you the run around if you are there for an elective tubal ligation or bilateral salpingectomy. Horrible customer communication from the Outpatient Surgery Department and intentional time-wasting was done to me because of racist, antiquated, Republican, and religious views about WOMEN'S REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS.

I waited 10 months to be scheduled for the surgery and they waited until I was in the pre-op room there at 5:30 am to start pushing back my surgery time and giving me silly excuses. I decided to leave after waiting for 3.5 hours and would not let Kristl Vidya Dorschner Tomlin, MD of Prisma Health/Palmetto Health USC OB-GYN do anything to me after the run around I received from her and her office about having the procedure as a permanent means of birth control. The denial was INTENTIONAL.

I was made to wait when the Outpatient Surgery floor was literally empty and nurses were sitting around gossiping about whether I had a fiance' or not. There is much evidence online that doctors are denying women sterilization in this country if they are not married, and are even saying well just tell your man to get a vasectomy.

Just Google "blocked from female sterilization" and all the evidence is there. If Tomlin didn't want to do it, she could have told me in March 2019 when I first met with her for the first consult, not put me on the schedule after all these months and then tell her staff to give me the run-around when I got up at 3 A.M. to be there.

If I cared about staying in this crap state, I would sue them. This was complete and intentional, unethical medical mischief. Most people know when they are being bull-shitted by a doctor and staff. She never had any intention of doing the surgery and was giving me pushback and trying to talk me out of it from the first time I met with her in March 2019. I will be going elsewhere and I recommend any women who want this procedure go out-of-state because you will be played with here.

Literally, they invented rule after rule after rule to stall my surgery. Oddly, none of these rules were stated either verbally nor written by Tomlin, her staff, nor Outpatient surgery during the 3 months between the last consult in May 2019 and my pre-op appointment on 08/19/19. Nothing was said about such rules then, either. Also, at my 08/19/19 pre-op appointment, the nurse noted that Tomlin had not put in ANY orders for my surgery. When I arrived at 5:30 AM on 08.30.19 as told to by staff, there were still not any orders in.

It is VERY CLEAR SHE NEVER INTENDED TO DO MY SURGERY. KRISTL V. DORSCHNER TOMLIN NEVER CAME TO SEE ME IN THE PRE-OP ROOM, AND I AM THINKING IT IS BECAUSE SHE WASN'T EVEN AT THE HOSPITAL AT THE TIME. I HONESTLY THINK SHE WAS CALLING FROM SOMEWHERE ELSE AND MAKING THEM STALL ME. THIS IS A RACIST PLACE AND I AM GLAD I WAS SPARED FROM A POSSIBLE BOTCHED/INCOMPLETE PROCEDURE.

I also noticed that she tends to work in staunchly Republican states, so it is obvious from her push back about sterilization that she is allowing her views to infringe upon the rights of patients. If she isn't for women's reproductive rights, maybe she ought to find something else to do other than being a goddamned OB-GYN!!!!

I remember saying to hell with this hospital 12 years ago, and going to Duke for my care all the last 12 years. I wish the Feds would just step in, and sue them royally just like they did Tuomey (aka TOMBSTONE) in Sumter, SC. It is technically illegal to deny women the right to choose sterilization in this country. I am moving to Europe in 2 months, and will have it done there.

When I was at this hospital in 2006, they made me wait 8 hours in the emergency room in excruciating pain, and then repeatedly disrespected me as a patient after I was brought back to a room and admitted, to the point where I had to walk out AMA, and file a State Medical Board complaint. Got back to a room, saw most were EMPTY, yet had been waiting for 8 hours. South Carolina has HORRIBLE MEDICAL CARE IN GENERAL. Will...

At 38 weeks of pregnancy, I went to this hospital thinking I’d receive good care. What I got was a hellish nightmare that haunts me to this day, almost 13 years later. I have a hard time even writing about this, which is why I haven’t done this sooner. I’ve been grieving for 12.5 years about what happened to my baby. Don’t have your baby here if you can help it!!!!! These people are bullies and brutes (as in the adjective: “characterized by an absence of reasoning or intelligence”). Here are a few thing this hospital did to me and my unborn child:

