CarolinaEast Medical Center — Local services in New Bern

My mother came here as a COVID+ Patient on Tuesday March 9th room #20 in the ER. She came here with increased shortness of breath on exertion. I am a Registered Nurse with well over a decade of experience as an RN but most importantly an ICU, ER, and travel nurse who has worked at many facilities and is working on a Master's degree. I do my job well for stranger's family members every day and I expect the same from others. I have had COVID personally and I have cared for a many of COVID patients. I called around 10pm to ask about my mother who is not from the area and her husband is admitted to that hospital with COVID. I asked if they had run any bloodwork on her specifically a D Dimer to see if she had any blood clots. The nurse (Nikki RN )told me that she had a chest xray which only shows COVID. I stated yes but a CT scan is the only way to see a life threatening blood clot. A blood clot will not show up on a chest xray. I asked if she could please ask the doctor if a DDimer could be ran and she told me that my mother already has discharge orders so she would have to go back out to the waiting room and go through registration again to get bloodwork done when she is still sitting in the ER room attached to the monitor and has not received discharge paperwork. I know she is still in the system at this time. I asked if she could please just ask the doctor about the DDimer and CT Scan. According to the nurse the doctor told her that a D Dimer was not warranted because my mother did not have tachycardia (heart rate 100) or chest pain. My mother said "I did have chest pain" the nurse stated "yeah but you didnt complain of chest pain until after we said you were being discharged". I said "but the only symptom she needs to warrant a D Dimer and CT Scan to rule out Pulmonary Embolism is the increased shortness of breath that EMS brought her there for". She has COVID. COVID causes coagulation issues and people are dying from pulmonary embolisms, strokes, heart attacks and developing DVTs and they are telling me that her COVID + Shortness of breath doesn't warrant a DDimer and CT scan. I too had COVID and when I came to the ER (different hospital) with increased shortness of breath they ran a D Dimer on me and guess what even though I didnt have chest pain and my vital signs were all normal. I HAD MULTIPLE BLOOD CLOTS received a heparin drip and was discharged on eliquis. I tried to discuss it and talk to the nurse manager who only said that the nurse said my mother refused to stand up. My mother stated I did not refuse to stand up I just get really short of breath when I stand up. I asked to speak with the nursing supervisor who stated he would go see what can be done. The next person that came in the room was the nurse Nikki asking who her ride was going to be. I stated "oh we are waiting for the nursing supervisor to come back" she stated " oh, they aren't coming back you're discharged when can your ride be here?" Perhaps I should contact the NAACP because the lady that my mother cares for is white. They came to the ER together and she got a CT Scan without chest pain or tachycardia to rule out Pulmonary Embolism so why did my mother not? She waited in the ER for them to set up a cab. 7hrs later. They told her she had 30mins to leave after we had been waiting for 7hours for them to set up a cab for her. The nurse said let me go talk to the case manager. Then came back and said the cab wont come get her because she is COVID + and there is no way to sanitize their car after. So I called to speak to the ED patient navigator who stated we have been waiting for (my cousin) miss George to come get her for 7hrs. I said miss George never said she was coming because they weren't doing the tests that they were supposed to do. She never said she could come and get her. I cannot come get her because I am 4hrs away. It just seems like they dont want to help us in any way.

Will be calling everyone that I can until this is justified.

Info in pictures directly...

