doctors with dirty hands

Some time ago, I brought a female friend (not my gf) to Yale New Haven Hospital.

She had been calling me three or four times a day believing she was pregnant as she hadn't gotten her ladies troubles for some months.

The guy who may have impregnated her was already living with his girlfriend and their infant son and wanted nothing more to do with her.

Feeling pregnant and alone, she confided her worries to me. At the time she had no idea of what to do, though I could tell she was not in a situation that could welcome a child. Then she'd been buying pregnancy tests left & right all turning out negative.

She had no physician and her problem changed to a condition that led her to bleed excessively and within a couple weeks, she worried her condition was very serious. Finally she asked me to bring her to the ER because she bled very severely and incessantly day & night, even with methergine(?) tablets a friend had given her.

We went into the ER. I waited while she was led behind the main doors and shortly she'd come out to me and told me that the docs said they were unable to treat her problem and directed her to the ob-gyn department where she could be examined.

So, we walked to that door and there were dozens of women in the waiting room. But she did talk to the front staff and explained that she was hemorrhaging, literally hemorrhaging to the point that ladies hygiene pads were no use. They asked for her insurance info and she said she had none and they turned her away in a quiet, business like tone.

If she were meek as mice, she'd have left quietly as she was asked, but she wasn't. She raised her voice to a screech and screamed that they were sending her out "to bleed to death on the streets".

I remember this incident as though it were yesterday because I was so stunned that anyone in this shape could actually be refused any type of treatment or even some advise. I also remember because her screaming those words just pierced through my soul.

I led her out the corridor, all the while she looked back & continued screaming at them.

It seemed to her that she had one right only, which is the right to die.

Outside her major hysteria had her crying & screaming to pedestrians and passing cars. "They threw me out, they left me to die in the street." I'll never forget her words.

Suddenly the ob-gyn center director appeared rushing toward us on the street.

Realizing a potential law suit, he talked softly to her, persuading her to come back to ob-gyn, where she was now taken into the examining room ahead of the other women in the waiting room.

I took a seat, hoping they could help her. Shortly after, she had come out with a slip. She was told to return to the ER and show the slip, indicating the urgency of her problem and need for immediate care. Again I sat in the waiting room, but for a very long time. I thought about how had she been quiet & compliant , she may well have been dismissed "bleeding on the street".

She emerged looking much calmer and told me about all the diagnostics they'd done & of her follow-upt with their ob-gyn unit later that week, when they could come to some diagnosis and treatment.
We are still good friends. She mentioned the story on the phone the other day and permitted me to share it, as it is really a disgrace & a crime that patients actually do get turned away, so much for the Hippocratic Oath & the professionals practicing it ?