Piedmont Mountainside — Local services in Jasper

My husband brought me in late one night this week to L&D because I was having back pain, contractions, and throwing up at 37 weeks. This is my 4th child so I've been there and done that and knew they were real contractions.

We had been planning on another home birth but I assumed I was probably going into labor and was a little too early so we came in. We didn’t just wait it out because my other pregnancies have progressed very quickly once active labor started and I didn’t want to add ‘having a baby in a car’ to my list of stories I could tell.

On getting into a room Renae and Asha were the two nurses that helped us during our stay and I can’t say enough nice things about them. Helpful. Kind. Considerate. Went out of their way to make us both comfortable during what turned out to be a bad stomach virus + early labor. Absolutely 5 stars for those two.

In the morning was when the doctor who was there came in and that interaction is solely responsible for the garbage dump review I am giving.

Dr. Michael Lynch Sr. with all the glorious bedside manner of a steaming pile of cow poo.

He came in the room to talk to us and never once asked how I was feeling, what was my version of what was going on, my name… nothing. Had never met me a day in my life. All he knew was we came in I was 37 weeks and had planned on a home birth. He talked at me not to me the entire time.

Immediately when he came in our room he had to establish how much more intelligent he was than everyone else. Everyone talked over all of us including his nurses. So condescending… Made sure we knew he thought we were irresponsible poor white trash for not using an OB instead. I am sure many of you in this county and surrounding counties know at least one decent member of society who has done a home birth. Some of them I can name are great people and hold offices here in Pickens.

Straight out of the gate told me that the reason I was in the position I was in (catching a stomach virus that made me very dehydrated and go into early labor??) was because I hadn’t sought out ‘any real prenatal care’ which couldn’t be further from the truth.

When you have a home birth you have a midwife and/or a doula and you just see them instead of an OB. You can do all the tests and scans and you see them just as much and take all the supplements that you want. It’s literally just a more personal private setting so you feel more comfortable and in control (and respected... imagine that...).

Then Lynch told all the nurses how backward and unpopular home births ‘were becoming’ because you can’t even hardly get a birth certificate or SS# for your child if that’s how they’re born…which ANYONE who has done it can tell you is a complete lie and the nurse in the room with me even told me after he left how inaccurate she knew that was because she had delivered her own granddaughter last year in a home birth! I knew his statement was inaccurate because my last child was delivered in a home birth!

She apologized for the doctors’ behavior as soon as he walked out and told me doctors acting like this is exactly why women choose to have their babies at home where they get some respect instead of being treated in such a way and she is absolutely right!!

He ended our lovely conversation by asking me what exactly I wanted him to do about it? I wasn’t progressing and there wasn’t anything he would do for me before 39 weeks. Just go home and drink some Biolytle and throw up until the virus was gone he said… unless that drink was too expensive ‘for us’. We probably couldn’t afford that because it was more than just a couple dollars a bottle. Stated that he was just going to discharge me because he had ‘OB patients’ that needed his attention and walked out of the room.

My nurse looked at my monitor and said wow your heart rate really jumped after that we need to calm you back down. Gee I can’t imagine why it did that…

and just for the record if I cannot have this baby at home I will crawl on fire past this hospital all the way to...

Absolutely Inexcusable and Deadly Negligence at Piedmont Mountainside ER If I could give Piedmont Mountainside Emergency Room an infinite zero, I would. The "care" my father received on May 4th and 5th at the hands of the ER doctor and the on-call surgeon, Dr. Dua, was not just negligent – it was a direct cause of his agonizing decline and ultimate death. Their incompetence and outright dismissal of my concerns were appalling and tragically fatal. My father arrived at the ER early in the evening with a confirmed bowel obstruction and a distended stomach that was stretched to its absolute limit. I repeatedly tried to convey his extensive history of bowel obstructions, information that should have immediately raised red flags and prompted swift action. Instead, my concerns were undermined and disregarded. The ER staff and Dr. Dua decided my father could simply lie in the ER, suffering immensely, until the next morning. Despite the clear signs of a serious and time-sensitive condition, they refused to provide timely intervention or even a proper assessment until hours later. I fought relentlessly to advocate for my father, begging them to take his condition seriously and move him to where he could receive the necessary surgical care. It was only when they apparently grew tired of my persistence that any action was taken. By then, the delay had catastrophic consequences. While finally being transferred to another hospital – hours after he desperately needed intervention – his bowel perforated and ruptured, leading to cardiac arrest. By the time I frantically made it to the other hospital, my father had already died, been resuscitated, and placed on life support due to the failure of all his organs. We were then forced to endure the unimaginable pain of saying our final goodbyes and watching him be taken off life support. This was a man with a history of treatable bowel obstructions, a condition that had been successfully managed multiple times in the past. Had Piedmont Mountainside ER and Dr. Dua acted with any semblance of urgency or competence, my father would likely still be alive today. Dr. Dua was on call and, in my opinion, he let my father die through his callous inaction and dismissal. It has been one week since my father’s preventable and horrific death, and the grief and anger I feel are immeasurable. Let me be unequivocally clear: I will NEVER step foot in Piedmont Mountainside Hospital again. This institution and the individuals responsible for this egregious failure of care will not escape accountability. I am taking action to ensure that no other family has to endure the agonizing experience and devastating loss that we have suffered. This ER is dangerous, and their negligence directly resulted in my father's...

I’m writing this review just to inform and make notice of how unprofessional, and unorganized this hospital is as a whole. I went here because of a minor weak feeling in the left side of my chest and my arm, i wasn’t going to go but was insisted by the rest of my family to do so just to be safe. I left work early and had to work that night as well so I was trying to see if I could make it back. Upon arrival at the hospital their staff was very friendly and seemed to get on things pretty quickly, they got me back in the ER room and talked to me for a bit, came to no conclusions. They then ran an ekg, x-ray, and ct scan. The results came back flawless, but then the neurologist I talked to on the computer that they rolled in said he believed it to be a focal seizure. He didn’t want to call that the final conclusion and called for an mri and a eeg, they told me i could not leave or i would loose my driving privelages, so i said “well i guess i have no choice but to stay.” I stayed overnight in an ER room which was not bad. The next day my food for breakfast was forgotten about until i said anything, i kept asking for any info on when or any kind of a timeframe on the tests because i was trying to make it on time to work the night shift, I asked if i could leave and come back with an appointment for the scans where they then told me yes but i won’t be able to drive until then. so i waited half the day until they came around for my tests, they finished them and i was told that i can leave but will still not be able to drive until the test results come back. At this time i figured i’ve been this far might as well wait, so i waited another 2 hours and they came back with the results and said there is absolutely nothing wrong and that everything looks perfectly fine, but since the neurologist says i’m a risk and it’s the law to flag me as unsafe to drive, and this is based off of absolutely no evidence other than an intuition or guess of some sort against all the test results. they then tell me that i can not drive until the neurologist clears me. I got on the phone imediately after and started making phone calls to see when i could make an appointment, and after 2 days of calling doctor to doctor the closest appointment is 19 days away. I have school, work, church, and events in between now and then and have to find a ride for all.

Long story short, don’t go to peidmont mountainside unless absolutely necessary, the drive to northside cherokee...