St. Mary's Medical Center — Local services in Huntington

The human rights violations that take place in the psychiatric unit are appalling and medieval. I have seen people tackled, strapped down, forced to take meds, denied meds, isolated, & counter coersed against in cruel and unusual ways. Staff are supposed to walk the halls all night but invariably quit at 1 a.m. I have witnessed a man exposing his privates repeatedly, partial penetration (read: sex), & two fist fights that went completely unaddressed by staff. In the first instance, two lesbians with bipolar fought over "rights" to me; in the second, an ex con there to detox punched a schizophrenic teen in the face. Why detoxers and the mentally ill are haphazardly lumped together is beyond me. Casual weed smokers are treated as addicts, labeled dual diagnosis, and subjected to tedious religious-based propoganda, but actual addicts' needs go unmet. I have experienced this negligence myself after an overdose of four bottles of meds that in regular dosage have cruel withdrawals. I was put in isolation, unable to move or eat for days, and only acknowledged once to scold me for wetting myself. In one empowering instance my roommate made herself dangerously ill just to get taken to the crisis unit from which she escaped the hospital. Other escape attempts, which are many, have resulted in full speed tackles & unidentified injections. One woman was terrified after EST, stating she didn't know where she was. When I tried to comfort her, this real tough guy couldn't-cut-it-as-a-security-guard staff member snapped at me to get away from her, saying "she knows where she is! Do you not know where you are?" A young teen across the hall started to protest, so he closed himself alone in her room and started whispering to her. So by god I opened that door. She was flat against her bed and he was an inch from her face. I have an investigative personality so needless to say the lazy staff hated me and counter coersed against me on several occasions. In one instance my only bra mysteriously went missing. I complained daily for the unwarranted exposure and embarrassment. That same tough guy worker made a big fuss that I didnt "deserve" a bra and its people like me who lose everyone their right to have a bra. Staff back pedaled and tried to produce my bra and couldnt find it. I wrote down everything the staff worker had said, date, time and witnesses and like magic he was able to produce my bra. There used to be a piano right beside the ping pong table, and that day when I sat down to play piano, he picked up a ping pong paddle and repeatedly swiped next to my head, grazing it. The most galling instance of harrassment occurred at my last check in. A young man from my high school class who had badgered me for weeks to have lunch, dinner, or netflix with him had started working there. I'd politely refused him. And buddy when i got to psych ward, he was gonna make me pay for it. He started in immediately the first day pointing at my belongings on the floor and stating, Theres a 3-items-on the floor maximum, and demanded that I clean up in front of him. He kept hounding me for days. When I started playing horseshoes he demanded I stop and said I was obnoxious--to which I responded, quite cleverly, "YOU'RE obnoxious." A fellow staff member demanded that i show him more respect. I told her that I'd repeatedly turned him down for dates the last few weeks and he was getting back at me. The young man bullying me didnt say anything but looked guilty as sin. She said, Well now that you've explained that, I can see both sides of the story, and simply walked off. I told my psychiatrist, who informed whoever and the worker in question was sent home for the remainder of my stay. However in response the staff henceforth refused me my meds on time if at all and any help or accommodation reminding me that, "Ordinarily we'd help you, but you see now we're understaffed." I'm literally just getting started but I'm out of room. Sufficeth to say that if I were ever in a suicidal situation again with 2 options and one was psych ward, I would not...

I always walk away from St Marys the way I would stagger away from a particularly self loathing one-night-stand. I know I technically agreed to it, but I wasn't exactly in the best state of mind.

When I recall how St Marys has impacted my life, 4 main instances come to mind. The first happened 6 years before I was born. The OBG delivering my older brother arrived very late. They threw my mother onto a delivery table and delivered him immediately. At that point the umbilical cord had been wrapped around his neck a very long time. As a result his IQ was 70. He suffered so many opportunity costs and bullying as a result, and he has been an incredible cause of suffering to our family and continues tormenting everyone at age 30.

Second instance, I was 11. My 60-year-old grandpa showed up to St Marys with a cough, and was told to say his goodbyes. My family members noticed in his file that lung tumors had been noted several months prior, but this information had been withheld. He died 2 days later, family sued and lost.

