Cooperman Barnabas Medical Center — Local services in Livingston

I am a doctor myself and was treated like trash by their interns after having an ovariohysterectomy for possible cancer. I was forced to take oral medications when I was not fully awake, aspirated and had a contaminated urinary catheter shoved up my vagina and into my abdomen causing me to get peritonitis. I was sent him with severe anemia, C. Dif that I caught at the hospital, aspiration pneumonia and a hematoma in my abdomen both that were seen on ct before discharge because the interns said I was stable yet no supervisor came to see me: I was readmitter a week later and the same team of interns were assigned to my care. They had specialists consulting them which they ignored their recommendations and measured ins/outs incorrectly and never weighed me. I lost 16 lbs in the week I was there when I weigh normally 110-112 lbs. I was severely dehydrated and had to sign myself out ama because the intern ran to her supervisor who was another intern to say that I was going to self harm when the truth is I told her I was going to file charges against them and the hospital for the pain they inflicted on me. They left me in pain for 4 days without bringing anyone to help me or giving me any pain meds that my doctor recommended. The abdominal drain had shifted since I lost so much weight. Interventional radiography was supposed to see the drain before it could be removed but these interns did not call interventional radiography or even write in their reports the amount of pain I was in. So I was literally sent home initially with peritonitis after being forced to take oral meds when I was not fully awake, forced to get a urinary catheter that was passed without supervision by interns who never got their supervisor to supervise them, was sent home because they never told their supervisor I was ill, they altered my medical record to look like I had previous psychiatric treatment to make it seem like I was crazy, then tortured me by shutting off my iv line which was the only thing keeping me hydrated since I was losing excessive fluids from the C. Dif to the point I had an autistic meltdown and then they wanted to hold me for a psych eval because they said that I wanted to self-harm when I said the drain needed to come out since I was in severe pain. They never scheduled an appointment with interventional radiography when they sent me home which delayed my getting the drain out by another week. So I had a drain causing me pain for nearly two weeks because of their negligence. Again, no supervising doctor came to visit me during my care other than the one who allowed me to go home sick initially but that was early on and my surgeon who could do nothing since he only came in once a day week to do surgery. So no one was monitoring me. When I finally got to interventional radiography, I had been hypertensive for a month. They discovered I had a vaginal fistula. What could cause anemia, an abdominal hematoma that was infected with E, coli, peritonitis, a vaginal fistula plus C. Dif? A contaminated catheter being passed into the abdomen through the surgical site and then into the bladder. Note the first hospital that admitted me and then transferred me to this hospital found E, coli and proteus, both fecal organisms in my urinary bladder. Due to being hypertensive, I had to have emergrncy cataract surgery it lose my abilities to perform surgeries for the rest of my life. All because they left the interns in the ob/gyn do whatever they wanted. Filing a complaint with the hospital is a joke. 6 months later and I have heard nothing from them. And for all of you to note, you only have 90 days to file for malpractice where you have to file a tort claim letter or give up your rights to file. I had notified the state during that time frame but was not told about this letter since no attorney would take the case until I had permanent damage. Now I have permanent damage and my rights were violated again. I am also autistic and they failed to provide a patient advocate to make sure I was ok and could communicate...

I take a Lyft ride to St Barnabas ER- I am feeling tired and weak and I know it's my uncontrolled diabetes.

I walk through the massive glass doors and come face to unsmiling face with a burly security officer surrounded by sundry flunkeys. I am taken aback. Has this been converted to a low security prison?

The warlord motions my wordlessly to go through the metal detectors which I comply to the the presence of His Highness who is now glaring at me with eyes like gimlets. He could easily be a Gestapo officer from Central Casting.

Since there was no query forthcoming from the barstool Chief I say with a tremulous voice:

" I am here for emergency care "

I think he grunts and lets me through.

I come to the receptionist who is sitting behind a glass partition with a gap at the lower edge which you have to genuflect to speak through- if you don't have herniated discs this arrangement will take care of that anomaly.

She takes in some preliminary information and when they hear why I am there, there seems to be an immediate shift in mood. A nurse or aide appears who tells me to sit on a chair while they do whatever they have to do.

Soon a man appears who takes me through multiple double doors into the cavernous ER patient area which has about 100 single occupancy patient rooms with sliding glass doors. Looks very impressive.

I am lead into one of the rooms and wait about 10 minutes before the physician appears and quickly assesses my condition. He may or may not have made eye contact. If he did it was for a fraction of a second. His visit is over in less than a minute.

