Kendall Finney

Review of White River Medical Center

After running a fever for 11 days straight and hav...

After running a fever for 11 days straight and having bad upper left abdominal pain when eating, I finally broke down and went to the ER even though I was uninsured because it was recommended by my family doctor that I go as I had passed out in the shower the night before I visited the ER. I had recently lost health insurance coverage two months prior. Upon check in they never asked for updated insurance or if my insurance was the same so I'm guessing they assumed I had insurance. They quickly got me back into a room to be examined. The nurse who did my initial questions was very pleasant and sweet, then a doctor came in. Not sure of her name, I don't think she ever introduced herself but I remember seeing it written on the whiteboard. She was rather standoffish. Wouldn't make eye contact, just kept staring at the computer screen or looking up at the ceiling while I was talking. She performed an abdominal exam and said they were going to do a series of tests to try to rule some stuff out. I gave a urine sample, then came back in the room and the nurse promptly got set up to start an IV. She was nice enough to place the IV where I requested because I'm a hard stick. Blood was drawn and then she came back with some pain meds because I was experiencing mild abdominal pain that I rated at only a 2-3 so when she said "narcotic pain meds" (no specific name given), I just assumed something on the "milder" end of the scale since my pain wasn't bad. She pushed it through my IV and immediately tingles shot up my left arm and into my chest, my chest tightened so bad I couldn't breathe. I can only imagine this is what a heart attack would feel like, it was awful. The nurse showed no worry and assured me it was normal and that it would subside soon. When I finally caught my breath I asked what kind of medicine it was and she said she had given 4mg of morphine. (Later after this incident I asked a few nurses I know if this was normal and they said no, they've never had a patient react to morphine like that and they said she must have pushed it all in at once). So after that they sent me for a CT and a CT with contrast. I was happy because I felt like they were being thorough and aside from the "normal" reaction to the pain meds and the weird doctor, the experience was going pretty good so far. They brought me back to the room after my CT's and about 20 mins later a different doctor came in (who also never introduced himself) and said I was being sent home because I "just have a UTI", antibiotics would be called in, then just walked out. I felt it was at this point they realized I didn't have health insurance and just wanted me out. My mother who was there with me had to leave the room and stop the doctor because we had questions that weren't answered. We asked how a UTI causes me to not be able to eat without being in intense pain. He said "it's probably you're gallbladder which will have to have a scan done to find out but we don't do that here. It's something you set up with your doctor." Lol, a hospital doesn't do gallbladder scans? What a joke. I feel like I was in then put out so fast, did the labs even have time to come back? How thoroughly can you read two CT scans in 20 minutes at best? So now I get to pay $3,500 to be told I had a UTI.