Judy Lundberg

When one goes into a hospital they do not think they will come out a hundred times sicker than when they went in.

In August 2000, I entered the Waterbury Hospital ER for treatment of a bladder injury that I sustained in October 1991. Because of that injury, I was unable to afford health insurance due to this “pre-existing condition.” I was single and self-supporting. In addition, because of that condition, I was only able to work on a part-time basis.

At Waterbury Hospital I developed several new problems in short order including, but not limited to MRSA (an often fatal staph infection), a deep pelvic abscess and kidney failure. Despite all of these conditions, I was discharged “to home” from Waterbury Hospital with a PICC line in my arm and neurostomy tubes in my back.

I was “advised” to go to the emergency room at Yale. “They will have to admit you, even though you don’t have insurance.” This Yale did but it took more than three hours as I lay dying in the ER.

I did not receive any ambulatory care from Waterbury Hospital nor any physician referral from them to Yale. Friends had to transport me to Yale after my attending physician, York Paul Moy of Urology Specialists, essentially threw me out of Waterbury Hospital one Saturday morning. He told me, “get on the phone, get somebody here to pick you up, you are out of here by this afternoon.” This can all be documented by a State Public Health investigation in 2001 whereby Waterbury Hospital was found in violation of several allegations.

After spending three weeks at Yale, they were finally able to operate on me. This surgery has left me with a life-long disability. I have had to undergo three additional major surgeries at St. Mary’s Hospital to correct the damage I sustained at Waterbury Hospital and particularly under the “care” of Urology Specialists.” There will be more. I think Urology Specialists specialize in ignorance, abuse and lack of medical knowledge.

In addition to living daily with a life-long disability, I am in chronic pain. I have not been able to work at all since 2000.

Waterbury Hospital is demanding that I owe them almost $62,000 for the privilege of inflicting these injuries. They have attempted to stop my meager income, put an illegal lien on my condo and forced the bankruptcy court (yes, I had to declare a medically driven bankruptcy) to put a lien on my 92-year old mother’s house in New Jersey because my name is on the deed.

Yale has absolved me of my debt to them. I am grateful to them even though I believe that it is Waterbury Hospital’s debt not mine. Waterbury Hospital incurred this debt because they injured me to the point of almost killing me and then passed me onto Yale to try to “fix” me.

This kind of negligence should not be rewarded or allowed to continue to exist. Anyone who sustains an infection or injury in a hospital should be able to report it to a central documenting registry so consumers can make informed choices about their healthcare.

People are dying out there every day because there are many bad docs in the medical industry killing them – not healing them. They have got to be removed. I hope none of you or those you love will ever meet up with one of them. And if this were not bad enough, there is a definite relationship between certain doctors and certain lawyers in this State that is not reassuring. That I was not able to mount a malpractice suit against Urology Specialists, is a testimony to this – but that’s another story.

Waterbury Hospital with its practice of keeping bad docs on staff who make sick people sicker so they can run up enormous bills has ruined my life – physically, mentally, emotionally and financially. I will be 70 years old on my next birthday and thanks to them, the only thing I will have to celebrate is the fact that I got there despite what they’ve done to me. For seven long years, I have lived under this dark cloud. I am praying that someone, somewhere will take notice and do what they can to expose this kind of incredible cover up of medical abuse and negligence and to help me see the light of day again by getting Waterbury Hospital off my back and out of my life forever.