It's Duke University Hospital and I've contacted a Constitutional lawyer. He's passed my information on to a group of lawyers that may be able to help so hopefully I hear from one of them soon.
Update: thank you all for the prayers! She tested negative for Covid-19 and they let me in. What really upset me was they said that I couldn't come in, not because I might have it, but to protect me, a visitor, from her. I drove her there, live with her, and we do other things together, so this was maddening. Her symptoms were mild shortness of breath and a pretty elevated heart rate. I'm glad they tested her but the risk was more likely a complication with the pregnancy or with her heart and I needed to be there if that was the case. Thank God for your prayers, everything is looking good at this time with the baby and they're just trying to determine why her heart rate was elevated all day to 130-160 bpm resting, but whatever it is should hopefully be manageable.
I haven't heard from one of the lawyers and that may go nowhere. I'm not as rabid anymore but that policy is stupid and if anything happened to my wife or child while I sat in my car for over an hour, I would never forgive them, so if I hear back from a lawyer I will still discuss this with them because someone else could be in the exact situation I was worried might happen to me.
Update again: my wife is still in the hospital and they think she has arrythmia so we're just praying that it's a more common case of arrythmia that just requires some medication, but her and the baby are otherwise doing great.
One of the lawyers called me back today and said because they ended up letting me in when she tested negative, any action is not worth the headache to pursue in his opinion but he said that what they did was illegal according to medical restriction statutes. I assumed he meant NC statues but they could be Federal, I'm not sure. He said they did not have the right to bypass existing medical restriction laws that make exceptions for spouses just because she had symptoms of Covid. If something had happened to my wife or child while I was waiting outside, he said he would have recommended suing the hospital for denying me entry.
If anyone is in a worse situation than this, call a lawyer, even if they can't do anything right away, we have a legal system in place and you don't have to stand by and be trampled by hospitals who think they can make policy regardless of the law. The lawyer told me that hospitals have legal teams to craft these policies according to their interpretation of medical statue laws but they may be interpreting wrong. In this case, maybe the policy is sound but the implementation was illegal given the situation.
On a side note, the hoslital staff has been excellent and the lady who was screening at the front apologized to me. I understand her situation because, like any corporation or large group, people at the top make decisions and the ones who enforce those decisions at the ground level take the brunt of the backlash. Its not fair to shoot the messenger but there wasn't a clear way to request an exemption or talk to someone else.
It's terrible poor covid patients have had to die alone..It has been a disgrace!
Such an injustice to them and their families going through this.
And in many states some of these rights will never be restored. It's time for a mass awakening
This video is an eye opener. This no family present rule is killing people. People go to hospital, give consent to be put on vent, since no family is there to argue against it, end up on vent which is killing many and often does more permanent harm than good. NYC allegedly knows they are murdering people. They need oxygen, blood transfusions, and HCQ, z-Pak & Zinc, etc. allegedly, not the pressure from a vent. This video is so important to see allegedly why so many deaths in NYC. Here is video from whistle blower nurse, leak:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=625&v=bHr6Pg6njXg&feature=emb_title
I believe her, my roommate had a stomach surgery 2 weeks ago, they wouldn’t let me in or anyone to see him, abuse can easily happen in situations like this
Yup, also read this: https://web.archive.org/web/20200405061401/https://medium.com/@agaiziunas/covid-19-had-us-all-fooled-but-now-we-might-have-finally-found-its-secret-91182386efcb
IDK where I also saw this article originally, but I did and I saved it!! Thx tho!!! I thought it was a really great article. Then I saw the video, and the nurse is repeating the same things as the article. Thx!!! I wish everyone could see both!!! I would hope it would help keep their loved ones from being hooked up to a vent and left to die when there was no need -- with high oxygen, maybe blood transfusion, and HCQ, Z-Pak & Zinc. Such a shame. I followed a lady on Twit in NY as her dad died, hooked up to a vent, right before I saw this article first, and then video came out. I was even wondering if maybe some people were getting placebos, since some recovered so fast and others didnt and it was so obvious something seemed to be going on that was just not right!! SMH.
Every patient needs someone there that is coherent and able to help them make good choices and look out for them.
It's in the best interest of the patient. Has anyone looked at the death rate each year caused from medical errors?
FACTS
So they can hook them up to intubation, which is the main cause of death, and collect their dirty Medicare payout of $39,000
The sedatives they give when they intubate are pretty nasty. Many have a warning that people's hearts spontaneously stop beating, especially the ones they give for dementia. Thing is hospital dementia is a thing where people, especially older people get disorientated after a couple of days in a hospital with the stress and whatever else they are already giving them, so they get a tag of dementia even if they are not outside of that setting.
