I will start off by saying I am a 24-year-old woman with endometriosis, a disease that causes me to experience constant amplified period systems all month long. Now I have been fighting this disease for 5 years now and I can usually deal with my pain with help from the narcotics and CBD oils my family doctor gives me, but there are occasions when it gets so bad my doctor sends me to the ER or urgent care for help with pain management and an ultrasound to make sure nothing worse has occurred.
Last week I had one of these days and she advised me to go right to our new urgent care center, where I have been treated wonderfully before for this same issue. The nurses were amazing as usual, they seemed genuinely concerned as soon as I mentioned endometriosis. They fast tracked me and got me into a room within a half hour.
I then had a male doctor come in and ask me a lot of questions about the medications I was already taking at home and right away I knew I was going to have an issue. He then started to shame me for how many times my file said I had been in the ER or urgent care this year for the same issue. At this point I am in tears from both the pain and the fact that I have a doctor shaming me for having a medical condition. But what really got me was the fact that he turned to the nurse, who was in the room ready to get me hooked up to an IV, and said “Give this girl her fix and get her out of my ER” and walked out of the room.
This right here is why we have such an issue with chronic pain patients either turning to illegal street drugs or suicide. We are afraid of going to the hospital to ask for help because we are publicly shamed for something we cannot control.
The next day I went back to urgent care to file a complaint against the doctor. My complaint was recorded and I was told I would be contacted for follow up in the next couple days. When the call didn’t come I called them and I was told they did not have any information on file regarding my complaint.
As endometriosis affects 1 in 10 woman I can only imagine there have been countless women who have been treated the same way if not worse by this doctor and many others. I encourage all of them to continue filing these complaints and following up with them. We deserve the right to be treated like any other human who walks into an ER in pain.
So, as I have been unable to have my complaint taken seriously I hope this letter gets someone’s attention at the Urgent Care center at Peel Memorial. And I would hope anyone in the medical field who reads this letter will think twice before just labeling someone with chronic pain as a drug addict.
Last week I had one of these days and she advised me to go right to our new urgent care center, where I have been treated wonderfully before for this same issue. The nurses were amazing as usual, they seemed genuinely concerned as soon as I mentioned endometriosis. They fast tracked me and got me into a room within a half hour.
I then had a male doctor come in and ask me a lot of questions about the medications I was already taking at home and right away I knew I was going to have an issue. He then started to shame me for how many times my file said I had been in the ER or urgent care this year for the same issue. At this point I am in tears from both the pain and the fact that I have a doctor shaming me for having a medical condition. But what really got me was the fact that he turned to the nurse, who was in the room ready to get me hooked up to an IV, and said “Give this girl her fix and get her out of my ER” and walked out of the room.
This right here is why we have such an issue with chronic pain patients either turning to illegal street drugs or suicide. We are afraid of going to the hospital to ask for help because we are publicly shamed for something we cannot control.
The next day I went back to urgent care to file a complaint against the doctor. My complaint was recorded and I was told I would be contacted for follow up in the next couple days. When the call didn’t come I called them and I was told they did not have any information on file regarding my complaint.
As endometriosis affects 1 in 10 woman I can only imagine there have been countless women who have been treated the same way if not worse by this doctor and many others. I encourage all of them to continue filing these complaints and following up with them. We deserve the right to be treated like any other human who walks into an ER in pain.
So, as I have been unable to have my complaint taken seriously I hope this letter gets someone’s attention at the Urgent Care center at Peel Memorial. And I would hope anyone in the medical field who reads this letter will think twice before just labeling someone with chronic pain as a drug addict.