VCU Medical Center Main Hospital — Local services in Richmond

I recently went to VCU and got terrible service. To say that it was even service is an understatement. I came because I wanted to be assessed for a mental health evaluation. I waited about 4 or so hours. I am also type 1 Diabetic and spoke with the nurse about getting something to eat because my blood sugar was dropping. Her response well the best I could is to give your graham crackers. I also asked her how much longer the wait would be because my blood sugar was dipping because I did not eat dinner and was told well all I can do is graham crackers if you don’t have money to get your own food. I asked if I could leave and get something to eat and she said yes. To me I do not feel like I should have to leave the hospital to get something to eat as the options they have available would not be a healthy choice. I also have gastroparesis where 96% of my food is still in my chest 4 hours later. So to eat a honey bun or drink soda for hours because she stated that I wasn’t really in crisis and was not a high priority to me is unacceptable. I said I’d leave then and did not want to be seen. I came back after eating and talking with a friend about 30 minutes later. She stated that they could put me back on the list and another nurse asked for my MRN, which I gave and then I sat and waited and additional 3 hours. In that time I did help a man who seemed less fortunate and not all the way there by getting him food from the vending machine and sharing my food with him. He kept asking for a Medicaid cab to which the staff kept telling him he missed it. After this happened several times and we had built a rapport and talked a little he asked me to use my phone because he said he’d been waiting for hours and just wanted to call his cousin for a ride home. The staff were laughing at him and making fun of him which I heard and other people. I told him I wasn’t comfortable letting him use my phone but that I would follow up with hospital staff. After asking several times and being told hey look Medicaid cabs can take hours. I told the nurse well look that may be the case but he’s now asking to call his cousin is there a phone available to do that? She replied yea it’s been on the wall this whole time. In front of it was three wheelchairs. When I went to go move them the security officer begrudgingly did so. No staff would push him over to use the phone to call his cousin they stated that they were too busy but they weren’t they were laughing and sitting behind him where he couldn’t see as he was in a wheelchair which is one of the reasons he’s shared with me why he couldn’t get food despite waiting for a Medicaid cab for hours. He was there before I was there and waited at least a couple hours in the waiting room. When I went to push him to get to the phone then staff said his Medicaid cab was there. He asked for help to be pushed there and they once again said they were busy. So I offered to help if I could figure out how to unlock the chair. I did and then a staff member came over and said oh I’m not busy anymore and I can push him out to the cab because staff is supposed to do it. She was laughing and joking with another staff member so she was not that busy. I am writing this review to point out that so many times hospitals do things like this and no one speaks up. We all see it and know it’s not right but then why not say something. I am there for my own reasons but to me low blood sugar or not I am willing to put that aside and help another human being. After waiting a couple more hours I asked the nurse when I was going o be seen. She stated that she was trying to look me up but couldn’t find me despite me giving her my name, DOB, and MRN number. She said oh sorry I couldn’t call you a Medicaid cab because I didn’t have your MRN. I explained to her that I did not need a Medicaid cab and was there to be seen and had driven myself there. And she and other staff laughed about that. A person in mental health crisis driving themselves to the hospital. She made a comment I didn’t catch and I showed her...

My wife gave birth at VCU and suffered a horrific delivery experience due to Dr. Amanda Ritter’s negligence. Dr. Ritter was the supervising Dr on call while my wife went through a tragic delivery and she brushed off very dangerous symptoms my wife had as though she was overreacting to the fear of giving birth.

My wife had a fever of 102 and sometimes higher during her delivery which is a cause of concern. When I heard this I did a quick Google search and saw countless articles that stated women who have a epidural during delivery can be strongly associated with women developing a fever during labor which can be harmful for the baby and for the mother. When I approached her about what I read she looked me dead in the face and told me it wasn’t true and she had never heard of it. I have a close friend who is also a doctor and she confirmed that there are many studies out in the medical research community that states the same info. Has it been concluded as factual, not completely, but it’s definitely a known issue among doctors. Dr. Ritter either lied or is seriously incompetent when it comes to such research.

