Abuse of MS Patients?

[Cammie]

Three years ago, I went to the emergency room with very little ability to move, lots of spasms that I'd never had before, very severe pain episodes, and no idea what was wrong with me. I was frightened at what was happening to my body, but tried to remain calm. They told me it was "just anxiety" and sent me home with a tranquilizer. A few days later I was back with the symptons ever worsening. Again they shoved me off with a tranquilizer. And as luck would have it, our car broke down and I was unable to get to another hospital.

A few days later, I couldn't move at all without the most horrific pain imaginable, A nurse practitioner saw me, but to be spiteful (because I was wasting her time with a "mental" problem), she squeezed down on the side of my body where I was having the worst pain while giving me the nastiest of glares. Then she told me to go home and continue taking a medication that was not only not working, but giving me serious side effects.

A couple more days passed. all I could do was lie on a bed and not move lest horribe pain-worse-than-death besiege me. My husband had to go out and buy a bedpan and disposable chux, because I could not get up to go to the bathroom.. The bedpan caused me severe pain to get off or on, so I ended up just using the chux. I was very sick to my stomach and could not eat at all. I could only drink water. Things were slipping fast, but what could we do? The car was still broke down. Was I just going to die here? Finally I told my husband to call an ambulance, but to tell the hospital staff that he was refusing to take me home. That way they would have to find out what was wrong with me. But when I got there, they carted my body into a "mental health room" where a nursing assistant treated me abusively ( I won't go into the details; it will take far too long). Then I was left alone for at least two hours, sometimes screaming because my pain grew ever more severe and horrible. But they decided I was a lunatic and disregarded my screams. My husband had fallen asleep in a quiet waiting room too far away to hear my screams. Finally, a volunteer advocate intervened and found a doctor who was willing to look at me. When she saw me with my spasming and looks of agony, she said, "Oh, my God! You are not leaving here until we find out what's wrong with you!" Then they did the MRI and found the brain and spinal cord lesions. Since I had lost my mobility, they admitted me to the hospital. I suffered some abuse in the hospital. but that's a story for another time.

My question is: how often does this happen? Is it common for an undiagnosed MS patient to be mistaken for a mental case and maltreated? Or was this just a bad hospital? Several different staff members abused and degraded me in various ways.

[Youarethecure]

The abuse is hopefully well out of the norm. Now, at the same time I have seen many stories like you are describing minus the abuse. MS is very hard to diagnose and many times the "invisible symptoms" are overlooked. It takes a good doctor or nurses to start looking down that path.

If you have all the documentation from all the visits, I would honestly go see an attorney. This is something they could have helped with from the first day and it may not have gotten any worse. Not to mention, they put you through a lot of mental anguish all because they were very sub-par at doing their job. It is a hospitals job to figure out why someone is ailing and then to help them.

This truly saddens me to read. I hope you are doing better now and have things under control.

Chris

[1eye]

The abuse is hopefully well out of the norm. Now, at the same time I have seen many stories like you are describing minus the abuse. MS is very hard to diagnose and many times the "invisible symptoms" are overlooked. It takes a good doctor or nurses to start looking down that path.

If you have all the documentation from all the visits, I would honestly go see an attorney. This is something they could have helped with from the first day and it may not have gotten any worse. Not to mention, they put you through a lot of mental anguish all because they were very sub-par at doing their job. It is a hospitals job to figure out why someone is ailing and then to help them.

This truly saddens me to read. I hope you are doing better now and have things under control.

Chris

As people age, I think this kind of thing is more and more common. In Canada, at least, and especially in hospitals like some around here, people who are dying and can't afford a nursing home will sometimes languish in hospital wards because their loved ones can't cope, and the amount of care they receive diminishes the longer they stay. I have seen an old man semi-conscious, lying without blankets on a stretcher in a hallway, no-one paying any attention. He was completely ignored for all the time I was there, and that was the best part of a day.

In addition to this I have often been talked about, to my spouse, in the third person, as if I were a pet at a veterinarian's. This by specialists who make a lot of money.

I think there is a pecking order of command which especially applies when nobody says anything to contradict it. The people you are completely at the mercy of in a hospital depends on who is highest in this pecking order. Also, if a person is lower in this order than someone else present, they will often remain mute when the patient is abused, even if they have personal objections. Plus, if no one is obviously more formally qualified, people, including relatives, caregivers, and friends, will assume the role of nurse or doctor, even making whatever medication changes they want to. And people in a group may conform to the racial, sexist, or age-ist prejudices of the one "in charge". A person having a heart attack may be treated very differently if they are for instance, a female Native person.

It can be a very risky thing, entering a hospital. Pity those who cannot move or make a noise.