Trinity / Patients' Choice "Hospital"

A note of warning :
My daughter was taken to E.R. by ambulance last night to Trinity "Hospital" (renamed "Patients' Choice") with 106.6 fever.
She was diagnosed with pneumonia, given prescriptions, and released near midnight. When she phoned me with the diagnosis and to inquire of the drugs prescribed, I immediately recognized the name LEVAQUIN 500 mg. There is a class action lawsuit filed by the consumer protection group "Public Citizen" on behalf of the HUNDREDS who have suffered permanent tendon damage/ tendon rupture from LEVAQUIN.
There has HISTORICALLY been problems with fluoroquinolone antibiotics almost since their inception. I advised my daughter to call the E.R. and request Zithromax instead, which treats pneumonia quite well.
She did, and was told NO, the attending physician would NOT change the Rx, that she should go to her private physician to get another antibiotic. It is SATURDAY! That would mean a TWO-DAY WAIT to get another medication! Even after being informed of the DANGER of taking Levaquin, after being told her temperature was still a dangerous 104.6 degrees, the best the E.R. could tell her was to come BACK in, be seen AGAIN (after a 5-8 hour wait perhaps) and MAYBE the current attending would prescribe a different antibiotic! This FORCES her to either take the DANGEROUS Levaquin, OR do without ANY antibiotic for 2 days, with a highly elevated fever!
BEWARE of Levaquin, but also BEWARE this "hospital"!
Even though your DIAGNOSIS is charted, is in your medical records there, if, only after 11 hours you need a medication change, YOU WILL NOT GET IT at "Trinity"!
The Hippocratic Oath all physicians make says: Never to do deliberate harm to anyone for anyone else's interest.
"FIRST, DO NO HARM"
How can this be justified?
Patients, BEWARE!

My question is...How long did the patient wait with this fever before seeking medical attention? Was this fever of 106 in an adult?(Which would have fried her brain) and does your daugter not have a primary care doctor she could have seen in the week prior? I work at an ER and am amazed at the people who come in after weeks of being sick and want us to fix them right there and then when not bothering to go to a doctors office, clinic, ect...for the weeks previous of being sick. The ER is not a place for the flu. It is not a place to bring your child for clinic illness. It is a place for emergencies!!! Broken, sprained, trauma, blood loss, motor vehicle accidents, heart attacks, strokes....the use of the ER as a clinic takes up space for a true emergency. Costs thousands of dollars to the public bc more often than not the patient has no insurance or TNCARE which will not pay for an ER visit if not an emergency, although we cannot turn these patients away so the public and hospital eats the bill. AND...if Levaquin is so bad why is it being prescribed in all hospitals, clinics, doctors offices to this day? All drugs have side effects....take care of the problem before it gets this big and a more gentler antibiotic can be prescribed. And Tylenol and Ibuprofen take care of fever in short duration not antibiotics. It takes 72 hours for an antibiotic to take effect and you can't keep a fever that long...Take a FEVER REDUCER until your antibiotic takes effect!

Google Keywords: Trinity Hospital, LLC, Erin, Tn. Emergency, ER, Rural Healthcare Developers, RHD, Patients' Choice Medical Center, Ray Shoemaker, Lawsuit, Malpractice, Chapter 11

_______

I would like to see more ER accounts regarding this hospital reported on this post. I would have never heard of Erin, Tn or this facility, but recent ER events have caused me to start digging...

Leah. I assume you are a RHD employee or work in an RHD Hospital?

http://www.rhdhealthnet.com/contact_us/direct...

To 'Leah'...
Anyone with sight, a computer, & more than 1 functional brain cell can look up the debate about Levaquin. There are MANY lawsuits involving that drug(& MOST others).

