KAISER PERMANENTE EMERGENCY ROOM QUACKERY!!!

At the Kaiser Permanente Foundation hospital emergency room in Oakland, California I was initially left lying on the stretcher placed flush against the wall at the open entryway; shortly after my arrival a fellow conscious black male patient was rolled in on another stretcher and parked ahead of me at my feet.

I was still visibly and uncontrollably trembling all over my body as a result of my reaction to the health supplement substance I had ingested.  Once the younger male intake nurse appeared to attend to me, his prime concern was to ask me to recite out aloud my name and birthday—presumably for identification verification purposes. 

My identity duly verified, my intake nurse promptly disappeared for an indeterminate amount of time.  So I had to ask my caring companion to ask him for a blanket to help relieve my overly observable shivering, which the intake nurse dispatched my companion to retrieve from a heating receptacle in an adjoining hallway, rather than deign to get it himself.  My companion helped me to spread the blanket over me.

After awhile the first and most pleasant of three nurses—a lady—appeared to wheel me on my stretcher into a cramped, unclean and ill-equipped room at the end of the hallway where, after asking me a couple preliminary questions, left me alone for another indeterminate amount of time.  Leisurely, I say, since there was no overt display of care or concern indicating that my particular emergency was anything but trifling and unimportant—despite overtly perceivable symptoms to the contrary.

The second nurse—an overweight lady—appeared to ask me to repeat answers to the very same questions already asked by the first two nurses.

“I’ve already answered these questions,” I told her.

“And you’ll have to answer them again,” she smugly remarked.

Evidently there’s no conducive inter-communications occurring amongst these Kaiser “care”-givers.  And that superfluous and repetitious interrogations supersede patient care as their priority concern.  Expecting otherwise would be far too extravagant.  Since none of these mindless attendants appeared even to know the reason why I was there, they’re most likely simply too lazy to consult together with one another about trivial things like patients.

With the overweight nurse’s first attempt at taking my blood pressure it was discovered that none of the pressure cuffs on hand were usable; so the nurse disappeared for another indeterminate amount of time to find a usable cuff for measuring my blood pressure—which proved to be in a hypertensive range once she returned to finally take it.

A third slender male nurse finally appeared to attempt to hook me up to a saline solution.  Attempt, I say, because the broken gurney for hanging the solution bag was likewise unusable; so he disappeared to find a usable metal attachment, which he returned with after an indeterminate amount of time.

Once the third male nurse returned with a workable gurney he finally connected the saline solution—expressing overt surprise there was already a previously inserted(by the ambulance attendant), unused IV needle already protruding from the crook of my left arm!

“You’d expect that,” the male nurse snidely cracked, “your being in the ER.”  That was his clever, curt reply to my inquiry confirming my hypertensive blood pressure.

He left and returned just to berate me for drinking a can of sweetened tea I’d packed in my shoulder bag for refreshment.

Ultimately my primary “care”-giver—Jeffrey Craig Hong, M.D.—finally deigned to appear with this brilliant opening gambit—if you’re ready for this: “Why are you here?”

Just passing the time of day, I supposed.  I was sort of hoping somebody with some credible medical know-how could diagnose my difficulty and tell ME why I was there!

Instead, I repetitiously rattled off my entire list of symptoms: elevated blood pressure and heart rate, light-headedness, feeling faint, body shivers, sweatiness in my forehead and palms.

No need to do any lab tests to determine the causes of such symptoms, Dr. Hong condescended to tell me, saying he would administer the valium-like drug—Atavan—“to bring this down.”  Presumably, he meant bringing my overly elevated blood pressure down.  No Atavan drug was ever administered to me however—despite the pretenses of the nurses and the falsification of my emergency room record indicating the contrary.

“What’s wrong with her?” Hong cracks about my companion, crouched on a stool in the corner of the dirty room.  “She looks angry.”

“She’s worried about me!” I actually had to enlighten the idiot.  Not to mention extremely upset at the blatant LACK OF TREATMENT I was receiving.  During this entire nonsensical conversation, this quack stood roughly six feet or more away from my bed, as if I had the plague or something.  At NO TIME did he EVER "examine" me--meaning he never checked my heartrate  or temperature or ANYTHING ELSE!