We have an old folks home/memory care center here. Drove by heading home from the market and there was a woman who was around 60 or so sitting outside the window of what I can only assume was her mother. They had their hands touching each other’s over the glass of the window and were talking on the phone. I can’t imagine what that must be like.
Yeah but if she has covid and gets railroaded into being intubated...
Fuck this shit
Before any loved one gets put on a vent, people need to watch this video, by a nurse practitioner whistle blower. Vents seem to be wrong way to go with this virus and do more harm than good, or kill even. And NYC allegely knows and it doing it regardless: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=625&v=bHr6Pg6njXg&feature=emb_title
You get out of here you allopathic quack.
That's a funny way to admit you're a quack.
Lol at the admitted quack calling others stupid...after he deleted his original stupid remark.
Put her on HCQ, ZPACK and zinc immediately
Sue them to hell if they refuse
The problem is Communists are blocking him from seeing his wife. What a terrible ordeal. God bless him!
They said it was to protect me from her and thats what I take issue with, I have no symptoms and her symptoms are mild.
Our baby is doing good thank God! And actually, I work for Duke Clinical Research Institute and have high regard for Duke and Duke isn't the only one in this area with this policy.
They just now let me in because she tested negative for Covid so all is good but I'm not happy with the way they handled this. My concern was not with Covid but that something might happen to her or the baby because it was something else and I wouldn't be with her. We have had miscarriages in the past and this is second trimester.
Thank you so much and thank you for your input. It can get heated in here but I do appreciate advice and viewpoint from medical professionals like yourself.
So she tested negative so they let you in, but what if you are asymptomatic and have it? lol
Their policy makes little sense when you live together and you drove her there.
Thank goodness! Hope you all can get home and enjoy life as a family very soon!
Praying more for you three! Really, perhaps stop reading this and just be with your wife and breathe. That's a big deal in the delivery room--breathing. Smile. You're together. Whisper sweet nothings and plan how you're going to be resting back at home. You can think of this as a dress rehearsal for the main event to come. God bless you!
That can be said of any American male.
Well, we pedes appreciate our bulls in the china shop! Let's hear it for the bulls! (Somewhere I hear a bull elk bugling--but wait--that's usually mid-September to early October. I've been to Rocky Mountain National Park a LOT.)
if they gave me that option I would have taken it.
My wife just tested negative and they let me in. This is why I was unhappy with this, she had mild symptoms but it was more likely she had a heart issue or something with the baby and if anything happened to the baby, I wouldn't be with my wife because of this policy. I understand no visitors but they said this was because I could risk getting it from her. That's crazy and just wrong.
Don't let them intubate her!!!!!
This! This is what is causing the death!
Praying for you mate
Get her to a different hospital? A different state? Somewhere else that has some actual sense? Somewhere that cares about people.
Get her the hell out of that hospital, it's not a prison, call doctors until you find one that will treat her (and you) properly.
Seems like doctors learn a little about how to keep people alive, but forget why we're alive.
BasedMedicalDoctor - I've been following what you've been posting throughout this abysmal event.
You - and by extension, every doctor - can quote policy all you want, and wax sublime about intelligence and reason over emotion all you want. In the end, people are emotional creatures, and most go with their heart when dealing with issues like this. Not being able to comprehend or be flexible on this leads to a perception, then reputation, of being a cold, esoteric and inhumane medical professional.
People will completely disregard their safety to be with a loved one during this kind of event.
If the man wants to be with his wife - quarantine them together. Anything about "safety of themselves or others" really becomes weasel words to excuse the inability to deal with human beings on any other reference frame other than one's own.
One of these days, our medical professions will have an epiphany, and realize they have been absolutely primitive in their drive to divorce the heart and spirit away from the body in their medical approaches.
Human beings are a concrete joining of heart, soul, and body, given free will by an Almighty God. In our current medical crisis, it is very apparent our medical professionals reject consideration of free will and the issues of the heart and soul in a great many cases.
I am glad the OP has been able to join his wife, and that she is now tested negative. Now, the quandary is this: which testing was true? The positive, or the negative? Are we dealing with a false positive, or a false negative?
If on the word of a negative result, policy suddenly changes in favor of the OP - there's an issue with the humanity of the policy.
Humans are indeed illogical, emotional creatures, given to make wrong choices, or choices inimical to our very safety...but this is what makes us human. It is this quality that also makes us...heroes...as well.
In my perspective, the OP should have been allowed to be his wife's hero. She tested "positive" after residing in the same house during the contagious, asymptomatic period. In the same domicile. He should have been allowed in, and told to remain with his wife as long as he was there.