As for WHY physicians prescribe it, as a RETIRED physician's assistant & psychologist I could do a dissertation on that! BIG PHARMA doen't give two hoots about the side-effects of any medicine, just the profit margins. That is why one sees evidence of pharmaceutical companies covering up KNOWN problems with their drugs every year!
Each physician must answer for why THEY prescribe such things. Personal experience speaks to me of their lack of time to keep on top of things by reading & research, relying instead on the very companies who manufacture these drugs for honest information, which is sorely lacking from that direction.
As a very educated individual, my daughter knows when to seek medical attention, had been on medications, & a fever reducer, & does indeed have a primary care physician, who advised her to go to E.R.
Unfortunately, she chose THAT "E.R." ( I use the term very loosely.)
If you aren't aware of how quickly a minor illness can become over-blown & fraught with complications, I would have to question your professors.

Your slur against those with TNCARE suggest to me that you have underlying prejudices that only you can deal with. I saw such attitudes frequently when in practice, & am well aware of the vast differences in how the poor were treated , as compared to the rich, or middle-income patients with grandiose insurance plans that allowed for a multitude of unnecessary, but LUCRATIVE (for the facilty) tests did not elude me.

Your comments appear combative & demeaning. I must assume your treatment of patients is based on the feelings you so clearly evidenced here? That is just an assumption, but I will surely pray for the patients who may have you as an attendant... & for you as well.

To: Seeking Information

You may be aware of how few people actually report such maltreatment as this. Especially the uninsured, or under-insured, & even more especially illegal immigrants, seem most reluctant to speak out against patient neglect or abuse, or file malpractice complaints of any type. Their main reason, when questioned, is usually fear of retribution, fear of not having ANY further avenue of medical treatment if one "ticks off" the local demi-gods of medicine. For illegal immigrants, I have read (& witnessed) horror stories of their willingness to endure the poorest treatment without complaint. Sometimes, this has proved to be a FATAL error on their part... & the attendings'.

While the well-insured gravitate to the larger facilities, those who fall into the category "others" feel they must take what's available, & take what they can get at the available local facilities, regardless of how they are treated. Perhaps this may change at some remotely future time. We can hope.
We can also hope that those who go into the field of medicine for the WRONG reasons (the only right reason being to HEAL & CARE FOR patients)will be weeded out of the system, that any facility that is sub-standard will be razed, or else properly staffed & equipped.

That the poor, or even, in many instances today, the low-to middle-income patients, must face so many in the medical profession who FIRST & FOREMOST look at that INSURANCE, is ethically pathetic & wrong. A patient should be a human being, first & always, & an insurance number last. I am in favor of there being NO report of insurance on medical charts for those attendings to see. Whether or not a patient can pay a bill seems to be paramount to far too many.

While I am certainly not saying that ALL, or even the majority of health care professionals treat different incomes differently, I have seen more than enough instances of such to justify my disdain of where we've come to in health care.

All of us are human beings. Everything else, when it comes to patient treatment, is secondary: income, insurance, lifestyles, etc.

I hope ALL who have received maltreatment anywhere will come forward & start reporting every single incident so that MAYBE someone somewhere will begin to change the course of health care in America.
Without compassion, without deep commitment to stellar care for ALL patients, every day, no matter what, we may as well revert to the wild.

I have only lived in Erin for 4 years. I am in no way associated or employed by Patients Choice but have relied on them for care of my grandmother and myself in emergency situations. She was treated for Pneumonia three years ago and then for a major soft tissue infection six months ago. I feel confident about the care patients receive at Patients Choice Hospital. My grandmother was given Levaquin and never had any reaction or problem during or after treatment.
Truthfully, all medications have side effects and just as many have law suits, like Fosamax, which caused jaw necrosis after my grandmother took it for 8 months. I never knew of any law suits until after her third surgery and a dentist told made me aware. So I hope in all your digging you find amazing stories of good care rather than anything otherwise.

Seeking Information wrote:

Google Keywords: Trinity Hospital, LLC, Erin, Tn. Emergency, ER, Rural Healthcare Developers, RHD, Patients' Choice Medical Center, Ray Shoemaker, Lawsuit, Malpractice, Chapter 11
_______
I would like to see more ER accounts regarding this hospital reported on this post. I would have never heard of Erin, Tn or this facility, but recent ER events have caused me to start digging...
Leah. I assume you are a RHD employee or work in an RHD Hospital?
http://www.rhdhealthnet.com/contact_us/direct...