Absolutly HORRIBLE ICU – My mom had surgical complications and was life flighted to Mercy. They left her struggling in ER for 2 hours before taking her to ICU. It took 13 hours to get an MRI to find out why she was having seizures. They couldn't find anything by that time, so they were sending her home 2 days later. The day I went to pick her up, from floor 7, there were 4 people (a dr, an intern, & 2 nurses), sitting on their asses in her room staring at her like she was a science project in between dicussing their favorite grocery stores and my mom was having a partial seizure. It had been going on for 4 hours and NOONE called a family member to tell of the change. I was told they were waiting for ICU to treat her. The woman was IN THE HOSPITAL and it took 4 hours to go 3 floors to ICU.



Once she got there, the nurses there were TERRIBLE! They would come and pick and gag her while they were suctioning her vent when she was asleep and never tell her what they were doing. One day, in a 7 hour stretch of time, the nurse was in her room twice.....patients should be turned every 2 hours, she was NEVER turned every 2 hours. It got to the point where I had to tell them (when I could find them) she needs turned so I'm going to go eat, make a phone call, etc so you can do that. They sedated her for any and every probem she had. They did it to her for high blood pressure, muscle twitching, breathing problems, heart rate problems...whatever ailes you, they will give you Adavan. Some of them were ignoring doctor orders on her blood pressure perimeters, telling me it could go to 180! When they couldn't control it , they would just raise her limit to make it easier for them. It started at 120, then 140, and when they couldn't keep it there, they allowed her to go to 160 (stage 2 hypertension). One day the machine was reading her blood pressure to be in 70s and 80s, so they gave her a TON of fluids to bring it up. The next day they put an line in to read it more accuratly, her blood pressure was 180!



Aside from them not being able to control her blood pressure, she was doing well. Keep in mind, they were giving her tons of fluids the whole time she was there because they couldn't get it under control. The day they had decided to move her to a rehab facility, she was having problems breathing and blood pressure, heart rate problems, and INSTEAD of figuring out why, (the nurse was more interested in flirting with someone in street clothes standing at a nurse's computer), they kept her sedated for 5 hours and released her anyway. I asked 3 different people to speak to a doctor THREE times, I was told he knew I wanted to speak with him, he never spoke to me. It turns out she was going into congestive heart failure, (caused by fluids and uncontrolled blood pressure) and they released her. Immediately prir to going to Mercy, she was told her heart muscles were strong but the ICU could never gether blood pressure under control. Nice job ICU!



If anyone you know is ever critical, stay away from Mercy! If you have to go there, make sure you have a lot of family members there and document EVERYTHING!