Ascension Saint Thomas Hospital West — Local services in Nashville-Davidson

WORST EXPERIENCE I HAVE EVER HAD IN A HOSPITAL. I was in near constant pain. Did not know how serious my condition was and they didn't bother to tell me until I was leaving the next day. I asked to see a doctor in the middle of the night in this giant hospital and was told I could not see a doctor!!! I wanted to just leave but they said I would have to pay my whole bill as they would not officially discharge me. My potassium was dangerously low and they did get that back up but I did not know how much danger I was in. My blood pressure was dangerously low and they kept telling me it was just the machines. After several hours when it finally came back up they told me then it wasn't the machines. They ordered an echocardiogram for me and I told them I don't need that I don't have anything wrong with my heart. They said okay and just walked away with no comment. As I was finally getting discharge from this monstrous experience The doctor told me I had one of the loudest heart murmurs he's ever heard. They did not tell me that while I was a patient. I would have accepted the test in that case. And again, I could not see a doctor that whole night. They kept asking why did I want to see a doctor. I TOLD THEM BECAUSE I'M SICK, I DON'T KNOW WHAT'S WRONG WITH ME, I'M IN SERIOUS PAIN, AND I'M SCARED HALF TO DEATH. I wanted to discuss my condition with a doctor and I was not able. They actually said they don't keep many doctors in the hospital at night. Usually just one, and they did allow me to talk to him on a phone that the nurse held up to my ear. He prescribed enough pain medicine and nausea medicine for me to sleep until it was time to check out. They sent me to a discharge room to wait on my ride home with an IV still in my arm. A dear friend of mine died at this hospital one year ago. I can see why. I honestly thought I was going to die without having an idea of my condition. I DO NOT WANT TO RESPONSE FROM THE HOSPITAL TO THIS. I DON'T EVER WANT TO HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH THIS HOSPITAL AGAIN.

By the way I did tell them I wanted out so I could go to Vanderbilt. They said your condition won't be any different at Vanderbilt. I said maybe not but at least I can see a doctor and find out what's wrong with me. They would not discharge me so that I could go to Vandy. I would have also been happy going to Ascension midtown. That is a much better hospital. This Ascension is a place to go to die. Not to live. A hospital with almost no doctors is a pretty novel idea ... And that I think is why my friend did die there. She was unconscious and unable to fight on her own behalf. All of that said, I do want to add that there were some good nurses who tried to make up for the deficiencies. It helped.

I should also add that I have had serious illnesses and multiple surgeries for over 50 years. I counted one time and my stomach has had over 40 incisions in multiple surgeries. I've had a year-long colostomy and two incidents of hypercalcemia that put me in nursing homes. I had to learn to walk again just a year and a half ago from hypercalcemia. I didn't lose control of my legs. I just could not remember how to walk. There were a lot of things I couldn't remember during hypercalcemia. It took two months to get my brain back to normal. My brain didn't work during this time at the hospital which is one of the reasons I really needed to talk to a doctor. As it turned out I did not have the hypercalcemia but I didn't even think to ask about it. I couldn't think that well. My daughter who lives in another state did ask about it but nobody told me that I didn't have it. It was apparently the dangerously low potassium and the heart problem that caused my issues that night. I still don't know what was causing the severe pain. It would have been nice to know what was wrong. Maybe I would have been a little bit...

I never had the procedure, which was to be a heart catheterization, completed. I took a Lyft to the hospital, which was to be my way home, since my wife was recuperating from a recent surgery.

I had been perfectly up front with my doctor, his nurse, and the people at the Outpatient clinic that I would be using a service to go home from the hospital. The nurse who worked in cardiac care with my doctor, in fact, even mentioned they’d had patients in the past who had done exactly that.

So I was taken aback when, after being prepped in the unit, the person doing the prepping, an officious and supercilious Millennial whom I can only assume was a nurse because she never bothered to identify herself, announced high-handedly that wouldn’t be able to trust allowing a Lyft driver take me home after the procedure. However, she added dismissively, I could undergo the procedure without anesthesia.

Of course I immediately refused and left, telling them I would expect a call from my doctor as soon as he arrived. Within two hours, I’d received a call from my doctor’s nurse, asking what had occurred.

When I told her the situation, she was shocked, since not only had they had patients do this in the past, but it was even established on the prep sheet I had been given. She assured me that my doctor would have insisted on anesthesia had I waited for him to arrive. Unfortunately, I couldn’t be sure of that at the time, especially since this nurse in the Outpatient clinic had spoken to me with such absolutism.

In addition to the time these people in the Outpatient clinic wasted, I spent $45 getting to the hospital and back without getting my procedure.

To call this fiasco negligence would only be to dignify it. It’s appalling in a medical facility, where one might assume there are increasing instances of patients who, for whatever reason, rely on professional transportation services to get to and from their procedures.

What is even more appalling is hearing some officious nurse trying to usurp the authority of a doctor.

There were many other options the clinic could have taken, including contacting the cardiac unit to confirm what their protocol was. Instead, they insisted on their own feudal authority-which, as it turned out, was untenable. I only wish the doctor today had the same options open to any feudal lord in dealing with his stupidly intransigent and parochial tenants.

At the very least, nurses in this clinic need to learn their place. I would prefer to see the nurse in question summarily dismissed. Maybe she should be sent to the children’s ward where she can exercise her mean little spirit amongst people she actually can push around.

In the meantime, get woke. It’s my business how I get to and from a procedure. I don’t know when you people decided you had the responsibility much less the right to dictate what care you will dispense based on your arbitrary and stupid assessment of what transportation services you will accept and whst you will not. Do you...

Not the best experience. I asked for help going to the bathroom 20 minutes later I had to call and ask again. I got ready to get out of bed and asked for help not knowing the best way to move to get up and I was told just to stand up. Using a walker to go to the bathroom when I got in there, the tech said just turn around and back in and as I got ready to sit down, he was gone, so I had to do it myself and get back up off the toilet without assistance.. They said I needed to walk before being discharged so the tech got me back to the walker. We walked out into the hall and I asked him how far do we need to go and he said whatever you want no instructions as to what was required so I walked further than he I guess wanted me to then when I got back to the room since they were discharging me, I asked for help getting dressed. They took all the monitors off me and one of the other text that was in there said I could take the sticky tabs off myself when I get home so my daughter and I took all the sticky tabs off and while the two texts were in there I said I need to put my clothes on and they stood by and watched while my daughter had to help me put my underwear, pants, socks, shoes, and shirt on they never offered to help in anyway. I had asked for pain medicine earlier that morning, which I never got until a quarter till 11 as I was being discharged, I never received my breakfast even though I was told by three different people they would check on that it never happened. The evening before I had a nurse named Evan and then Ashley, who seem to be attentive and helpful with the morning of discharge I felt like I was on my own and it’s a bit more embarrassing when your daughter has to help you get dressed. The only one that showed compassion and concern for me that morning was the lady that brought the wheelchair to take me out to the car she was extremely cautious going over the thresholds and bumps and even apologize because she was doing the best she could, and it was still jarring me, but I told her I appreciate her concern and the time she was taken to spend with me. I just never did catch her name and I regret that because she was wonderful. They also brought my lunch tray, even though I never received my breakfast as I was leaving in the wheelchair when it came Time for discharge, they handed me a packet and said here is all your discharge instructions. You can read them over when you get home and never offered any suggestions thoughts what I need to do or not do just handed me the papers my blood pressure right before I left was extremely high and the tech said is it always this high and I said no it usually isn’t but at that point I was so frustrated. I’m not surprised my blood pressure was high. I grabbed my packet of papers and...