As my wife’s delivery proceeded her temperature continued to raise and now her blood pressure dropped considerably low. She also began to vomit and shake severely. There were other doctors and nurses in the room and no one seemed to know or really care that something was wrong with my wife. Dr. Ritter literally kept telling my wife to “relax and that everything was ok” but it wasn’t. I also heard her whisper to another doctor that “ she’s fine and her shaking is voluntary “. She made it seem as if my wife was shaking on purpose as though she was overreacting. Turns out my wife had sepsis that was a possible result of Embryonic fluid entering her bloodstream. There were almost 6 doctors and nurses that were called into our room after my wife powered her way through her delivery with over 100 temp, low blood pressure, and baby’s heart beat as high as 220 at times and told me that the reason my wife was shaking, vomiting, and developed a fever was because of a infection. Dr Ritter was ready to allow my wife and baby to be in significant harms way or even die due to her cocky and non medical opinion that my wife was "overreacting" . After the ICU team came in Ritter was no longer to be found almost as though she wanted to relive herself from the situation because she knew she neglected to give my wife the care she needed. Thank God we had a RN in the room by the name of Sandy that literally had to beg Dr Ritter to look into my wife’s condition more closely because Sandy knew there was something wrong with her. After Sandy pleaded there was eventually bloodwork taken and that’s when we found out my wife was in critical condition. Dr. Ritter is a liar and has no empathy for mothers when having complications during delivery. After my wife was done another doctor literally said to her that they had never encountered something like that and I think a big reason for that is that VCU is a “teaching hospital” and at times they have doctors that are straight out of medical school and inexperienced working on patients. They had multiple doctors checking my wife’s dilation literally seconds after one another as though my wife was some type of test dummy. PLEASE STAY AWAY FROM THUS HOSPITAL IT IS A POTENTIAL DEATH FACILITY FOR YOU AND YOUR BABY. You may say to yourself “well this was a special case” please know that the next “special case” could be you and if you have someone like Dr Ritter ignoring signs of significant complications you will be at great risk.

I will be sharing our story with the local news, mayor, medical regulatory department, my attorney, and anyone else who cares about their well being and the well-being of their unborn child.

Try Chippenham or Johnson Willis hospital. They both have A grades compared to VCU’s C grade. After experiencing Dr Ritter and other drs incompetence yesterday I completely understand why VCU...

I've been going to VCU for the 2years that I've lived in Richmond. They have a monopoly on healthcare in the city and I can only get certain services through them. And they are awful. I would go anywhere else if I could. From the parking, which always takes a minimum of 20minutes to find, often requiring driving around from building to building to try and figure out which ones offer public, and the decks fill up, even if they are still open, but under such disrepair you feel unsafe being in them. Then there's the walk time to whichever building you need to be at. Sometimes, I wander around for another 20minutes just trying to find the office. To the inability to call any office within VCU directly, so when you are inevitably late for your appointment, or god forbid you have questions for any specific office inside VCU, you cant even get in touch with someone to help, instead you get a customer service line with too many options to choose from, selecting numbers just hoping you can get a person on the line, and even if you do they may or may not be able go help you, or they might transfer you to someone else who doesn't know how or doesn't wanna deal with helping you. Then once you get to your appointment, you're gonna wait some more. I believe it's because they are too large and trying to support more people than they can manage, but it's possible they're also understaffed as Ive noticed the turnover rate is unusually high. Intake is always redundant, even if you fill out your intake forms before you get there the front desk will ask you the same questions again. And none of the offices within VCU seem to talk to one another, so they'll ask you questions about other providers and services within VCU, which defeats the purpose of going there for all of your services if they don't all have access to your records. Even inside a single office they don't communicate, front desk has no idea about wait times because they don't talk to nurses, who can't give you any info either because they don't seem to communicate with technicians, and they operate within these isolated microcosms so where everything should be seamless, the system in place instead feels disjointed and disorganized. No one gives you any instructions on what to expect within your services, so you feel tossed around and disconnected from your own body and healthcare experience. The entire system they've created from start to finish is just broken. If you can find healthcare pretty much anywhere else in the city, I'd recommend taking the time to search for a better option, because VCU is where healthcare goes to get lost. I wish I didn't have...