Then the most personable member of the team appears- the registration clerk who actually makes eye contact and has a genuine smile. A human being, in fact.

After her visit comes the petite pixie apology of a Nurse. This descendant of Florence Nightingale, I swear , did not once make eye contact. But she was efficient to the point of ruthlessness. Neither doctor nor nurse address me by name. The Nurse gets the IV going, draws the blood and spends most of the time chatting with another nurse or writing her Great American Novel on the computer.

At one point I needed to use the restroom but pressing the call button only results in it being turned off by unknown forces.

The IV runs. Nurse Ratchett informs me she has given me a lot of Insulin. She also gives me 2 tablets of Metformin as icing on the cake.

An Endocrinologist casually saunters in and asks some perfunctory questions. She expresses sympathy at a personal situation I am going through. She tells me she is going to discuss my care with the ' team' and disappears.

Time flows. The IV is long over. What am I waiting for?

I timidly step out of the patient room to find the Angel of Mercy nurse typing furiously into the computer.

" I would like to leave" , I said.

" The doctor has not yet discharged you" was her curt response. And then , helpfully, she adds, " Of course you can leave against medical advice but I don't know how that will affect your billing"

I am beyond caring. I repeat my request to go with or against medical advice.

I go back to my room and sit on the bed dejectedly.

The Energizer bunny nurse suddenly springs into action and manages to get hold of the doctor who is apologetic about the long wait and informs me the Endocrinologist had not communicated with the ' team'.

He quickly signs off the discharge papers. Nurse makes a last appearance to take the heplock out and counsels me to take my meds regularly lest I land in hands again- an ominous warning.

St Barnabas is our nearest hospital and for the most part they have rendered competent care in a mechanical style. It is possible they have pilot program with robots rendering care whose ' Empathy Software' has not been uploaded yet.

I took this to write in such detail because this kind of ' care' has been typical for all my St Barnabas,...

I hope this review helps another mother make a decision of where to give birth. I had a traumatic experience at Saint Barnabas when I gave birth 8.5 months ago. I was kept in triage for 4 hours because there wasn’t a room available for me. My doula wasn’t allowed to come in and I was told I was not allowed to reposition myself in bed or get up and walk around while laboring there alone with my husband. There was nothing wrong with my baby or me and I was for sure being admitted because my water had broken at home. Upon arriving upstairs I was hurried out of the restroom and back in a bed where again I was told I could not reposition or get up to move around, at all. The first nurse walked in and took one look at us and my doula and requested to switch patients because working with a doula annoyed her. I asked repeatedly to move or walk briefly and was met again with no no no. They finally agreed to hook me up to a mobile monitor so I could move. The nurses attempted to hook it up for over an hour all the while I was trapped in my bed. They had no idea how to use this equipment, which was completely unnecessary since intermittent monitoring would have been perfect for my low risk, totally normal pregnancy and birth so far. They moved me to a different room and were able to hook up the mobile monitor, at which point my anxiety and pain were at all time high from being forced to stay still. This was 7 hours after I was admitted to triage. SEVEN HOURS!! My contractions has become inconsistent and I was not dilating fast enough. At this point I got an epidural and started pitocin, I truly believe if I was given the human right to labor normally and move my body both would have been completely unnecessary. My doctor even said I could move, this was purely the nurses not wanting to do more work to come check in on me every hour. After my epidural, my nurse proceeded to give me cervical checks without consent while catheterizing me. Unacceptable. When I was ready to push, my nurse refused to call the anesthesiologist to refill my epidural bag because she said “he’ll be here in a few pushes.” He was not. I pushed for 2.5 hrs after that and my epidural ran out pretty fast. By the end I felt everything, even my knees in pain from being held up in the same position for almost 3 hrs. On top of this I had three different residents in the room with me, all of which had their hands inside my body. Also, I was again told I was not allowed to reposition myself or move. To make matters worse, the nurse did not offer me lidocaine to be catheterized following birth when I couldn’t use the restroom, despite me telling her I had regained full feeling. Frustrated she sent me down to recovery and told them I refused the catheter, it was on the recovery floor I learned that only upstairs would they be allowed to administer lidocaine. After a day of recovering with my son, he was whisked away to the NICU for an infection. The worst night of my life. Especially because after two days on gentamicin in the NICU, we found out that he actually didn’t have an infection and it was a contaminated sample. If you were present for my birth on 11/26/22, you know who you are and you should be ashamed of yourself. I was whole heartedly mistreated in this hospital and I would implore you to reeducate yourself on birth and how to treat a woman in labor or just another...