LIJ Healthcare Horrors

Northwell Health has ruined the healthcare industry

Heart attack, stroke and asthma attack victims have always been top priority patients at all hospitals as they are all life threatening conditions. When you are brought in by ambulance to an emergency room with any of those condition the staff in the ER are all waiting to do vitals and are ready to save your life. I had a very bad experience that has shown me either a very disturbing change in hospital protocol or just a very clueless, incompetent staff of 1 hospital located within the 5 boros of New York City. Here’s what happened to me.

I suffered an asthma attack and needed an ambulance to take me to the hospital. My airways started to swell up immediately and I was struggling to breath in thru my nose and mouth. My lungs were getting the slightest bit of air. I was fighting a life and death struggle to breath to stay alive. To understand what was happening to me try putting one of those red plastic coffee stirrers you get from a coffee shop, put it in your mouth and hold your nose closed and try to breath thru that stirrer. Thats exactly what an asthma attack feels like the only difference is you can take out the stirrer and breath asthma sufferers can’t.

A North Shore LIJ ambulance arrived quickly to my home, the EMS crew quickly checked my vitals and knew I was barely getting air into my lungs and immediately administered medication in an attempt to open up my airways as they rushed me to the North Shore LIJ Hospital Emergency Room in New Hyde Park, New York. The EMS crew quickly brought me into the emergency room and this is where everything went downhill.

I have been brought to this ER a couple times in the past. Usually EMS would bring me in report my condition to the staff. The staff would then quickly move me to an area where they would take my vitals while hooking me up to oxygen, pulseox, intravenous medication along with nebulizer treatments to open fully my airways. Well on this day the hospital did not follow protocol and treat a patient with a life threatening condition.

EMS brought me into the ER and there was nobody on staff at the desk for EMS to report my condition to. Even the EMS crew were in complete shock that nobody was coming as they tried to keep me calm. I could tell they were very worried for me. About 15 minutes went by when finally a nurse showed up to the desk. EMS reported to the nurse my vitals and condition and the nurse put me in a corner of the hall that had no identifying number so I could be located. She just left me there without ever checking to see how I was doing. Kinda like taking the garbage can outside to the curb and leaving it there to be picked up the next day. Now I’m laying on the stretcher in the corner as 45 minutes to an hour has gone by and not 1 person on staff came to check on me. I could’ve been dead if my airways had closed up completely all because of the negligence of the staff working that day. I couldn’t believe this was actually happening in a hospital in New York.

I really owe my life to the professionalism of the EMS crew. They did an amazing job caring for me, administering the medications and nebulizer treatments, kept track of my vitals while getting me quickly to the hospital. Luckily for me the work they did opened up my airways while I was laying on the stretcher in that corner of the ER. If EMS didn’t do such an amazing job I can honestly say I would’ve been dead on that stretcher because of an incompetent, neglectful staff that was on duty at that time. You hear about things like this happening in third world countries but I would’ve never thought this could happen here at a hospital within the 5 boros of New York City.