Angel Cromer was running to class at the Humanities Center when she felt stabbed by a severe amount of pain and fainted before even reaching the doors.The senior theology major said she remembered being rushed to the emergency room at Cleveland’s SkyRidge Medical Center during her first semester at Lee in the fall of 2005.
Good and bad experiences can happen in any emergency room, but students at Lee have generally had negative stories to tell about their times at Bradley County’s ER.
Cromer said that by the time she arrived at the hospital, the episode was almost over, but that the medical staff decided to investigate further.
“Due to their excavation, they actually ruptured my ovarian cyst that was the size of a baseball,” she said.
Cromer said that cysts shouldn’t be ruptured at all as they introduce harmful chemicals into the body.
“It probably was an accident, but you’re not supposed to touch it, period,” she said. “I would expect a female of any variety who has had female issues to understand you’re not supposed to touch a cyst.”
Cromer said she was then sent home, sans painkillers, and suffered a severe amount of pain for a week until she was able to visit a specialist.
When junior telecommunications major Beth Blair passed out at Lee and awoke unable to move, she was rushed to the emergency room at Cleveland’s SkyRidge Medical Center, a trip she now wish she never took.
“They never really paid any attention to the fact that I was there,” Blair said. “The waiting room wasn’t packed or anything. They just didn’t do anything.”
She stayed in the waiting room for three hours before finally being admitted, where she waited for another nine hours as she was told that tests were being run.
By the time 12 hours had passed, Blair said she was told a different doctor would replace the first, who was rude and hadn’t made any progress.
Blair said the nurse told her that she needed an IV due to dehydration, despite Blair’s insistence otherwise. She said that the nurse made seven attempts to strike a vein.
“I was yelling at the nurse, telling him to stop, but he continued,” she said. Finally, a second nurse was brought in to insert the IV.
Blair said she was finally told she could leave when she was able to eat.
“I spent over 36 hours in the hospital and they couldn’t find out what was wrong with me,” she said. “I thought it was pretty ridiculous that it took them that long.”
The bill for the visit came to around $4,500, she said.
“Unless I literally will die…do not take me [back],” she said. “Never go to Skyridge. I’ve heard enough malpractice suits, I’ve heard enough misdiagnosis…It’s as if your garbage man is your doctor.”
Sara Kistner, a sophomore education major, said that her encounter with the local ER left her extremely displeased as well.
“We waited for well over an hour (good thing it wasn’t life or death!) and finally gave up and left,” she said. “There were several other people waiting and none of them got seen either.”
Mickey Moore, director of Lee University’s health clinic, is a former employee of the medical center.
“I worked as a nurse in the ER at SkyRidge for two years and as a nurse for many years when it was Bradley Memorial Hospital,” Moore said. “I have seen both sides to a great extent.”
Moore said that Lee’s health clinic very rarely sends students to the SkyRidge ER. He said that the clinic only refers students to the ER if they have the insurance for it.
“We can treat most common illnesses and can provide stabilization in the case of an emergent condition until advanced care can be reached either with the EMS unit or by transportation to the ER,” Moore said. “We are not equipped nor licensed to operate an emergency care unit.”
Not all experiences with the medical center are negative, though.
Carol Hays, a senior sociology major, said she was met with positive service during her two visits to the ER.
“Both times were a ‘good’ experience, ‘good’ being a relative term,” Hayes said. “We received care fairly quickly, less than one hour both times, and the nurses were helpful.”
Senior biochemistry and English major Jeremy Blanchard said that a serious injury led him to the local ER.
“I broke my collar bone at rugby practice,” he said. “All the doctors and administration were very professional.”
Jason Feliciano, a junior telecommunication major, said he visited the ER after a bike accident in downtown Cleveland.
“Campus Safety drove me to SkyRidge where they left me,” he said. “I was by myself…didn’t know anyone.”
Feliciano said he waited for three hours to be seen.
“Doctors kept coming in, but they didn’t do anyting, didn’t talk to you,” he said. “Finally a doctor came in and…started touching my open wounds with his bare hands….It was disgusting. And it hurt too.”
Cromer said two other scenarios at SkyRidge caused her to lose faith in the medical center.
In one instance, she said the hospital refused to give care. At a different time, she said the hospital wouldn’t stop providing treatment, despite her refusal.
“They wouldn’t treat me for being a psychiatric patient. That isn’t quite right,” Cromer said. “I was literally having a breakdown and seeing things – which isn’t right … They wouldn’t even sedate me.”
Two days before the 2008-09 academic year at Lee began, Cromer said she was riding her bike in humid 100 degree weather when she blacked out on the side of the road and local pedestrians called an ambulance.
Despite having already consumed a half gallon of water, she said medics tried to treat her for dehydration.
“I understand that by state law if an ambulance stops, you have to take it. However, I refused to get in the ambulance,” she said. “I refused everything. I refused to go to the ER…. I refused to go to the hospital.”
Cromer said that state law requires that she be able to refuse treatment and leave after arriving at the hospital.
“I demanded,” she said. “I said ‘I refuse treatment, please let me leave’ and they said ‘no, you’re too dehydrated.’”
Cromer said she could deal with dehydration at home instead of having to pay a $600 hospital bill plus a $1000 ambulance fee.
“They decided to sidestep the law by saying ‘you are in no condition to choose because you are so dehydrated,’” she said.
When it comes to broken bones and X-Rays, Cromer said SkyRidge could get the job done. However, if your condition is undiagnosed, she advised that Lee students seek more advanced medical assistance.
Cromer said it was worth spending more money on doctors who actually care, despite the state of the economy and college students’ notoriously-empty bank accounts and lack of insurance.
“I know money is tight but you end up getting crappy doctorship,” she said. “Do not wait until you have an episode like I did and then go to the ER and get everything messed up worse.”
• Jessica Wright and Andrea Matthews contributed to this article.
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