Virginia Hospital Center-Arlington Refuses Suspected Ebola Patient (Fairfax: 2014, transfer)

[Carlingtonian]

I recall VHC Arlington came up in a recent thread. We've had several bad experiences there, unlike some other forum members.

And then this came out in ArlNow this evening:

ACFD: Va. Hospital Center Refused to Admit Suspected Ebola Patient | ARLnow.com

We're all lucky it turned out she didn't have ebola--because if she did, we could all have been put at risk. (Even if they weren't ready to treat ebola, despite having previously claimed they were, they could at least have quarantined her till she could be tested.)

Read the Yelp reviews; VHC is a backwater, disorganized hospital, with a lot of incompetent and uncaring staff members peppered among the good ones.

[Mr. Benz]

Reckless

[airjay75]

Originally Posted by Carlingtonian

Read the Yelp reviews; VHC is a backwater, disorganized hospital, with a lot of incompetent and uncaring staff members peppered among the good ones.

Well, my wife happens to be a nurse at VHC. I won't comment one way or the other regarding what I think about the hospital because my opinion would obviously be biased. However, I would just keep in mind that hospitals are very large organizations with a lot of moving pieces. To characterize an entire hospital this way based on this incident, a couple personal experiences, or Yelp reviews is, in my opinion, very unfair. If you've had bad experiences there and wouldn't recommend the hospital to others based upon those experiences, fine. But, that really does not qualify you to make this sort of judgment about the entire hospital - anymore than I am qualified being the husband of a nurse that works there.

[Carlingtonian]

Originally Posted by airjay75

Well, my wife happens to be a nurse at VHC. I won't comment one way or the other regarding what I think about the hospital because my opinion would obviously be biased. However, I would just keep in mind that hospitals are very large organizations with a lot of moving pieces. To characterize an entire hospital this way based on this incident, a couple personal experiences, or Yelp reviews is, in my opinion, very unfair. If you've had bad experiences there and wouldn't recommend the hospital to others based upon those experiences, fine. But, that really does not qualify you to make this sort of judgment about the entire hospital - anymore than I am qualified being the husband of a nurse that works there.

We've seen some good nurses there, and I did acknowledge that there are good people working there with the bad. But we've had experienced some real sloppiness and just lack of giving a s--t. I think this recent incident says a lot about the hospital administration.

And I do think firsthand patient reviews--whether on Yelp or elsewhere--are relevant. If numerous people say they experience similar problems, that indicates a pattern of uneven care. Just because some patients luck into getting the better doctors, nurses, and assistants and don't experience those problems doesn't mean other patients don't.

[boyd888]

If a hospital is not able to care for a patient the care is transferred to another hospital. This happens all the time, like someone with an aortic dissection showing up at Fair Oaks and being transferred to a higher hospital (like Fairfax or Hospital Center). VHC never actually admitted the patient, but the idea is the same.

What happened here is that someone (dispatch/ER) thought VHC could handle the patient and said to bring them over...obvious someone higher up the food chain heard of it in the meantime and put the kabosh on it, lest they become the next hospital like Dallas. So really this whole situation could have been avoided if the higher ups made it clear that VHC was 'ready to put out a press release, but not really ready to actually accept a patient' to the every day workers that accept new patients from EMS.

The Ebola fear mongering will only get worse with flu season coming. It's going to be an "abundance of caution" fall.

[airjay75]

I'll leave it to others to judge the validity of VHC's statement regarding why they turned away the potential ebola patient, but here is the story from WTOP including the statement:

Va. Hospital Center Issues Statement About Ebola Incident - WTOP.com

[FireFly2]

I'm surprised they aren't getting slapped with an EMTALA violation for not doing a medical screening exam (unless the ED doc went out to the ambulance to do the MSE).

[DrRuthie]

I was a patient at VHC in 2013 and had a great experience. Great in terms of hospitals, but there was nothing negative except the food. Oh dear baby Jeezus the food was soul-crushingly awful.
As someone with a science background and having worked in labs (BSLs), if what VHC reported was true I personally feel they did everyone involved a great service. But I would admit any hospital accepting a reported Ebola patient is putting themselves at risk of losing business and risking a PR rollercoaster.