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At the June 14th council meeting, Mayor Dean Calamaras was waving pom-poms for the newly purchased Venice Regional Medical Center (formerly Catholic-owned Bon Secours Hospital and the publicly-owned Venice Hospital prior to Bon Secours). Calamaras was in love, swooning like a teenage girl after her first kiss. According to the Gondolier, Calamaras was raving about 40 letters from VRMC staffers and financial supporters, all in favor of a VRMC monopoly in the city.

There was one letter that Calamaras was dodging. One that had been sent by a VRMC patient who claimed to have experienced something less than a five-star experience during her stay in the facility. Venice Florida! dot com has confirmed that there was some mayoral squiggling done behind the scenes to try to keep other council members from referencing the letter at the June 14th meeting. After reading it, you can readily see why.

Meanwhile, Sarasota Memorial Hospital was making noises about moving in on a competitive level by building their own medical center/satellite hospital in the area, something that was making the mayor almost apoplectic.

Hizzonor is on the board of the for-profit corporately owned VRMC, you see. Competition is a bad thing.

Conflict of interest? Well, not legally maybe, but certainly in appearance.

The writer has asked that we not publish her name to the web, which seems fair enough. The letter is a public record, so we are not compelled to withhold her name as would be the case in other medical news stories. In this case, however, it seems to be a minor concession.

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From: (name withheld by request)
To: dcalama@ci.venice.fl.us, mblack@ci.venice.fl.us, jandrews@venicegondolier.com, laura.green@heraldtribune.com
Subject: Venice Regional Medical Center
Date: Tue, 24 May 2005 11:27 AM

To Whom it May Concern:

I am writing this in the hopes that something will be done to correct the situation at Venice Regional Medical Center. I was a patient in that hospital for six days in March. It was the filthiest place I've ever seen. They never swept the floor or washed it. There was dust on the window sill and mold on the window frame. I had three different room mates while I was there, and in between each one, the cleaning ladies came into the room to look through the drawers, ( I guess in the hopes that the patient left some valuables behind), then took the sheets off the bed and left. Meanwhile the garbage can in the middle of the room was overflowing, and never emptied. It took four days to get a pitcher of ice water, box of Kleenex, a toothbrush, and comb. When I asked for a washcloth I was told they had none because people steal them. I was told to wash with three paper towels instead.

When I asked for a change of pajamas and sheets, I was told they must have changed the sheets while I was in the bathroom and I didn't notice. I got out of bed to show proof to the person that the pad underneath me had never even been changed for four days. Then I finally got clean sheets and a fresh night gown.

When I used the bathroom the employee was in a hurry and wouldn't wait for me to wash my hands. She told me not to because there was no hot water, and she made me use the foam disinfectant on the wall instead. When my IV came out of my hand, I rang for a nurse who refused to put it back in. Blood and liquid from the IV was all over under the tape on my hand, and running down my arm. She insisted that there was something wrong with the tape and not the IV, and she put a fresh piece of tape on my hand. It didn't stop leaking, so I rang for help again (By the way, you wait an hour or two for them to answer your call). She finally arrived and I told her it was still leaking, and I asked her if there was something wrong with this tape too. She then got angry because she had to do some work by putting the IV in my other hand in the blank shunt. Then she turned up the dial on the air bags on my legs and cut off my blood circulation. I thought I was going to die, and was in terrible pain, so I rang for the nurse again. When she arrived she yelled at me and told me to quit turning the light on. I told her that my insurance company was paying her salary and that it was her job to take care of patients. A few more employees arrived when they heard the commotion, and I finally got the death grip on my legs released.

One evening I rang to ask for a pain pill and no one came, so after 40 minutes I went to the nurses' station to ask for a pill or shot. The nurse told me to go back to my room and ring for them. I told her my light had been on for 40 minutes. She then said, "Oh, well we can't see the lights from this side of the room." If that was the case then why was she telling me to ring on a light that they would never see?

One day the lady next to me thought she was having a heart attack. She had chest pains and couldn't breathe. We both had our lights on, but no one came. I went to the door of the room and asked if someone could come down here to check on my room mate who thought she was having a heart attack. They all just sat there and looked at each other. I asked a second time and finally one lady came to check on the patient and told her she thought it was just heartburn. My first impression was, she "thinks" it's that, and she is not getting a doctor to make sure of what it is.

On another occasion they brought in an X-ray machine to take an X-ray of a different room mate. I was on the other side of the curtain and did not know I was being exposed to someone else's X-rays. When I found out, I told the employee that I should have been informed, because I'd have chosen to leave the room during an X-ray.

Once when I rang for something for pain, and after waiting an hour for someone to respond, they told me they'd be back in another hour because they had two other lights lit. They did not come back in an hour, so I rang again an hour later, only to find that the shift had changed and they were not informed that I requested anything. It was an on going thing - the day shift leaving everything for the night shift, and the night shift leaving everything for the day shift, which meant that no one was doing anything. There were no supplies, because they were all too lazy to get them.

Once in the middle of the night, an employee came into the bathroom, in my room, to take a stack of paper towels, I imagine, for another room. Also, when the nurses came to give a pain shot they would use an alcohol wipe and throw it on the floor. There was a pile of them on the floor next to my bed.

One day when I was given a pain shot, the employee insisted that I turn over onto my right side, which had 13 or 15 staples in it and a draining tube. I turned onto the left instead, but she kept yelling at me "The other side" repeatedly. I had to suffer because she was too lazy to walk to the other side of the bed to give me the shot in the opposite side.

One day an employee came in with a student and asked if the student could give me my shot because she needed practice. I agreed. She stuck me with a needle and then I felt nothing coming out of the needle. It didn't feel the same as all the previous shots. Then she went to put the cap back on the needle and the other person told her not to or she'd get her pocket full of needles mixed up as to which ones where used already and which ones were not. I most likely got stuck with a needle she had already used on someone else, because like I said, I felt nothing coming out of that needle.

As if that is not bad enough, an employee also brought me a pill in the palm of his hand, instead of in a pill cup, Once again everyone must have been too lazy to go to the stock room, or perhaps that hospital has no supplies. I did not really want to accept that pill, but I knew I'd be waiting hours for another, so, reluctantly I took it.

There were other problems too, like the switchboard operator disconnecting all the phones in the entire hospital at once, which just happened to happen when my niece had phoned me from Germany. She had to make a second long distance call to call me back.

There were problems also with the food. I had been looking forward to a meal after not eating for four days. A new room mate just walked into my room and was still in her street clothes, and the hospital employee walked in and gave her my dinner tray. She ate it. I rang for someone to ask
where my food was. By the time they responded, the kitchen was closed. I heard someone in the hall yell at another employee. She said, "You idiot, there are two ladies in that room." So, I'm sure that was my dinner tray. When asked what I wanted for breakfast, I told them anything but milk, as I am lactose intolerant. For breakfast they brought me a carton of milk, and cream of wheat. I asked if I could have something else, and they said the only other thing they had was cereal. So, for breakfast I
had a cup of coffee.

By the next morning I was starving, so when I got my French Toast without utensils - no knife, fork, or spoon. I had to hold it in a napkin to eat it.

I could go on, but this is getting too upsetting for me, so I am going to end this letter now. Please, please, please if anyone can do anything to help get VRMC on the right tract, you might be saving lives.

Thank you for [your] time.

Sincerely,
(name withheld by request)

John Patten is the head of Web Operations for Creative Pages, and has worked in broadcasting for over 12 years. He can also be incredibly rude at times.