Half a dozen hospital visits in the last half-dozen years, and I have never once been wheeled to the door, even after surgery. Not once.
They can’t force you to use a wheelchair either. Just start walking, some aide will probally follow you with the wheelchair all the way to the exit pleading, but they’re certainly not going to try to restrain you and tie you to the chair. The last time I was in hospital the nurses kept insisting I ride a wheelcair when I was discharged. I kept saying no and walked away. One nurse even tried to get to stop by grabbing my arm. After 2 days in hospital I wasn’t exactly in the best mood and I responded by (very loudly) telling her to keep her fucking hands off me and refering to her as a bitch. My parents were there to drive me home and naturally this horrified my mother and caused my father burst out in laughter.
Oh, I understand all that! I’m certainly not laying blame at the feet of the techs, who were just following orders. I just wish that my mother had listened to me, instead of going with the ‘old-school think’ of “Doctor=God”. At some point, the people who are directly responsible for caregiving (doctors, nurses, whoever), need to stop and think of who and what they are treating. If my mother’s oncologist had taken the time to step in, he could have said “Hey, these blood gas tests are causing her a lot of pain, and aren’t doing anything to prolong her life, or improve her quality of life. Knock it off!”
Of course, I can also understand why one doctor would be hesitant to step on another doctor’s toes.
No, I didn’t think you were. 
It’s a difficult situation all round, and that’s a hard decision to make - is it better care to keep trying to prolong a life, or let it slip away?
Well, sometimes the doctor’s opinions get in the way. When my mom was in her final decline we had a very young doctor who was very aggressive with tests and procedures. Mom basically told him to go to hell at one point. He looked at her chart, noted she was vascular dementia, and came to us all concerned that she was refusing treatment and not in her right mind (and yes, insisting she be treated against her expressed wishes).
Took some very, very, VERY firm discussions to get it through his head that
- Yes, mom had some dementia and communication problems but she was NOT a mindless husk, and
- She had expressed her opinion in a coherent manner NUMEROUS times, and
- She had been in poor and declining health for over 50 years! and
- Off her rocker or not, dad had power of attorney, as established in legal documents over 20 years ago for just such an eventuality, and
- No, were NOT “giving up on mom” (yes, he actually used those words) by looking into hospice for mom.
Yes, we had to enlist the aid of one of the more senior doctors. Also, my sister with the MD also gave him a talking to when she finally showed up. The rest of the hospital staff were behind us, for the most part, and more than one tech was visibility relieved when mom or dad said to leave mom alone.
The only other time we had a problem was a home aid who came by and freaked out, saying mom was too sick to be at home and we needed to call an ambulance IMMEDIATELY! No, honey, she’s in hospice because she’s dying, taking her to the hospital won’t do anything but annoy people. The aid’s look of horror was almost comic - we were going let mom die? Uh, yeah, that’s kind of what hospice is. We weren’t too happy about the situation, but life (and death) can be like that. But at least this chick had the excuse that she was new, and not attached to the hospice, she being sent out to my parents’ house was just at the point mom went to hospice so there was some crossing paperwork and confusion for a day or two.
We got it sorted out, but it once again made me terrified of winding up an ancient old lady with no family left and no friends at the mercy of the medical system.
I was formerly a volunteer in a hospital E.R. There is abolutely no way you could be forced to be wheeled out if you didn’t want to be. What are the orderlies going to do, push you into the seat if you try to stand? You’re not hardly "gaming the system " by walking out, just being stubborn.
And no, not everyone has to be wheeled out, either. Doesn’t that just sound…silly?
They insisted on wheeling me out of the hospital, to my dads car, after i had surgery on my left index finger – at the age of 18.
Can’t say I wasn’t grateful, though, I was in 1.5x the typical maximum for dilaudid (2 point something mg?), a drug I layer found out is way stringer than heroin. My doctor made a crack about me being the only person who’d been conscious at that dose, who wasn’t a regular user… I can’t confirm I was conscious, but i can confirm i was not in pain.
Cat Whisperer is correct I think in encouraging people to take responsibility for their own health as much as possible. Every patient gets a large sheaf of papers upon entering which delineate the rights and responsiilities of both the facility and the patient. I think few people are able to or take the time to read them. And I suppose many who do would have trouble understanding them!
In an ideal world it shouldn’t matter, but if you are an uncooperative patient the chances of you getting the kind of care which will feel satisfactory to you are poor. So if you intend to defy instructions designed to help you heal to the optimum brush up on your polite assertiveness tactics, Gang.
And yes. Nurse DO run the hospitals. (But rarely are credited as such.) IANAN.