1. refused to do a c section when I had only dilated 4 cm in 25 hours.
2. refused to let me breast feed because I was on pain management meds. It (should be) well known by doctors that allowing a dependent baby to breastfeed actually lessens withdrawals from the drug because the baby gets small amounts in the breast milk. However, nobody at this hospital knew this. Pathetic.
3. put me on pitocin, a very dangerous drug used to induce labor. The dangers of pitocin are well known, and yet they used it on me, a woman of advanced maternal age who had a grapefruit sized cyst on one ovary that ruptured. Additionally, I’d had genetic testing done while pregnant, and the results said my baby would have a 12% chance of having a genetic disorder. But sure, just leave her in there for whatever idiotic reason. Pitocin has a reputation for putting a fetus into “fetal distress,” a phenomenon wherein their heart rate drops dangerously low, thereby restricting oxygen to their brain. Fetal distress can KILL a fetus. I did not know this at the time. Now you do. I’d caution you against letting them use pitocin. Seems logical to me (and I’m only a lowly biologist, not an MD) they would have just gone ahead and cut me open and gotten the baby out, and not let me continue to bleed internally for 36 hours from the ruptured cyst. But no. They made sure that I suffered through 36 hours of trying to dilate and have a vagjnal birth. I was literally BEGGING them to get her out after the first fetal distress event because I was so worried about her. They literally told me that “insurance doesn’t like us doing a c section unless it’s medically necessary”. Then, they made me sit there for NINE HOURS, not dilating any further. So, in NINE HOURS, they claim they had no OR available. I guess all the other moms and fetuses were more important than myself and my fetus. Idk, I can’t figure this one out. Personally, I believe I was being “punished” for being on the pain meds. By the time they did do a c section (only because she went into fetal distress for a second time), she WASN’T BREATHING WHEN SHE WAS BORN AND HAD TO BE RESUSCITATED. Nice job, guys. All those years of medical training by all those medical “professionals,” and y’all go ahead and cause my baby to have a birth injury. Dumbasses. My child now has cerebral palsy as a result of this birth injury. In addition, we found out when she was seven years old that she has an ultra, rare, genetic syndrome called Bainbridge-Ropers syndrome. The BRS was the the genetic disorder that the geneticist told me she had a 12% chance having when I had genetics testing done at around I think it was six months into the pregnancy. Unfortunately, I was told by multiple lawyers in Columbia, South Carolina, that they would not take this case and fight the very powerful prisma Health , and that since I was on pain meds during pregnancy, that their lawyers were just “slaughter” me on the stand. Well, I have until she’s 18 to sue on her behalf , and she’s only 13 now. And I fully intend on suing these motherfuckers for what they did to myself and my kid. To this day, I cannot even tell my birth story without sobbing my eyes out because it was so traumatic. My child had a genetic mutation that affected the connections in her brain, and yet, they chose to punish me as if my legal opioid use (again, I was sent to Pain Management by the obstetrician) did all of...

We have had the worst experience with Prisma Health ever since I had a miscarriage at 20 weeks back in June. Because my midwife I was using was located in South Carolina, I had to have at least 2 appointments at an SC OBGYN. When I Went in for my ultrasound, they found no heartbeat… the nurse was super sweet and let us take our time alone in the room while she got the dr. Then Dr. Gregg comes in and after 5 mins of hearing that I had lost my baby he told me maybe it was meant to be because our baby might have had a disability I would have had to deal with for the rest of his life (I would have done that in a heart beat!) and was very touchy and grabbing my thigh (I guess it was his way of comforting). After leaving we had to decide between a DNC or being induced and delivering. We decided to be induced the next morning at the hospital. We were scheduled for 8 am but did not get a room until almost 9:30 am. Once we got back there it was another hour or two before they gave me the medicine that started the induction process. Everything was going good and they were supposed to give me more medication every 3 hrs. It ended up being 4 hours before I received my second round of medicine around 3:30. Around 4:30 I had a major headache and used the call button to ask for medicine and was told someone would bring me some. No one ever showed up with it. Another 2 hrs had passed and I was in lots of pain and my husband had to call 3 times for them to get in there and eventually just had to walk out there and get them. They came in asking if I wanted an epidural over and over again (I had planned a homebirth and since everything else had gone wrong the one thing I still wanted to do was deliver naturally) and I continuously told them no. I told them I had to use the bathroom and they wouldn’t let me because I may deliver the baby in the toilet, so they made me go on the bed. Afterwards, I was still in pain and knew the baby was coming but they kept saying I was 0 cm dilated (they told me when I got there that it was possible that it could be quick and I could go from a 0 to delivering but didn’t believe me when I said the baby was coming). They once again asked if I wanted an epidural, and at that point I said yes so they would get out of the room and I could have my baby. They left and I grabbed the toilet hat and delivered my baby within a few minutes of them leaving… once again my husband had to go out and find them. After 2 hrs I had not delivered my placenta and they didn’t want me to get up and as soon as they left I had the same process. Got up and delivered the placenta in the hat and my midwife had to find them. After all of this I was transferred to another room for the night and had super sweet nurses throughout the night giving me meds. They released me the next afternoon and said I would be receiving all my test results in the next few weeks since I had done genetic testing on me and my baby. I slowly received my results but never had anyone call me to explain the results like they said that somebody would do. And still 2 1/2 months later have not received my baby’s results and have no access to find them since the hospital did the testing and sent it in to Natera. I have been on the phone with them multiple times in the last week with one person telling me I couldn’t get my results because it had been more than 60 days and everyone else transferred me over and over again with my end results either being voice mail or hung up on. They finally told me I should receive a call by last Friday with results and of course I got no call. I called again today and was transferred once again and straight to voicemail. I have literally given up on this hospital. It has been an absolute nightmare and along with going through the grief of loosing my child I have also been traumatized by my...