Improved Hospital Care

NYU Medical Center should be fined for not having grab bars in the ER bathrooms.

Man, thats crazy! A hospital not having grab bars? Isnt that agains the ADA actually? I was at the MN State Fair this year (2nd biggest state fair in the country, only behind TX but thats cause theres lasts 2x as long… but put in the same timeline MN is biggest but we wont get into that now 🙂 ) anyways, I went to transfer myself from my wheelchair to the toilet in one of the bathrooms and found that the bottom part of the bar was not connected to the wall… I almost fell on my head. I thought that was insane expecially with as many people as were there and as many other things they do throughout the year on those fairgrounds… but the NYU hospital, thats insane!

while in a state teaching hospital last may, with one of my paralysis events, the bathroom didn’t have a grab bar in the shower, it didn’t have a bench in the shower, it had a step into the shower, and this was a stroke room! the chair that was in the shower was one of those that was in the room for visitors to sit on-a wooden legged, vinyl seated type. i kept slipping off of it, with just a towel under my bum on a wet vinyl seat-no arm rests or grab bars it was a good thing i was propped up between the chair and a wall while taking my first and last shower, otherwise i would have been all over the floor with no way of calling the nurses-the pull chord was above my head when i was sitting there as it was. this is the same hospital that i worked at, that is really embarrassing to complain about unhealthy, illegal and just plain dumb set ups in a shower that was supposed to be for stroke patients in the first place. i complained, filled out the paperwork and even pointed out that the next stroke patient-like my roommate who has to take a shower in that room, could and possibly will fall in that shower, and to my knowledge nothing was ever done about it. being as this is the teaching university hospital you would think they would want to make sure the showers are the best they could be, and the safest places in the hospital. since i have become disabled i have noticed even the smallest details of places and have even done research on the ada rules for hospital, and everywhere rules, i could have and will make a bigger stink if i ever see conditions like that again, not for my protection and comfort, but for the other disabled people who come in after me. i feel really guilty that i didn’t request an explanation from the president of the college for such atrosities in a hospital. i won’t let it slide next time. actually i might just type out a letter and send it to him this week. next time i am going to have my husband bring the digi into the room and take pics of the bathroom and the call system for the bathroom and the bed itself. since i was paralyzed from head to toes and couldn’t open my eyes when i was admitted, they nurses didn’t bother giving me a call light until i could move my hands and open my eyes-they told me they would be in and out to check on me. i finally got a call light after 3 days, then when the nursing supervisor came in one day she asked me if i needed anything, well i told her i would like a call light that i could actually use-at that time i was still paralyzed and couldn’t use the regular call buttons. she said she would look into getting me one that was easy to use-the next day i finally got a push plate call button-but fortunately i was getting movement back in my finger enough to push the reg buttons-well the nurse didn’t listen to me and disconnected my reg call light which controlled the tv also, soo now i was back to complaining about the call light again. the night shift came on and i demanded them to plug in my reg call light, now that i was able to move enough fingers to press the buttons and controll my tv, it took another day before they could or would do that-they must have gotten chewed out for not having the pushplate call light in my room when i first was admitted, they weren’t about to get yelled at again for taking it out of my room until it was oked by the head honcho. …by the way i was never checked on by the nurses until the next morning when the drs came in to see me. talk about being alone in a crowd-there is nothing worse to me then not being able to see and move-i can deal with the paralysis issues, but not the paralysis with no sight issues.:eek: