* About this page: This page and the other opinion type pages on this site reflect my views of Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood, Florida. The opinions here are my own, formed by my experiences, and not dictated to me by any sponsors, since I have none. This site is not ad-supported, whereas others are. Draw your own conclusions, but, if you want to read an honest review, you're at the right place.
Memorial Regional Hospital Review:
My advice for those in a hurry: Do not go here if you have any other option at all! If you are sick and/or injured and your life is in danger, it might be worth the risk to take the extra time to go to a different hospital in the area (the risk is yours to take, but, that is what I would do if given the choice if I had a good chance of living until I got to another hospital without any long-term consequences). Any other hospital than Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood, Florida. But, if you die on the way to another hospital, at least you saved yourself the pain and suffering of being in this hospital and (based on my experience there) been in worst pain and feeling sicker the day you left after being there for over a week than the day you arrived.
After I had gone to my regular doctor to have him examine me for some pain I was having, he sent me to Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood, Florida.
They had security cameras almost everywhere I looked except the patients' rooms and bathrooms (but, there's no guarantee there aren't any in there). Yet, on one visit, I was told it was against the rules for a patient to take a picture even of himself with nothing but the floor as a background (I took a picture of my own foot). Can you say hypocrites? But, sousveillance (someone video recording things that are happening to them and around them) is allowed by the First Amendment, which is a higher authority than any corporation's set of rules. Their rule also sent up instant red flags making me wonder what they didn't want others to know about or have any documented proof of.
I left Memorial Regional Hospital because I felt my health was at risk and my life may have been in danger. Well, that, and when you're below the Federal Poverty Level, you can't afford to spend days in a hospital . . . It's a sad state of affairs when you have to ask to leave a hospital because you're in worse pain than when you went in, it's getting worse the longer you stay, you fear your health and possibly your life is in danger and it's all caused by injuries you received while you were there . . .
What's even worse are hospitals which make you sign forms under duress, such as threatening you with false imprisonment or unlawful detention, which, as you may have guessed from its name, alone, is illegal. This threat was expressed, not just implied, and it was done in the presence of a witness.
Apparently, judging by my experience with this hospital, patients no longer have a right to refuse medical treatment . . .
What excuse would they give for such a thing? Would they follow the examples of the Nazis at Nuremberg AKA use the Nuremberg defense and claim that they were "just following orders" in an attempt to deny responsibility for breaking the law or claim that they didn't know that threatening people is wrong? Between depriving a man of just one hour from his life and depriving him of his very life and killing him, the only difference is one of degree. You've done violence to him, sucked up his life's energy. You can use as many elaborate euphemisms as you like in order to conceal your intent to kill, but with any use of power over another person, there remains the ultimate assumption.
But, I had a feeling that at least some of the staff at this hospital either didn't care about their patients or bothered to listen to them, or, perhaps, did listen to them and wanted to increase their patients' pain and suffering as much as possible. My first clue to this was when I went to the hospital complaining about back pain. Their reaction was to have me lay down in a bed, making the pain even worse.
Judging from the reviews I've read on other Web sites, I'm far from the only person who has had bad experiences with this hospital or its staff. Note to others; Always check the reviews (discount reviews that give a perfect score and reviews which seem a little too praising and especially those which are both) of the local hospitals to see which one is better. And, remember, that ER waiting time you see advertised on some billboards? That's just the time you spend waiting in the lobby waiting room. That doesn't include the time you spend in an exam room waiting to be seen by a doctor, which may be within an hour hour or could take several hours. By all means, ask around, check reviews, be very careful of what you sign (if possible, sign nothing at all especially if you don't see a copy that you can keep for yourself under it) and remember that trust is earned, not given upon the asking. You're trusting complete strangers with your health and possibly your very life. That's worth doing some research on them and being very very cautious.
