Erin Stephens

Review of Lubbock County Detention Cente...

The main hospital seems to be fine so far but if y...

The main hospital seems to be fine so far but if you ever have to be seen at the Medical Pavilion, I will pray for you. I'm currently a student, pregnant, and am on medicaid for pregnant women due to my financial situation. Not that I have to make excuses for being on medicaid but I almost feel I do because of the way I'm treated when I'm seen by doctors and nurses (mostly ignorant nurses). My insurance is limiting in that I can only be seen by my doctor at the medical pavilion, a branch of UMC. My last experience consisted of me repeatedly being told I should choose another doctor other than mine because she was "really busy" and had "a lot of patients to see." I thought to myself hmm...don't all doctors have a lot of patients to see? Perhaps if I had another type of insurance, I would get a bit more respect. Anyway, I literally had to tell these nurses that I was not switching my doctor 7 or 8 times. One of them was extremely rude and ended up telling the other nurse "fine, just give her what she wants." I thought well yes, this should have been the case all along...to give me what I want. I'm pregnant, and I do have the right to choose my doctor. Once I brought up the fact that this is my "choice" and asked her to stop trying to persuade me to switch doctors, she finally saw the light and left me alone. My husband and I are both college grads who are just going through a tough time financially. We don't deserve this, nor does anyone else. I had blue cross/blue shield before losing my insurance. I always got excellent care and was never talked down to the way I am now. My plan is to switch back to this insurance once our baby is born because our finances will be more in order by then. My heart goes out to all the women on medicaid who have to endure such mistreatment on a routine basis. A message to all doctors and nurses at UMC and The Texas Tech Medical Pavilion: just because a patient uses medicaid does not mean they are second class citizens and should not be treated as such. You don't know their situation and you have no right to judge them. This is not the last time this hospital will be hearing from me.