FOUR DAYS AT JACKSON MEMORIAL AS A SHORT TERM PATIENT

   The first barrier to people with disabilities, was the Emergency Room counter. I went directly to the 36 x 36 counter, and was told that I was at the wrong counter. I was directed to the higher counter where the people do intake.

  Clearly, the ADA counter is misused, unless you are doing another type of business at this location.

  Inside the emergency room the first restroom I was directed to had a commode that was too low. ADA had not visited this restroom yet.

    When taken to a room in the emergency room section a TV was on the wall, too high to reach the controls in a wheelchair. For some time I was not even aware that it was a television, until someone asked if I wanted to watch TV. Requests for the remote control were met with “no such thing.” I was told that some of the other rooms in emergency had these TV’s, and some rooms did not. And these TV’s also did not have remote controls. I would be in this room for over 24 hours waiting for a room upstairs, often alone, with nothing to read and no remote control for the TV.

   The TV issue was more complicated as the emergency room workers did not know what channels went with the numbers. Each time I needed a channel change, it had to distract a worker in the Emergency Room. The requests for a remote control received many excuses and reasons why there were no TV remote controls. There were TV volume issues, and overhead light issues, none of which could be addressed from the stretcher bed.

   When in the Emergency Room I was asked if I would accept flu shot and pneumonia shot that would cover me for 5 years. I said, of course. To the best of my knowledge, I never received these two shots. Since pneumonia had sneaked up on me once, I really wanted this shot. Food was delivered at meal times, and often the selection would not have been of my choosing. Never came coffee with the meal.

    I had come in with a bad infection in the urine and bladder. The medical service was excellent. And the Emergency Room nurses were great. With the exception that they did not know what Intrasite Gel was that I needed to treat a sore I came in with. (Intrasite Gel article is at www.dignity4disbled.com, but no way to teach 3,000 nurses at JMH about this product.)

     I also had a small sore on my posterior, which needed dressing. I asked for tape, bandages and Intrasite Gel to change the bandages. No one in the nursing knew what Intrasite Gel was. Requests from their central supply also failed to produce this Intrasite Gel to dress the sore.

     In this section of the Emergency Rooms the first one I went to was not wheelchair accessible.  I did find an accessible toilet room, but it did not have a door lock. Some people knocked, others did not while using the commode.

CONSUMER COMPLAINTS OF THE HOSPITAL ROOM ON FIFTH FLOOR

1. ROOM DOES NOT HAVE WHEELCHAIR BATHROOM

   I then was transferred to room 500. This room had a shower set up that did not accommodate people in wheelchairs. There was no fold down solid chair to sit on. It also had a built up to keep water from running out. This could have been overcome with a solid fold down or stationary seat to sit on and take a shower. The commode was also an old fashioned very low seat, not usable by someone in a wheelchair, needing to make transfers. The flush control was high and unreachable.  There was no other shower room on this floor. When I went looking for the general restroom on the floor that was equipped for wheelchair use, I was told that none existed and I had to use the bathroom in the room.

   I then left this section and went exploring the long 5th floor and found a toilet room next to a security desk and officer. I was able to use this commode and used this toilet room too at least wash up my body sitting in a wheelchair. This was an accessible restroom for the general public, staff and now this patient, me. I would frequent this toilet room several times.

2. OVERHEAD LIGHT NOT REACHABLE FROM BED 

    The bed I was assigned to did not have access to the overhead light. Hospital staff would come in repeatedly, and often leave the light on. Or there were times that I just wanted the light on or off. This required pressing a button, and getting someone to come and takes care of the light. Why the light switch is not reachable from the bed is a mystery. It certainly would save much staff time coming back and forth to operate the wall switch.

3. TELEVISION REMOTE CONTROL  ON 5TH FLOOR

    The remote control is also attached to the nurse call button and emits the sound for the TV. It is attached and movable. To change the channel often required both thumbs pressing very hard. I could not help wonder how anyone with severe hand involvement would be able to change the TV channels. The audio on many stations was too low.

4. INTRASITE GEL REQUESTS

     When I asked for Intrasite Gel, nursing on this floor stated they never heard of it, and when they requested it by name, from supply it was not forthcoming. Frankly, I was dumbfounded that nursing did not know about this simple nursing product. To me is as necessary as the tape and bandages for dressing sores of any type. No other ointments were offered. Just bandages and tape. The lesson learned if you are going to JMH via the emergency room and have a sore, bring your own Intrasite Gel, as this hospital is still operating in the dark ages.

5. FOOD AT JACKSON

    While on the 5th floor meals were delivered with items I would not order, if given a chance to participate in the selection. Once, after a couple days, I asked for coffee, and it came with the next meal. A small about in a half-filled Styrofoam cup. After two days I noted a slip on the tray filled out by someone other than me ordering items I would never select. In all the days in this room I was never given the slip where I could have indicated Coffee x 2, juices x 10. Instead, mornings I was given cereal with milk, which was never eaten, and other foodstuffs that went back or into the garbage. On the last day I confronted the person delivering the food trays about why I had never been able to participate in the food selection. She got huffy, and said it was another person in charge. And that she was now in charge. She returned with a food choice slip and I told her I was getting ready to go home.