The logic on that is quite obvious: he was already exposed through intimate contact. Shutting him out was the wrong decision to make.
The idea of him shuffling around, "giving it to other, vulnerable patients" is a non-starter, as that is precisely what nurses and doctors are doing in going their rounds (yes, the virus would also be on their lab coats and scrubs going patient to patient. Hat tip to Semmelweiss) after tending to his wife.
This doesn't appear to be good medicine, from my layman's perception - this looks much more like political policy disguising itself as medical policy. We are seeing that doctors, for all their professional training, intellectual prowess, and status, are no less resistant to the siren song of power over others, than are the bureaucrats and politicians running the show right now.
I do think this is what so many 'Pedes are speaking to here.
I'll delete my post calling you a f
Our experience has been that when one spouse tests positive, the other spouse almost always tests positive as well. Separating couples that are living together is a policy that doesn't make sense. That policy isn't made by the doctors or the staff that treats patients, but by admins further up. We can and do push back on such policies, but there's a limit to how much the hospital will listen.
It is well documented that sick patients generally do better when they have someone there to support them, whether it is a friend or family. There are patients who we can't always communicate well with, such as elderly patients with dementia. Oftentimes, having their family member present is a godsend, because it helps us determine whether there is a decline in the patient's mental status and health, or if this is baseline for them. A nursing home's informational packet may state that the patient has chronic X, Y and Z as conditions, but it doesn't tell us how that patient is actually doing with that.
Give the patient a mask, give their support person a mask, and they are very unlikely to be spreading this disease.
What we need is to shine some sunlight on how hospital policies are made and where medical best practices aren't being followed, but corporate decisions are being followed instead. An open congressional review of the policy changes and emails send out during this pandemic would be a great thing as well - provided limited immunity for unforeseeable errors was included. Such as immunity for initially being unsure whether the disease was airborne or droplet spread, and consequently what type of PPE was needed. It wouldn't include immunity for banning staff from wearing masks, or for banning staff from wearing NIOSH n95s they brought from home. Some hospitals are still doing this, even when the Joint Commission has explicitly allowed it.
*There are sometimes 'workarounds' to partially get by some of these policies, without risking the patients' health. I won't mention them here because eventually some hospital executive weasel would find them,and explicitly prohibit them. *
I think doctors sometimes forget that emotional health has a great bearing on physical health. Pregnancy can be a difficult time for some women and to be having physical symptoms can be frightening. Those symptoms are made even worse in situations like this. If her heart rate was up all day, perhaps it was in part because she was fearful-fearful of the ramifications a Covid-19 prognosis could have on her baby. When I had my first baby I was a nervous wreck. I ended up with HELLP syndrome. Thank goodness my husband was there to advocate for me and alleviate some of my stress.
I said quarantined together not shuffling in and out.
Being with your pregnant wife is not about emotion. It's about duty and responsibility. Yes, emotions are attached to that, but the underlying reason for those emotions is because you are deeply committed to and responsible for the well-being of both wife and child.
What if the wife becomes incapacitated? What if she is somehow being mistreated? What if some joint decision must be made for the baby? There are very good logical reasons for a husband to accompany his sick wife and child into a hospital.
Being with a pregnant wife is not about emotion? Perhaps....
The duty and responsibility drive the desire to be there, but when policy beyond your control threatens that - you better believe the emotions will kick in. Hard.
For this particular instance, whether she tested positive or not, the doctors made a strictly corporate policy call, not a humane call. The doctors dispensed with logic and intellect to adhere to a rule, rather than think through the situation as real life confronted them.
I can sympathize greatly with the OP, in this situation.
Yeah, corporate vs humanity. This has been a huge issue with medicine in our modern era, and it only seems to be getting worse.
And it's not that we should ignore statistical risk. But we need to consider emotional and ethical factors and adapt to them...not the other way around. For example, it would be "safer" to keep fathers put of a birthing room...and I know some places do this...but barring a father from seeing the birth of their son is just wrong.
Medicine was created to help humans. Humans were not created to help medicine.
Love that last line!
I do hope she's on HCQ?
Done. Stay there. Keep on asking. Speak to the boss of the boss of the boss. Contact your rep.
Praying for you and your family.
Good luck!
prayers for you and you future family. stay strong for them.
You and your family are in our prayers.
Prayers my friend...
How far along is she? Is she in the Hospital for the Baby or Covid symptoms?