A few other problems I had with the hospital:
☹ Vein infiltrations: Vein infiltrations are caused when the intravenous AKA IV line comes out of the vein and the fluids which are dripping down the line go into the surrounding tissue instead of in the vein. This causes swelling, pain and according to some, can lead to nerve damage, blisters, burns, muscle damage and even amputations. In the worst cases, there is circulatory impairment, which was what I had. But, apparently, none of the hospital staff who examined me were trained in how to avoid things like vein infiltrations or even in how to recognize them . . . Even though I complained to each and every nurse about the obvious and multiple sites of vein infiltration, the increasing amount of pain and showed them where they were happening on the respective arms, they apparently couldn't be bothered to even offer a compress to reduce the swelling and continued to hook up the intravenous drips even though the fluid was likely just swelling up each infiltration site more as the drips had to be slowed more and more as the alarms kept going off, showing that the problem was worsening. Pointing this out to both the doctors and the nurses didn't deter them in the slightest. The pain was increased each time they injected me with something like a pain shot which did absolutely no good and it increased my pain as it went in as did the flush they gave after it. So, the shots which were supposed to lessen the pain only increased it. Earlier, when they had first put in the intravenous line and had given me such shots, I could feel the effect of the pain shots within a minute or so of getting them and could taste the flush in my mouth. But, after a while, neither effect was experienced. Complaining about how much it was hurting me to get the pain shots did not deter them in the slightest. This is hospital 'care' at Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood, Florida.
☹ Unsafe environment: While in Memorial Regional Hospital, I sustained a knee injury. This was due to a large chair (larger than the regular-sized chair that I saw in the hospital room earlier) that was taken from another area of the hospital and was moved into place between my hospital roommate's bed and the wall, almost completely blocking where people had to walk through in order to get to the bathroom. Apparently, none of the nursing staff who saw it there had any problem with it being there or thought it may have been un-safe for patients, despite the fact that many of them had to see it because it was in full view of the nursing station. Upon leaving the bathroom and turning into the room, in the direction of my bed, I immediately ran into the chair and then, after trying to catch myself on a tall plastic wastebasket to slow my descent, hit the floor. No one rushed to my aid even though a few people saw me fall and I stumbled back to my bed as best I could despite the pain where I tried to keep my leg elevated. A little later, a couple of nurses came in and asked me about it but, didn't even offer an ice pack for my knee, which in a short amount of time, started to bruise and swell up. They mentioned making an incident report about it, but, nobody came in to get the details or to have me write anything up or sign something. I wonder if their insurance company knows about this?
☹ Pain medication as an excuse not to allow you to leave: One of the male nurses named Freddy or Freddie told me that I couldn't be allowed to leave for three hours after being given a pill for the pain I was in. Later on, as I was preparing to leave, another nurse (female this time) told me that she could give me something for the pain, but, neglected to mention that I'd have to stay three hours after getting it. By this time, I wasn't in a very trusting mood and told her I'd just deal with the pain as best I could instead of being the hospital's un-willing prisoner for any longer than I had to.
☹ Crappy insulation and air conditioning: Although one of the nurses said that they had just had new insulation installed, at least two of the rooms I was in for more than a couple of days each were hot in the daytime. Making the patients sweat when they are already sick or are recovering from surgery is not a good idea. Warm and humid environments are a nice breeding ground for many types of infections, including staph infections. You would think a hospital would try to prevent things like pneumonia, endocarditis (infection of valves in your heart which might lead to stroke or heart failure) or bone infections, but, apparently, this isn't something that they worry about at Hollywood, Florida's Memorial Regional Hospital . . . The only reason I could think for them doing this (besides sadism to make their patients suffer even more) is to make them sicker and keep them longer. This is just one the things I attribute to me feeling even sicker on the day I left than when I had arrived. The heat was so bad one time, I wanted to say "aren't you supposed to baste us between roasting cycles?"
* Update: ☹ Falsified medical records: After escaping the hospital (as I mentioned above, they didn't want to let me leave), I set up an appointment with my regular doctor. After going in to see him, he told me that the hospital had written out prescriptions for me and it was in the medical records, but, I didn't receive any and the person who was with me can verify that. The only paperwork I got which mentioned medications was a list of the ones they gave me each day. The nurses who threatened to keep me there unless I signed their form about leaving against medical advice (which is called a DAMA or Discharge Against Medical Advice), told me I wouldn't get any paperwork. Apparently, they or someone else lied in the medical records saying I had gotten paperwork (such as prescriptions) when I didn't. I wasn't even offered a copy of the form they were threatening me with unlawful detention to get me to sign.