6. PATIENT SERVICES AND COUNTER

  The day after Thanksgiving was Friday. I decided to go visit the Patient Services about the barriers all over the hospital, and see why the ADA Lawsuit mediated settlement was not being implemented. Outside of the Patient Services was this counter, too high, and people were at terminals. This long counter also had a low, 36-inch legal counter for people that are short and in wheelchairs. None of the people glued to their seats would get up and come to the low counter. I finally asked for the hospital phones number and neither of the two people could write it down and gives it to me. To me, this was another joke counter, which we see often in the commercial section. The ADA and Florida Building Code requires such low counters, but there is no mechanism that requires the business to utilize such counter. Now we see this it in your face practice being utilized in our JMH.

7. THE MISSING BLANKETS ON 5TH FLOOR

   During the entire stay, blankets were not available. I was always cold. Sheets were available, but cumbersome in the bed. Late in my stay I was given a red blanket. And asked for another one. But there was a shortage of the blankets. On the last day of my stay I got a second blanket.

   The Patient Services Office, the Friday after Thanksgiving, was closed. I guess this is some union perk, to give certain employees a very long holiday weekend. Frankly, I disapprove. The rest of the hospital staff was working, this is a hospital and Patient Services needed to be in place to deal with patients and their complaints. I had gone to Patient Services to discus the many items in this document. But it was Friday and the door was locked.

7. TISSUE DISPENSERS, UNIVERSAL COMPLAINT

   In every wheelchair accessible toilet room I found in JMH the toilet paper dispensers are located in a knee knocking area. This makes transfers from the wheelchair difficult and leg manuerving while on the commode difficult. They all need moving out of the near the rim area. ADA diagrams do not show these big dispensers near the rim of the water closets. These bigger tissue dispensers are better located and easier to access when located above the 33-inch high handrail.

8.  LEG BAD REQUESTS & TUBING REQUEST.

    Knowing that I would soon be leaving with a catheter for the first time in 46 years, I asked for a leg bag. After two days of asking two leg bags were brought. One was pure junk, and the mechanism broke on the first or second attempt to empty the bag. The junk leg bag must be eliminated from the Hospital Supply. The second leg bag was suitable, with no breakable parts. It would need a simple 18-inch to 24-inch tube, and the request for that tubing yielded zero tubing for 48 hours.  I told them that the rehabilitation center would have such tubing. On the final day, my discharge was delayed hours over this simple tubing.

   In a very angry mood, I finally just went looking for the Rehabilitation Center from rooms 500. People were happy in the halls to give me directions. When I reached the nursing station in the rehabilitation center, and told them my story, they simply reached in a drawer and gave me the tubing. They did not understand why nursing on the 5th floor could not produce it. Twenty minutes later I was on my way out of JMH.

9. INTERNET AND E-MAIL

I had brought my laptop computer with me, knowing that they were going to admit me via the emergency room visit. There was no where to hook up the computer. Once I passed a computer sitting in the hall, saw that it was on line and looked up www.dignity4disabled.com for the Intrasite Gel article. About the time I finished scanning the site a man came a yelled at me for using the “hospital property” computer, that was not for patient use.  I asked him where I could check my e-mail and he said there was no such service.

10. MIAMI HERALD NEWSPAPER

    My simple request for the morning newspaper was a “real in your” face experience. One way or the other, I ended up with the morning newspaper, but it was not easy.  I ended up having to go downstairs and when the gift shop was out of the paper, I would leave the hospital and travel to the restaurant that had paper boxes to get a paper.

   I could not help but to note that the many outside fixed seating tables at this restaurant on our county property were ALL devoid of a place for a person to sit eat or read the newspaper. Our rotten JMH administration allows this private contractor to discriminate against people in wheelchairs. This also means that the City of Miami is also not doing their job, as these tables are Florida Building Code Violations. These tables are for hospital employees, not guests or visitors in wheelchairs.

11. --12 HOUR SHIFTS

    This 12-hour shift policy needs to be reviewed. One cannot help as a patient to note that the personnel are rather fresh the first 8 hours and begin to show fatigue and tiredness in the next 4 hours. Many do not take the two 15 minute breaks as they are not paid breaks.

     I suspect that this 12-hour shift is desirable by some nurses, but undesirable by others. One nurse, who lives in Broward, explained that it is over an hour to get to the job and hour back, if traffic is not hampered by rain or other traffic tie-ups. She explained that when she gets home her body is trembling. One nurse said she wanted out of nursing due to the long day.

     I left the hospital with the solid opinion that the patients are very much taking hits due to the long 12-hour shifts. I could not help but to wonder, how this affects their personal lives. These shifts must affect family life, parenting and other aspects of daily living.

11. ADMINISTRATIVE SELECTION OF TV STATIONS

     One of the biggest JMH disappointments was the last U of M football game. JMH does not subscribe to the ESPNU channel and I could not watch the football game on TV. Every other possible sports station was on the selection of channels. Frankly, with the heavy involvement with the U of M at this hospital I was amazed that the JMH Administration would treat patients in such an ugly manner. I consider this harsh punishment dealt out to me personally by a very insensitive JMH Administration.

