Atrium Health Cabarrus — Local services in Concord

This will be a long review as multiple issues occurred during my visit to Atrium Health Cabarrus or the old Northeast. I was transported to Northeast from a free standing Atrium Emergency Department. My transport went well. Once at Atrium Cabarrus/ Northeast it started down hill. Upon my arrival my transporter carried me to the ED where the following events occurred. I was never greeted by the ED charge nurse. It was “who dis”. My transporter said I was asked to move him from one ED to Northeast ED. She said “ain’t nobody called me from down there”. “ Where he suppose to be at”? Transporter again said “My dispatch told me from the first ED to Northeast ED. She said “is he behavioral” to which I said no! She clearly was not wanting to work. She did find out that I was suppose to be on the second floor. So my transporter takes me up to the second floor. Where I’m greeted and room is ready. I thought ok this is much better. I got in my bed in pain the nurse came down and started to get me fixed up. Things went fairly well smooth through the night. The next day I had to have an emergency appendectomy here’s where the trouble started. The bed I was placed in was faulty as the only way it would drive correctly was went it was placed in neutral and manually pushed. This was easily done by the strapping man who carried me down to surgery but not so easily done by the petite nurse who tried to carry me back to my room post op. She ended up needing a second person to help get me back to my room. It was very uncomfortable feeling like you were going to run into walls as you are being pushed along. As I’m coming out of surgery I hear one of the PACU nurses use the term incontinente. Once I’m back in my room the nurses aid tells me you have to urinate before 10:30 tonight did any one tell you that. I said no ma’am. After gathering myself over the net couple of hour I call down to the nurses station and let them know I need to go urinate or at least try. As I’m standing up I smell poop! Now my mind goe back to the incontinente discuss from the PACU team. It was me! They had not told me or tried to clean me and let me sit in my own feces for around 2 hours! This I remind you with fresh abdominal wounds. I thought how gross is that. I decide today I needed to speak with a patient advocate but not anyone from the care teams, nursing or doctors. I met with two ladies one who’s I suppose to be over the second floor and the other patient experience. Both seemed to care a ton about what I had to say. Both agreed that Atrium is definitely not what Northeast used to be. They said they would escalate my concerns someone would be back in touch probably by letter. That if I had any other questions please contact them. They were both very nice Mandy and Stacey. Later I found out one was way over her pay grade and the other actually took the action she said she would. As the day progressed I was still concerned about the color and smell of my urine. I had expressed this earlier in the day to my nurse. She told me they were more concerned with the daily volume and not the color or odor. I thought that’s strange. Between 6 and 7 pm this evening I urinated again still a brown gold color and a strong odor smell. I asked my nurse at the time why is the color of my urine and odor not changing more to normal to which she could not answer but she said let me get you an answer. For that answer I’m still waiting. No answers As this situation escalated I contacted the 2nd floor lady and asked for help and she sent the same folks down to try and answer my question which they could not answer before. I was tired of playing games so I asked them to discharge me immediately. To that they said the doctor may not discharge you. To that i said I’m leaving! The charge nurse said that would be against medical advice. I said to her what medical advice you guys can’t answer my question! Previously I was told by NP Mallory that the surgical team was OK discharging me today. ...

On December 21, 2023 my mother was admitted to the ICU at Atrium Health Cabarrus Hospital. She was first in the ER unit of the hospital. While in the ER, my father and I were with her, and terribly disappointed with the care my mother received from the staff. She came into the ER unresponsive. She was having seizure-like symptoms, but we were never specifically told she was having seizures until days after being in the ICU. While in the ER, the staff actually told us nothing of what they thought was going on with her. One doctor even snapped at me when I asked questions. She said – “What is actually your concern?!” I told her brain damage. The doctor then rolled her eyes at me and said that’s probably not going to be the case. My mother had virtual consults with neurologists, but no neurologist came to the ER. During the virtual visits, the nurses joked between each other because they didn’t know the doctors on the screen and kept getting their names wrong. To the daughter watching her mother have body spasms and dead-locked eyes with no awareness in them, this was not funny. I also think anyone would agree this is not professional. Then a specialist came down to hook up a 30-minute EEG. What I can only describe as a “helper” came down once the EEG was complete and began diagnosing my mother in the room. He was there to remove the EEG wires and nothing else, and his badge was turned backwards. He had no idea what he was talking about and I couldn’t believe ER staff would allow someone with no authority to come into the room and speak to the family about theories of what was going on with the patient. I shouldn’t have been surprised though, because overall the ER nurse staff was completely unprofessional. There was a “nurse mentor” – so said his badge. This mentor was only concerned with flirting with every nurse in eye site. I saw him flirt and distract nurses for the entire five hours I was in the ER with my mother. There was also a nurse and medic standing outside of my mom’s ER room at one point – they were laughing, sharing photos of their Christmas gifts, and generally being loud while my mother was unconscious. And why is the staff standing around chatting? They work in an ER. And if they have down time to chat, why are they so unaware of their proximity to patients in the ER and their family members? It was so upsetting. I tried to slide my mom’s ER room doors shut to drown them out. While in the ER, we were told my mother was second in line (from the ER) to get an MRI. She needed a brain MRI. Her vitals were stable, but she was completely unresponsive. When we asked for a status update on her MRI, the nurse assigned to my mother was snarky and rude. Her reply – “We are in an ER and everyone is an emergency. Your mother will get the MRI when they can get to it.” I believe anyone with half a brain knows that an ER is full of sick people with serious needs. I didn’t need a nurse to dress me down and snap at me while my mother was one of those people. I’m also looking at a completely unresponsive – and unexplained – woman. I don’t know what’s going on in the other ER rooms, I’ll give it that, but I also know that my mom’s situation was dire and no one was moving with urgency.