If you are a danger to yourself and/or others they can physically keep you there. Otherwise you are free to go.
They insisted on wheeling me out after I had my first child, when I’d been in the hospital for a week. No one mentioned it when I had my second, after I’d been in the hospital for nine weeks (and anyway, I just walked over to NICU to be with my baby after they discharged me, anyway).
If a person’s face is mashed up, isn’t there a good chance he could have a head injury? I would hope the hospital would force treatment on me if I was in a daze after being attacked or in a car accident.
Besides being possible legal evidence the other function of the AMA form is to make patients stop and think. I’ve had more than one patient who was angry about their care in some way or just didn’t like hospitals or whatever change their mind about leaving AMA when I explained that I needed to have them sign a form saying that we think they need further treatment, they’re leaving anyway, and anything bad that happens as a result is their responsibility.
Nope, the muscles of the face and scalp are highly vascular, so they may bleed like stink in the abcense of head injury (this favors the healing process), I’ve discharged many people that looked like hell.
Oh Good!
Hospital (horror) stories!
I once hemorrhaged (both ends simultaneously! yea me!). That was Th night. I went about my business Fri and Sat, eventuallly callled an ambulance on Sunday night. This was long before cell phones. The EMT took one look at me and pulled out his phone. I had never seen an ER in full tilt boogie mode - quite impressive, really.
Anyway, by 02:00 - 03:00 I was in the ICU with wires, tubes, etc, plus 5-6 medical types.
Then all the medicals left and a nice, soft-spoken, neatly groomed young man siddled up to the bed and asked “Is there anyone you want present?” I responded that competant medical staff would be nice.
Anyway, I checked myself out about 4 hours (and 2 units reds, 3-4 saline) later.
I saw the bill (circa 1995) - the hospital bill alone was $54K (or ~9K/hr) -Blue Shield had written a policy just a few months earlier - I think they still hate me for that one.
Another time, I triggered a 72-hour hold by mentioning suicide (yes, the twits really did have me on a suicide watch). That ended with a real, live judge holding a competancy/habeas corpus hearing. I won; the nurse who pulled the cute trick of holding me then tried a couple more tricks, none of which worked. I got the impression she was in deep shit with both the judge and the hospital (Mt. Zion, San Francisco, if you want a place to avoid).
But yes, I have signed myself out more times than I have been discharged…
Shhhhh…BTW your mother is about to call you, you should give her your address.
I don’t think that’s always true.
I know a guy who was in the hospital and was ready to be checked out - his doctor had told him he could leave that day. Problem was that his doctor was in surgery all the next day and couldn’t sign the papers, so the hospital wouldn’t release him.
In theory he could have just gotten dressed and walked out, as people here suggest. But the problem was that he had something called a “triple lumen catheter” implanted through his neck and arteries until close to the heart, and he couldn’t leave until this was removed. He also couldn’t take it out himself, and there is a risk of death from bleeding if it’s removed improperly. And the hospital refused to take it out until he was checked out by the doc.
My father-in-law threatened to leave the hospital multiple times after a rather nasty motorcycle accident. I think the chest tubes and the fact that he needed assistance to sit upright made him stay until they discharged him properly. Even then, they discharged him to rehab, not home, which was not what he wanted. My mother-in-law would not budge and told him he wasn’t allowed home until he could do stairs unassisted and get to the toilet and off by himself. He didn’t have much of a choice. We told him if he disregarded the doctor’s orders, we would not help him. So yes, technically, he could have asked someone to remove his chest tube and IV’s and left the hospital earlier than the doctors wanted, but no one was going to help him get dressed or even get out of bed had they done so. We certainly weren’t going to give him a ride home either. He suffered through rehab and the hospital, but fought all the way.
He gets very paranoid and quite delusional when on certain meds. We experienced this previously when he had his bypass done seven years ago, so we knew what we were in for and even told the doctors about the previous hospitalization and his demeanor. He hated all the nurses, they were incompetent. The doctors were stupid and were pushing him too hard.
I feel compelled to contribute the advice that while pulling out your own peripheral IV, say from the back of your hand, will likely only result in some unsightly bleeding, pulling out your own chest tube, or triple lumen catheter is a really bad idea.
Likely this terminated in the superior vena cava, not the arteries.
I’ve been tempted a few times to remove my own IV when hanging out in an ER cubicle for hours at a time has made me cranky (although I have never actually got up the nerve to do it). Assuming you are reasonably dextrous, why would removing an ordinary IV yourself carefully cause any more bleeding/bruising than behaving yourself and letting a nurse do it?
Now, pulling out something like a PICC line is another matter entirely (I’ve had those too). I don’t think I could ever be cranky enough to pull that stunt.