My next instance involved the conception and birth of my daughter. After a miscarriage I bled heavily for months but was turned away by St Mary's empty handed. The nurse stated I needed hormonal birth control but that they couldn't prescribe it because they were a religious institution. I ended up conceiving again that week and it was the WIC office that finally gave me iron supplements for anemia. Fast forward 9 months. I was induced (a two-day process) once, sent home for a day then called back to be induced again, leading to a very long fast before labor. My labor could easily be described as one of the most degrading and disempowering days of my life. I had stuff strapped to both arms and across my abdomen and had to mess myself because I couldn't get up. I was repeatedly cathed for not peeing enough despite my outright insistence that they stop. My gynecologist was a patent misogynist (repeatedly refused me birth control and care after an abortion) and had no interest in my opinions, threatening me at the last minute that if I didnt agree to every intervention that he would discharge me with a number for a midwife. My membrane was punctured by the epidural leading to intense migraines for weeks. I went through all first 9 stages of labor alone because my abusive ex (about whom I'd repeatedly expressed fear to the staff) put up a sign saying No Visitors then fell asleep in the room. In retrospect its bizarre to me that he was allowed to make my decisions and control the situation throughout the process, from my pain meds to the babys naming to talking to CPS before me. I don't fault the staff though because he is a very convincing narcissist. My main gripe from the experience is that St Marys wrote a week later to state that there had been a goof in my daughters blood tests, forcing me to return with her in her fragile state and get all of them redone.

Not quite a year later, I was roofied at a get together and found myself at St Marys (CHH had trauma night) to get a rape kit. Someone from the rape hotline came with me. We waited 6 precious hours in the lobby. When I went back to intake a nurse tried to discourage me from going through with the test, saying I would be ruining a young mans life. I had to protest my case that this was a 40-year-old married stranger. I was denied water by another nurse who also tried to indicate that i had refused some of the tests simply to make her job easier. I recognized this nurse from a shared high school class and I have received (poor) care from her on several occasions despite voicing the past relation. The attending nurse was so brash and rude that the rape hotline worker I was with later investigated and was assured by several coworkers that "thats just her style." St. Mary's, you suck. Someday a bigger, better hospital, one more selective with staffing, better lawyers, not superstition based, better morale, better outcomes, pretty much better in every way, possibly even located in the same city, will take over and turn you into a glorified...

I happened to be driving near this hospital when I began to feel lightheaded, cramping muscles, and as though I couldn’t control my movements. Unable to safely control the vehicle, almost crashing in my maneuvering, I navigated the car to the side of the road and screamed and honked at the ambulance in front of me to help as I felt I was losing consciousness. They didn’t hear me (I understand this!). I turned off my car and sat at the side, trying to muster any thoughts I could to make a decision of what to do. A nurse begrudgingly exited her car and, extremely annoyed and making it clear how much of an inconvenience I was (Like, yeah, I get it. You’d rather be home. I would too.), she called 911 and sent for an ambulance. They asked her to stay, and she hatefully remained, not too concerned with my condition as I slumped wordlessly out the side of my car. The ambulance driver chastised her for not just walking me to the door, which was apparently only a few feet away, before the driver herself led me there and the nurse sighed and left (If I had taken the ambulance, as everyone knows, I would have had to pay hundreds of dollars for no reason). I waited in the waiting room, very, very gradually feeling better. As I had no idea what was happening to me, I supplied the ER with any significant history I could think of — medication I take, my history of injuries that have damaged my nerves, my posture, my job, everything I could think of. They acted like I was crazy and dismissed everything I said like I was some kind of junkie begging for pills, which I was not. I felt suddenly near death for no reason!! Of course I was scared, and confused!! They kept me there forever and treated me like the biggest waste of time they could imagine, rolling their eyes at me and ignoring me for long stretches of time. The two stars are for the doctor(s), who were kind enough and did not cast judgement upon me, or at the very least, professionally kept it to themselves. The doctor informed me that I likely was dehydrated, which was entirely possible given my job (Driving with no A/C all day) and the weather, they hooked me up to a water supply and kept me overnight. My body did feel much better the next day when I returned home. However, a month or so later, I learned that my car had a serious exhaust leak for some time, and for many months, I had been suffering from serious chronic carbon monoxide poisoning. I had been blowing the car vents that day, too, filling my brain with the poison, and if I hadn’t pulled over and turned the car off, I believe I could have easily died. I now carry so incredibly much resentment for everyone who treated me like trash, and acted like I was crazy and trying to score pain pills. I just needed help. Nobody should be treated like that, no matter what someone WHO IS NOT A DOCTOR thinks about a patient. Terrible experience....