We got the MRI 36 -- 36 HOURS LATER!!! My mother laid around in her unconscious state for 36 hours waiting on a diagnosis. No one did anything for her during that entire waiting time. In fact, EVERY doctor we spoke with – neurology, cardiology, infectious diseases, endocrinology, general medicine – while waiting for the MRI to occur, EVERY one of them said we don’t know what’s wrong and we’ll know more once the brain MRI is complete. Imagine being a family member hearing that – and not one person could say when the MRI would happen.

I cannot believe this is considered acceptable medical care in the...

If you have a choice deliver your baby else where! I was transferred to this hospital because my hospital did not have a NICU and I had severe preclampsia at 35 weeks. The first night there I was put in a delivery room with no real answers to what was going on. The OB on call never came and saw me. I had already been in my home hospital for 8 hours before going to North East. I had not had any food and was not offered anything. I was told I could only have water which turned out I could have clear liquids but was never told or offered anything. Around 9 am the next morning after still not seeing a Doctor a nurse who came to check on my vitals was able to go round up a doc for me. I ended up seeing the OB on call and the High Risk OB. I was moved to High Risk labor and deliver. The nurses on that ward are the most compassionate kind women that I have every meet. I only have good things to say about them. The next day I was taken back down to a delivery room. I felt like I was kind of in the dark about some things but the Doctor who was on call that day did a very good job and ended up saving my baby and my life and I am very grateful to her and the other staff that day. Once again I was back on the high risk ward and had a wonderful nurse during the day. I had an emergency c section and she was very concerned with the pain and my recovery.

The night nurse on the high risk ward that first night was not so great. I was not able to get up and walk because of the meds I was still on but she kept insisting I get up and move. But I also had a catheter and couldn't get up yet per the doctor. She didnt see concerned with my pain level and rarely checked on me. The next morning I was moved to the regular baby mother ward. Each nurse was worse than the last. I was made to feel like I shouldn't be asking for pain meds which my doc told me to alternate to keep the pain down. I hated to ask for anything. I felt like they had forgotten about me and had to call the desk or walk out in the hallway to find somebody to help me. At one point my son was taken back for a circumcision and the power went out. The peds doc came and let us know he was ok but almost 2 hours later. Then the nurse came and took his car seat. Mind you I don't even know she is our nurse since she was never introduced as our nurse and we didn't have her call number and she had not checked on us all day. It is 3pm at this point and I guess she had been our nurse since 7 am but I didn't know that. Plus with the power going out and nobody letting us see our son we were freaking out because he has on that ankle monitor but could he have been taken when the power was shut off. We asked the desk about him and asked the nurse outside our room who said "who is your son" which we found out later was our nurse. I even started to walk around the halls looking for him and nobody questioned this or asked if we were ok. Time now is 730 pm and we have not see our son since 130 when they came to get him. I have asked now several times for him and he is two days old and has not eaten now for over 6 hours. I am very upset at this point. Our nurse never came in to give report with the oncoming nurse. She acted as if I had been discharged and was no longer a patient. Once we finally got our son back they couldn't discharge us fast enough. We were told by a nurse who was not our out going or in coming nurse that the charge nurse knew what happened but we never saw her either or given an apology. This was my fourth baby and had never had an experience like this. Save your self the stress and give birth...