         This was about the “last straw” and was I glad it was discharge day.

12. FAMOUS MEN’S RESTROOM AT REHAB CENTER

   I also visited the famous men’s restroom at the entrance of the outpatient area of the Rehabilitation Center. This famous restroom was only made accessible recently for people in wheelchairs. The interior lavatory is too long and interferes with wheelchair traffic to the now accessible toilet stall.

   The last straw at this restroom is the simple ADA required signage. It is plastered on the restroom door for all to see. Very visible. Unfortunately, the blind cannot see the restroom sign as it is not located on the latch side of the door wall, where it is required to be posted per ADA Guidelines and the Florida Building Code.

   In conclusion, there needs to be an JMH Administration firing or retirement of all the people involved in the Americans with Disabilities Act lawsuit against the JMH. This suit was mediated out and JMH did not follow the mediated settlement. Enforcement action has followed and still this County Hospital is loaded with ADA violations. Many are simple, maintenance violations and “in your face” counter misuse issues. These administrators must go back into private employment. They must leave the JMH system, and must be replaced with consumer service and patient service mentality. 2011 will be a year of ADA compliance at JMH, and JMH South, where ADA and Florida Building Code Barriers abound.

      I have reviewed the members on the JMH Health Trust and do not see any consumer type people in this composition. Certainly, there are no people with substantial disabilities in this JMH Trust Membership. Just ADA violators, all of them.

IN CLOSING I HAVE MUCH TO SAY ABOUT MY STAY IN JMH

     I needed to see an urologist and had needed to see an urologist for a few years. The urologists that have privileges at Baptist and South Miami Hospital will not see me for office calls because they don’t take “Workers Comp.” I will seek legislation in 2011 to go with Article I, Section II of our Florida Constitution for protection from these discriminatory doctors.

"ARTICLE I DECLARATION OF RIGHTS

SECTION 2. Basic rights.--All natural persons, female and male alike, are equal before the law and have inalienable rights, among which are the right to enjoy and defend life and liberty, to pursue happiness, to be rewarded for industry, and to acquire, possess and protect property; except that the ownership, inheritance, disposition and possession of real property by aliens ineligible for citizenship may be regulated or prohibited by law. No person shall be deprived of any right because of race, religion, national origin, or physical disability."


  I had a choice at the Civic Center, The U of M emergency room or the JMH Emergency Room. I knew that I had good insurance coverage, and that it would help Jackson to have a paying patient.

  The medical and nursing care in the Emergency Room was excellent. The conditions I lived under in Emergency were typical of other emergency rooms. Except for the TV and no remote, and no warm blankets.

  For after being admitted to the 5th floor room, the experience was negative and described above.

  Would I recommend JMH for anyone needing hospitalization?   No.

  For patient services I see that I made the wrong choice. Perhaps it is time for the general public consumers of JMH to take on the JMH Health Trust and complete JMH administration. This hospital seems to have the attitude that it exists to serve the employees and not the patients who come to the hospital.

  And I will bet that, unlike other hospitals, I will not get a questionnaire evaluating my opinions of my brief stay in the hospital. This administration is not interested in consumer feed back. I do not think that the Health Trust or JMH Administration cares much about patient services.

   By now, I should have been contacted about the clinics the doctors wanted me to attend for follow-up. Not a peep. I have called once, and was transferred to a phone that rang, and rang and rang. I presumed that they were just out walking the halls. There are a lot of hall walkers at JMH. I have never seen so many hall walkers at other hospitals. I am very suspicious about the over abundance of JMH hall walkers.

   JMH has been sued by one of our organizations for massive ADA violations in the Federal Court. And an enforcement action has ensued, because the JMH Administrators did not honor the mediated settlement, which included changes that had to be made.  Our community of people with disabilities are aware of the JMH ADA barriers and the Administrative foot dragging and knows that these barriers are mostly attitudinal, from administrators historically taking huge salaries, and complaining that their pay was inadequate.

    JMH is a hospital for employees and the training of doctors. The last entities to be considered or treated in a manner that is appropriate are the actual patients. If I were seeking acute medical services, this would be a hospital of my choice. If I wanted the comforts of home,like a morning newspaper, coffee with the newspaper, coffee with my breakfast and meals,  meal choices with me being involved, TV’s with remote controls or modern remote controls, warm blankets, or a hospital that met my needs as a person with a wheelchair, JMH would be very low on my list of choices.  They simply do not care about the consumer-patient.

Prepared by Denny Wood, President
Florida Paraplegic Association, Inc.
www.dignity4disabled.com
305-253-2563
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

P.S. On another level, I have a collection agency trying to collect for some shoes the JMH prosthetic department helps me get. I thought JMH never billed my insurance company and was livid. I e-mailed the issue to the CEO Dr. Roldan. This week I got a phone call about this collection item. And an apology as they had been paid, gave me the date and the Check number from my Insurance Company. The person calling from JMH was polite, and sounded genuinely sorry and assured me that the issue would not affect my credit. The check was dated 2006.

cc: Members, JMH Trust, Others, Media, other JMH consumer stakeholders