Thankfully, I had the foresight to take pictures and I know the importance of off-site secure back-up (and putting the files on USB flash drives and hiding them somewhere you know they won't be discovered or disturbed for possibly decades), the Tor browser, VPNs, et cetera (now you can look them up for yourself so you can learn how to be more secure on the Internet) and have been using Linux for years, preferring it to Micro$haft Winblows. I was using 4,096 bit encryption just for my public e-mail address back in the mid-1990s, when almost everyone was insisting that ISPs and corporations would never invade people's privacy or read their customers' e-mails and to even think that the government would spy on its own citizens was being paranoid. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight . . . By my very nature, I'm not very trusting of people, especially those with power over others, as they have often abused it (doesn't anyone read history?), as seems to be the case here, at least to me. So, now, I'm even less trusting of people, especially health care professionals. This is one of the reasons I have different devices (I had three on me when I was at the hospital, and I wasn't expecting to be admitted) to record not only pictures but also shoot video of things I think may be important later.
But, the DoD knows in what categories I had the highest aptitude area scores after taking the ASVAB . . .
If corporations, small businesses, and the rich and powerful can use surveillance on us, I think it's only fair that individuals can do the same to them and their various employees and agents. People should engage in personal sousveillance, which many see as building a sense of community while surveillance corrodes it. It is also about the only way to show that those with power are abusing it or outright lying.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? It had better be the people, because those with power need to be supervised and exactly how far do you trust the various corporate-owned news channels' investigative reporting, who, even if they aren't corrupt or only report on things which their sponsors and corporate masters approve of, can't be everywhere.
Ever see Alice Cooper's music video Vengeance is Mine? It was making a lot more sense to me the longer I was in the hospital . . .
As a patient, I attempted to not bother the staff any more than I had to, figuring they had bigger concerns. The only things I asked for was ice water once in a while and to call them when one of their machines went on the fritz and started to make annoying noises. Didn't ask for anything special from the kitchen, either. Just chose the stuff from the list they gave me that I thought might be the least nasty to eat. Most of it was bland and almost tasteless, but, I didn't complain, just left it on the trays. Almost all of the television channels sucked (when I used to watch television, I primarily watched the SciFi channel, History channel, Discovery channel and some of the news channels along with cartoons when I could find them on) so I watched stuff on my mobile device and even used the Internet service that came with it so I wouldn't be using up the hospital's bandwidth. The thing I really wanted was to be released, which they seemed reluctant to do, keeping me there for over a week for what I was told was going to be (at most) a one day stay.
Memorial Regional Hospital Review Ratings:
Competence Rating:
➢
❎ Score: 2 out of 10. Those who operated on me seemed to have done the initial job right, but, the vast majority failed in almost every other part of their jobs from addressing patient needs, maintaining a healthy and safe environment, identifying and treating problems (which includes all of the nurses who saw me including Freddy (or Freddie), Alicia, Scott (a charge nurse), Lisa Reed (a nurse manager), Heather, Judith, Alice, Lali (who was listed as another charge nurse), Edna (listed as the nurse manager), Mary, Marcia, Kiya (or Riya) and all of the doctors who were not competent enough to even recognize vein infiltrations when they see them which is pretty pathetic). Making patients even sicker and having them in more pain than when they arrived is inexcusable and a sign of severe incompetence and/or outright sadism. About the only thing they did right aside from the main purpose of the operation and some of my less-important prescription medicine was to provide me with ice water occasionally.
Giving patients their prescribed medication on time:
➢
❎ Score: 1 out of 10. Although they gave me some of the prescribed medication I was supposed to have, they frequently messed up the time I was supposed to have my primary pain medication and when they gave it to me, they gave it to me intravenously, which, as I state elsewhere, was completely useless because of them giving me vein infiltrations either through incompetence or (if intentional) sadism. This was the most important medicine of all and to make it worse, they also screwed up on the times (what they wrote on the whiteboard was frequently off). Did you think I would forget this? Quite the contrary. The days of constant pain only strengthened my memory and determination to report it. Was I given placebo injections which had no effect when I did get an injection and the one who was supposed to have given me the medicine kept it for themselves either for their own use or to sell it? I wouldn't have been able to tell the difference.