This is in reference to the ER at Carolina Medical Center in New Bern, NC. In a word & more words to follow, TERRIBLE. My husband was brought in by ambulance Sunday for severe pain in his knee. He did not fall or twist it. After the ambulance left, I waited 2 hours before I went there. (It is 35 minutes away, 1 way). I packed a bag for him believing they would surely admit him. WRONG. I got there around 3:30 & he was lying there in excruciating pain, so bad he was in tears. I have never seen him cry in the 45 yrs we have been married. The day nurse was very apathetic & was only concerned about checking vitals. While I was there she put a BP cuff on him and slung the bulb part across his chest like someone would throw a piece of paper on a desk & promptly left without saying a word. FIVE HOURS later, she comes in to give him a pain shot. Really? FIVE HOURS? He had a CT Scan prior to me getting there & was triaged by the ER Dr. I asked repeatedly, "what are the results of the CT Scan?" I already "knew" that CT only shows BONE, and since we went to Urgent Care a few days prior, "they did" an xray, which showed no bone damage. One would "think" that looking into the "computer" with his name & BD, they would ALREADY know that a CT Scan would show NOTHING as did the xray. He told them he had an "xray" prior, & let them know it was determined it was not BONE related....but they did the CT SCAN anyway & it took 3 of them to get him on the table as he was in severe pain. After 7 hrs the ER two nurses, "male & female" put him in a brace & gave him crutches. HE ALREADY has a pair of crutches from Urgent Care....& was told a brace would not help, so here we go anyway. I asked, as they fitted him with the brace if it had been determine what his issue was. The male nurse said the Dr has to read the scan. I was fed up at that time & said so after 6 plus hrs there. The male nurse stated that I didn't have to be "rude". Are you friggin kidding me?! I was just warming up. The Dr returned about 8:30 & asked me what meds he takes, I had them in a bag for him to review. It was obvious he wanted to be "somewhere" else. I asked him if he read the CT Scan. The hospital DOES have an MRI machine I questioned why he was not sent there. No response. He said he did & of course "we knew" what the findings would be. The nurses were VERY rough with him putting on the brace & it wasn't until they walked out of the room (door open), I realized why......the TIME CLOCK was just outside & they promptly "clocked out" & beat feet to leave. Aha moment. The next shift nurse took the plastic off the crutches because she needed to see how he uses them, despite his protests that he already has crutches at home. She stated protocol before release. He asked if she could tell the Dr that he sent the scripts to the "wrong" pharmacy & requested he reroute them to our pharmacy 20 miles away. She stated that one could be rerouted, the other could not. The next day, I called the ER to ask if the ER Dr he saw yesterday could reroute the scripts to our local pharmacy. I was told he was not in yesterday & the person answering the phone did not know WHEN he would return. So.....I had to make an HOUR round trip back to town to pick up 2 scripts that the ER was told to send our local pharmacy. Bad, all the way around. He should have been admitted. My cats Veterinarian could have done a better job. I then get a text for a review and realize CCHS ER is "contracted out". ...

This place is awful aside from a handful of sweet nurses. I had a reoccurring issue for over a year to which they just kept saying they didn't know. I had to come so much that a dr literally told me they won't be conducting tests on me any longer. Just giving me morphine and sending me home. March 2024, in a lenor county hospital we find out I have bilateral embolisms due to Mt birth control. I'm 28. I went through all that for over a year when EVERY symptom pointed to my birth control. Lenor county also advised me that I could die at any moment and needed to be admitted immediately. So for over a year everyone passed judgment onto me, suggested i was a drug addict and treated me badly when I could have in fact died at any moment because of their negligence. To the point of after the blood clots were found a dr came and asked me if I have a passed with IV drugs because of all the scar tissue I had. The scar tissue THIS HOSPITAL caused me when they wanted to keep telling nothing was wrong with me.

Skip to today, I am pregnant and woke up with severe cramping and bleeding. Naturally I rushed to the hospital. I wasn't greeted by my nurse so I sat for 30 minutes waiting while everyone else in our "pod" was taken care of. (There are four open closet sized rooms in one main room so everyone is looking at each other, can hear each other, and the nurses/Dr.) I asked the nurse who finished helping the patient in front of me, which mind you I know why everyone in this pod is here and their names, who was my nurse. He told me who and then coincidentally 2 minutes later here's my nurse to let me know the PA will be there shortly. She came in about 5 minutes later. Told me I need blood work, swabs, ultrasound and a urine test. The blood, swabs and urine were taken, and the woman was an absolute pleasure. Over an hour passes and I hear nothing, no one checks on me, nothing. My pants are bled through, I'm crying, and everyone in this pod can see the wetness I'm sitting in and hear everything that's going on. I go to them and ask for the charge nurse, to which I still don't know who the charge nurse is and miraculously a nurse reads me off my blood work at the nurses station to let me know it doesn't look like a miscarriage based on blood work. By this point I feel undignified, my pants are bled though and badly (like a massacre), I'm crying and shaking. No one since being here offered me as much as a pad to help. After expressing the state of soiled I am, no one says anything. Doesn't even offer me a gown. I feel embarrassed and even worse because these strangers are looking at me sob in my blood soaked pants and chair. I should NOT be dealing with this. At all. The lack of empathy is disgusting. I should be able to focus on the fact if I had a miscarriage or not. On top of the fact that if this is indeed a miscarriage, I've been forced to sit in my dead babies tissues while I hear people suggesting to other nurses to "watch Old Gregg on youtube." And discuss their ages so they can determine why some wouldn't know what "Old Gregg" is.

Finally my NURSE comes in after tests are done to advise me that his opinion is nothing is wrong with my ultrasound.

I'm still sitting here in my soiled clothes, cold, and have no answers aside from 'opinions'.

This is today's Healthcare system. Truly a failure. I actually think I'm going to seek legal help since I feel repeatedly undignified by this hospital....