Elevated heart rate and shortness of breath. I think the original concern was pre-eclampsia because my wife had that the day she delivered our first child but that doesn't seem to be the case. She tested negative for Covid and so they just let me in. So far so good, we just want to know why her heart rate was 140-160 bpm resting, but it may just be the pregnancy.
Shes 26 weeks
Thats good news.. About the Corvid. I dont know much but I wanted be spesific in Prayer. My Prayers will be for a regular heart beats, good BP and circulaion to the Baby and Mom.
Be calm, resolute and strong to reassure Her as your presence as Husband can be her strength. Pray for this strength of will and spirit for yourself as well as Her and the Baby. Dont linger at the ER or Hospital more then is nessisary as neither of you want to get exposed to any bad bugs..
Amen and thank you for the prayers!
Being pregnant during this virus mess must be stressful. Take good care of her and do as much as you can to let her rest and take things easy.
Prayer sent pede!
Feel your pain. My 97yo grandmother fell and broke her hip two days ago. 911 took her away and we have not seen or spoken to her since. The hospital provided a 'patient advocate' to act as an intermediary, but to totally block contact with the family is criminal. This kind of crap is getting out of hand!!!
Keep us informed Pede... hang in there. God is on your side!
Make sure she doesn't sign anything without your presence, if the put her on ventilator to collect $39k you will never hear from her. Fight dumb doctors only consider realistic treatments
Thank the lord you aren't in NYC or Massachusetts. They will kill you for dollars there.
I see what you did there.
I think separating me from a loved one in the ER could result in a few more injuries being treated at that same ER. This kind of bullshit needs to cease, and soon.
OUR MEDICAL SYSTEM IS EVIL
Not really, but it seems to be falling apart for anyone with a regular health need.
You have a right to try. If you fear the worst you know what to do.
I’m so happy that you and your wife do not have the WuFlu. Wishing you the best and continued good health!
Just got home from a five day stay at a VA hospital for appendicitis. Wife was never allowed to visit. It took three days to get the surgery due to a shortage of doctors “due to the corona wing” they set up.
I asked how many patients the wing had. “2 and they’re recovering.”
Sorry to hear about this Pede!
Read this: https://web.archive.org/web/20200405061401/https://medium.com/@agaiziunas/covid-19-had-us-all-fooled-but-now-we-might-have-finally-found-its-secret-91182386efcb
Still praying for your wife and baby 🙏🙏🙏
Thank God you are all okay!
Prayers lifted, 'Pede.
I hope the Constitutional lawyer can get you in to stay with your wife, and keep tabs on how they are treating her.
If "My body, My choice" works for the immorality of abortion, it ought to clearly work for the moral right to be with your wife and unborn in their time of need.
God bless your wife especially, you especially, and your baby especially! I want all to go well and have requested your angels to be with you during this time (not that I had to but it makes me feel like I'm actually doing something ;-)).
May I suggest that you journal all this and journal for your wife. Pen and paper works well and carries well. This will hopefully make quite the tale for your child and grandchildren some day.
Breathe deeply with her and let this go for the time being so you can be truly present for her. God bless you and keep you on this momentous occasion!
I know, I just don't like sitting on my ass
We're all with ya, brother. I'm sure everything will be fine and you'll be reunited with them both soon!
So glad your wife is doing better.
Man that is currently a big fear of mine.
How is she doing?
Shes still in the hospital, they think she has arrhythmia and we're just waiting on results. Hopefully it's a more common, less dangerous version of arrhythmia
What a disgusting mess you went through! I’m so happy you are able to be there with your wife & little one now. Keeping you from that, & your wife from you, should have NEVER even crossed the minds of the hospital staff. They should have used common damned sense & figured out how to safely/comfortably navigate situations like this! Babies haven’t stopped being born every day, because of this Chinese virus! This has become way out of control irrational.
Congratulations to you & your wife! Your new Pede has quite a story to hear & I hope you’ll let everyone you can know what happened to you three tonight. If the hospital told me I had to give birth alone for such an illogical reason, they’d either have to fucking figure it out or escort me to the door. You a smart man for the steps you took. Your wife & baby Pede are blessed to have you.
<3 I am praying for you and your family, my dear Friend <3
Homebirth next time. Hope she and baby makes it out ok.
Prayers for you and yours. I'm glad everything turned out okay Pede. Much love and congratulations on the upcoming baby!
High blood pressure in.pregnancy is fairly common. Add that to the fear of this virus, and it's a terrible time right now. Watch her closely and if you can, buy a blood pressure cuff. My sister had this condition (Preeclampsia), but your wife needs to keep in close touch with her OB-GYN doc. It's nothing to mess around with and can cause strokes.