Here is just an overview of what happened the night we went to the ER. patient had been depressed and we were simply wanting to get a prescription to help with her depression and a referral to be seen by a doctor. Neither one of us have a Primary Care Physician(PCP) that could refer her to a doctor, so we were hoping that the ER doctor could get the process started. I drove her to the ER and we are seen by the triage nurse. Upon admission, the nurse asked why we are here and I told her, depression, she asked me some questions and then told me to include suicidal thoughts as well as depression on the admission form. We walked into the admitting room and the nurse began asking a brief history and why we were at the ER. We told her our story and how we wanted to get a referral and some depression medicine. She entered all patients vitals, and asked her if she was going to kill herself, how would she perform it, and patient told her, she would do it with pills. This was after she asked patient if she tried suicide and patient told her no.
We then left the admission area, and proceeded through the ER to room #7, all on her own unassisted power. We arrived to the room and there was no bed, we waited for the nurse to go find a bed and then return, still just standing there waiting. Once the bed arrived, the nurse asked patient to remove her shirt and pants and dress in a hospital gown, she did this unassisted as well. Once she had changed, another nurse came into the room and asked patient if she would give a urine sample, patient agreed. The nurse told her the bathroom was to the right of the nurses station, behind a door on the right. patient, again unassisted, and alone walked to the bathroom and and returned to the ER room with her urine sample. They took a series of vital signs, BP, temp, HR, and o2 Saturation and all normal, turned off the machine and then came back minutes later to do an EKG. The reason I feel all this is important is because if she had in fact been overdosed on benadryl and ativan as they claim, she would not have been able to do all this on her own power. Her vitals would have been abnormal, she would have fever, increased HR and BP, unsteadiness, incoherent, inability to urinate, nausea, movement problems, confusion and stomach pain to mention a few. So clinically she presented herself with nothing, and all the objective information stated that as well. Her blood and urine samples were also normal and the only thing in her system was the benzodiazepine she was prescribed a week prior from the same ER. A week earlier, we went there for chest pain, they determined she was having a panic attack and prescribed her 5 days worth of ativan, the prescription lasted 7 days, so for them to say she was addicted or tried to overdose on those as well was incorrect. The prescription was for 3 pills a day for the duration of 5 days, and she took her last one the night we went to the ER.
We were told a counselor would be on his way to talk to us because there is nothing they can do in the ER. She is metabolically and hemodynamically stable and there is nothing for them to treat. So we waited for the counselor. Ernie showed up and asked me to leave the room so that he can talk to patient alone, I was hesitant at first, but also felt like I had to. About 10 minutes later, I was able to go back into the room and Ernie told me our options. We could go “voluntarily” to one of the hospitals or “involuntarily”. He said that if we went on a voluntary basis, then patient would be seen by the doctor within 24 hours, given a prescription and be seen by the doctor in an outpatient setting. If we chose involuntary, he would have 2 MHMR workers come interview and assess patient and have her admitted against her will at one of the hospitals and then she would not be able to leave on her own will. We obviously went with the voluntary choice. And this is where the nightmare begins.
MAYHILL HOSPITAL IN DENTON TEXAS checked her in and the whole voluntary status is tested. Patient was interviewed by DR. WATTS(from here on, the Dr. will not be used due to it being undeserved) WATTS decided she was depressed, suicidal, and abused benadryl and ativan, since that was the only thing in her system. after the first night at MAYHILL HOSPITAL IN DENTON TEXAS, we elected the voluntary discharge so we could see a physician in the out patient setting and get some medication. Patient asked the nurse what needed to be done and he said just fill out this form, so patient did, and a few minutes later the patient was threatend by WATTS, that if she did not retract the 4 hour voluntary release he would tell the judge to change her status to “involuntary”. this was horrible. so that night we met with a so-called patient advocate and told her how we felt we were deceived into coming here and how we just wanted to leave and seek treatment and meds from a doctor. she agreed that we should not have been told that we could leave, and the informed us that “coaching” would be done to prevent that, but the patient is depressed,withdrawn, not smiling, and suicidal. but never has been on suicide watch. and if a completely sane person was locked up with the people at MAYHILL HOSPITAL IN DENTON TEXAS then anyone would fit that depressed, withdrawn, not smiling catageory.
My first visitation there were men and women walking around drooling, talking about government conspiracies, chips in your heads, talking to themselves and answering, yelling profanity for no reason, throwing food against walls, detoxing from meth, crack, heroin and alcohol. and they talk about a “secure facility” me my son and the patient sat there an hour and five minutes pass visitation hours and noone noticed or said anything, until one of the nut-jobs told the tech that visitors were still on the floor… hows that for secure. and here is my patient never been in trouble, no drug or alcohol abuse ever, never on any psych meds, just sitting there wondering how is this possible, well i can tell you WATTS!!!
<SENTENCE DELETED> After meeting with the patient advocate again, she advised us to not request release until after the weekend, WATTS will probably allow the patient to go home on monday. On monday, WATTS said there would be no release until maybe sunday, the patient was upset and requested another 4 hour release and WATTS said no, we will go to court. Then he said the patient was going to be released on wednesday but since she requested a 4 hour release, it would have to go to the courts and let them decide. This draged on for two more days with no court date, we were then told that since it was the holidays , the courts were closed and not scheduling any dates until after the first of the year! OMG! she would have to stay there until then.
The patient advocate called me at home and told me this I asked about the legal time frame from the time the request was made and she said they have not heard anything from the courts yet, but WATTS may release her if she agrees to go to UBH for out patient services. We agreed and wondered why if it was ok to go now then why not before? We got no answers. We were told that if the patient did not go to UBH then WATTS would let the judge know and she would be ordered back to Mayhill? How could this be when the courts have not responed to our request and they would not be available until after the first of the year? We agreed to do what ever it took to get out of there and eventually released. There is more but this is a short version….
Worst Hospitals In America: UBH / Mayhill 