Patients' privacy:
➢
❎ Score: 0 out of 10. Not only were some of the staff invading my privacy when I was attempting to write something which I wanted to keep private, by trying to look at what I was writing as I wrote it, one of them (Freddy AKA Freddie) went so far as to try to keep me from even having a bowel movement in peace (by then, I was in a private room with no roommate, so I know 'hogging' it for a few minutes wasn't the issue). Didn't know that was forbidden until he started banging on the door. If that wasn't bad enough, one of them was talking about getting a camera and taking a picture of the nude butt of one of their patients. While they were so exposed, I watched as other hospital staff were either allowed to come into that room or invited in simply to watch, but, I never heard them ask the patient if they could or the patient saying it was okay if they invited in a crowd, although I did hear one of the patients screaming "get out of my room" over and over again. On another visit, when I came in there with a friend, I asked for a copy of one of my x-rays which I just had done and they asked me to fill out the bottom of a form which they said I needed to do in order to see my own medical information (which is a right guaranteed by not only the Health Insurance Portability and Accounting Act AKA HIPAA but also Florida's F.S.A. 395.3025 and F.S.A. 456.057) and then said that they would fill out the rest of it, which was well over ten other names, none of which I recognized. Since when is it legal to modify a legal document after it's been signed by someone? When going in as an outpatient, the security guy demanded that I let him swipe my Florida-issued identification card so he could read what was on it. When I asked him if I could see it, too, he told me no. Secrecy begets tyranny. When you withhold information about your citizens which you compile about them it proves that you cannot be trusted.
Empathy Rating:
➢
❎ Score: 1 out of 10. And, that one out of ten is being extremely generous of me . . . It was closer to one out of 30. The vast majority of the staff at Memorial Regional Hospital seemed to have very little compassion or empathy for their patients. The only time they even acted like they cared was when I had someone with me.
How I felt after leaving this hospital:
➢
❎ Score: 0 out of 10. Was in even worse pain than when I arrived, left with the feeling that they didn't listen to me or even knew what they were doing and were either incompetent or sadistic or a combination of both.
Cost of the visit to this hospital:
➢
❎ Score: 1 out of 10. Over $3,000 and would have been over $135,000 if I didn't have insurance. But, this was an American hospital and America (at the time of this writing) is one of the few developed countries without a universal health care system (the U.K., France, Canada, Australia, Iceland, Norway, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Russia, Cuba, some of South America and almost all of Europe, et cetera, all have one) despite being considered the richest country in the entire world. But, the politicians have no problem with giving the rich as well as many corporations tax breaks and sometimes free land, bailing out banks and other corporations, paying for sports arenas and so on with their taxpayers' money. Shows you who is more important to the politicians, doesn't it?
Information they provided me physical copies of that I could use after my hospital visit:
➢
❎ Score: 0, zero, zilch, nada, none. They claimed that by leaving the hospital without the hospital doctor's approval (my regular doctor didn't even come to see me and considering how bad this hospital was, I can't say I blame him), I wasn't going to get any paperwork which might be of use to me or keep me from returning because I did something wrong. This only proved to me that they didn't care about their patient's health, only about attempting to avoid lawsuits by threatening to use unlawful detention on me unless I signed their paperwork (which was both illegal and null and void because it would have been signed under duress).
Billing department:
➢
❎ Score: 1 out of 10. Although the 'eligibility team' at Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood, Florida claimed that I was eligible to have all my bills paid (I was under the federal poverty guidelines) and they claimed that they faxed them in, I still received bills. So, complete incompetence or inability of their eligibility team to communicate with their billing team (or failure of both of them) or outright sadism, knowing I didn't have the money needed to pay the bills?
Related Pages:
United States of America Healthcare Reform and Universal Healthcare Public Plan
A few other pages on this site:
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