As my companion could easily testify, she observed both the do-nothing quack and the do-nothing nurses: and NONE of them administered to me ANY Atavan—either orally or intravenously through the IV line!  Despite the third male nurse’s false assurance that it had been introduced through the bag of saline solution.

Once more the second overweight lady nurse returned to check up on me before disappearing for yet another indeterminate amount of time.

“This is why I hate Kaiser,” my companion confided.  “Only Summit hospital’s worse.”

It was clear these indolent and indifferent individuals were intent on doing absolutely nothing to either investigate or relieve my symptoms—except keep my lying dormant and hooked up to a bag of saline solution.  So there was little sensible alternative but to leave as the first opportunity; I could suffer less miserably at home in my own bed in the company of somebody who gave a damn.

“They act like robots,” my companion observed.  And like the sluggish and slow-as-molasses black ambulance driver, that’s exactly how they acted and conducted themselves: inanimate automatons!

My companion then went in search of the second overweight lady nurse, and found her idling and drinking coffee in front of a computer.  Doubtless surfing the internet for one or the other of those fascinating social networking websites.

My companion took the initiative to ask the nurse to look in on me because she thought I felt ready and well enough to leave.  Ignoring her, the nurse remained engrossed with whatever arrested her attention on the computer.  My companion persisted on my behalf, telling her to handle it since it was time for us to go.

Eventually this nurse got out of the seat she was riveted to and said she had to first find the doctor so that he could discharge me.  Briefly she re-entered my room and then left after telling me she’d find the doctor.

My companion stood in the room’s doorway to make sure the nurse did just that.  The nurse saw her and told her she was sending for the doctor to discharge me.  The quack never came.

Sometime later the nurse returned to remove the IV needle from my arm without looking for any tape with which to dress the needle wound with protective gauze.  My companion tried pointing out some tape set on a nearby tabletop but the nurse ignored her again. 

Instead, the nurse tried to attach the gauze with some second-hand tape stuck to the IV line that kept coming unstuck!  Now THAT’s sanitary!  As was the visit in the interim by two Latina janitors to change the trash bin bags! 

After this incompetent clod of a nurse left for the last time, my companion snapped up the tape and stuck the gauze simply and securely to my needle-punctured arm.

Sometime in-between all these inept and ineffectual visits, a lady entering the room announced that she was from “registration,” and after understanding at last that I had no funds to pay on-the-spot the $50 “co-payment” I was to be charged, admonished me to remember for the future the requisite “co-payment.”  This same lady from “registration” actually discharged me.

My official “Discharge Instructions” read as follows:

·         “Your care was provided by Hong, Jeffrey Craig(M.D.).  NO “CARE” WAS EVER PROVIDED.

·         “You were treated for the following: Shakiness, sweatiness, light-headedness after taking yohimbine supplement.  CONVENIENTLY OMITTED FROM THIS RECORD WAS MY EXTREMELY ELEVATED BLOOD PRESSURE AND HEARTRATE.

·         “You received the following tests and/or procedures: Examination, iv fluids, ativan.  NO EXAMINATION WAS EVER MADE.  NO ATIVAN WAS EVER ADMINISTERED.

·         “Your results showed: Reassuring results.”  HOW COULD OR WOULD THEY KNOW?

Doubtless these do-nothing, good-for-nothing BASTARDS could attempt to deny any and all culpability had I gone into CARDIAC ARREST due to severe heart arrhythmia at their indifferent and negligent hands.

God only knows what happens to unconscious patients unable to voice any protests must suffer at the hands of these inept and ineffectual INCOMPETENTS!

All I know for certain is: Kaiser Permanente’s cookie-cutter QUACKERY is in dire need of some effective and reformative oversight by state authority!


As an inconceivable footnote: these shysters sent me a bill for my $50 "co-payment" in an invoice  describing the supposed total cost of these  emergency room NON-services: $1016.10!

Unbelievably BEYOND WORDS!