Michael J. Ambrose was my dad and my best friend. He was A retired police detective from Buffalo, NY, a veteran and a loving family man and great friend.

My dad started feeling ill and having Covid symptoms around 1/17/22.  He didn’t get better at home, so on 1/21/22, my dad, ill and with labored breathing, went to the ER at Roper St. Francis Berkeley Hospital in Summerville, SC.

They gave him a chest xray, diagnosed pneumonia, and sent him home with a z-pak. They didn’t give him a Covid test or oxygen, and No monoclonal antibodies or anything else.

Needless to say, dad didn’t improve with the 4 antibiotic pills they gave him.

On 1/25/22, my dad took a home Covid test which was positive.

Dad’s oxygen was dangerously low, so they want back to the hospital and he was admitted on 1/26/22.

My mom was forced to leave and the hospital transported my dad to another hospital, Bon Secours St. Francis in West Ashley/Charleston, SC. When we questioned this, they said it was the only hospital with a covid unit, treating covid patients. This is a lie, because one of my parents neighbors was just hospitalized with covid in this first hospital.

At the new hospital, dad was kept in isolation. Not sure how long he really had Covid or if he was still contagious.

Through phone conversations with my dad, we found out he was kept alone most of the time, never given updates on his condition, Treatment or status or information on his care plan or informed of any hospital decisions. He was mostly left alone.  No compassion from them for my dad. (Except when he saw the hospital Chaplain). I understand the hospital was short staffed, but we would have been happy to be by my dad’s side and there’s no excuse for the way he was mistreated and isolated.

From the beginning my dad said he didn’t want to be on a ventilator. He had a DNR. The dr , dr. Khalan also told us dad prob wouldn’t survive on a vent.

We called regularly for updates and  talked to nurses who only told us that dad was doing okay when they last saw him. Nobody could answer my questions about my dad’s vitals, medications, mental anguish, condition, release date or prognosis.

Even though he called us asking for help. my mom waited several days for a dr to call her back.

I finally told the hospital I was getting an advocate or attorney involved. The hospital clinical manager, Cathy Brannigan, called me back quickly, ready to answer any questions. She finally gave me a list of all dad’s medications, which unfortunately included remdesivir, which we never wanted. We said we didn’t want remdesivir, but it was too late and this was before I realized patients rights in the hospital no longer mattered. She said he was given 5 doses of remdesivir and that the last dose was administered on 1/31 in the morning.

She also told me dad suffered injuries to his kidneys and liver after the remdesivir, but that these injuries were resolved. Nobody informed us or my dad of any of this! When I expressed my upset about this and the drug itself, she said they felt the benefits of remdesivir outweighed the risks.

One of the doctors finally spoke to us and told us it was hard to say what dad’s prognosis was. He called it guarded status. Also said my dad would most likely not make it or survive on a ventilator. We again said we and dad did not want to be intubated. I also told them I didn’t want to walk in one day and have him on a ventilator and they assured me that wouldn’t happen. That they would have to tell us and get authorization and that he was far from intubation. They also recognized he didn’t want the ventilator.

My dad was started on 8 liters of oxygen when he first got to the hospital, that increased up to 40l, and was at 30l as of February 6th.

Dad was kept isolated until February 4th. That did a number on his mental state. He was sad, scared and afraid he would die and not see us again.

We asked for high doses of vitamins, like D, C, etc but were Denied. We asked them to switch steroids to one that’s easier on the respiratory system – denied. I asked for ivermectin and other meds, they said they could never advise or prescribe ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine or anything else not in the standard, approved, one-size-fits-all covid treatment protocol. I asked for therapies – respiratory, physical, anything. Dad should have been up and moving around. He asked too but that didn’t happen. The dr said they would switch oxygen masks as part of treatment, from a nasal cannula, to a cannula with a mask over it, to a bipap, and back to cannula.

We asked the respiratory therapist for nebulizer treatments and she asked if I was a dr., then told dad he didn’t need the treatments because he didn’t have COPD and was fine. She said his breathing was fine. Considering the amount of oxygen they were giving him, nothing seemed fine to me. She said there were no orders to allow for him to get the nebulizer treatments.

Dad was dehydrated. I asked for his intake and nobody could answer. He wasn’t getting iv fluids or fluids that I saw at all. (I brought him food each time I visited). They weren’t hydrating him. He wasn’t going to the bathroom often and nobody tracked that either.

He was offered hospital food.

Dad was given lovenox injections, apparently repeatedly in the exact same spot, which left a painful, purple, baseball sized hematoma on his stomach. We asked the hospital to address this a few times and they said nothing and did nothing about it.

We were allowed to visit, just 1 person, had to be the same person, per day.

My dad knew and I knew and couldn’t believe what they were doing to him. He threatened to try to walk out but they said he couldn’t. My dad begged me to get him out of the hospital. He wanted to be at home, even if he were to die.

I did everything I could to get him

Out of there. I set up hospice palliative care to get dad out. I arranged for oxygen, helpful meds through good outside doctors, including Dr. Witcher,  care at home and for safe transport. The hospital pushed back and said it wasn’t up to us. The hospital would need to order his release, and they did not and would not do that yet. Hospice (palliative care) was on standby for us.

I found another group and set up a critical care transport to get him out, but unfortunately we never made it.

Dad called us in excruciating pain near his groin area and said nobody would come help him. For almost a day! He asked for help repeatedly. He threatened to sue them and a nurse ordered an x-ray and gave him pain meds (Norco) many HOURS later. It took almost a day to get him an xray. They said it could be internal bleeding, hematoma or something else. Nothing happened. He got more pain meds.

The next day, Feb. 8th a dr finally got back to us and admitted nobody ever read the xrays until the next morning for some reason. We were shocked at everything that happened in the hospital. The Dr said dad had a bleed, but it must be contained in a muscle because he wasn’t bleeding. Said it might resolve itself.  They increased his oxygen again. They gave dad morphine for his pain and he rested. My mom left to go home for a few hours. She called a few hours later only to find dad was on a ventilator! Nobody called or told us! We were livid and shocked! They said dad had an emergency so they had to vent him, even with a DNR.

I asked why they didn’t put him on bipap instead and they said he had a seizure or seizures so they had to ventilate him and sedate, etc to stop him from having any more seizures. Dad was on the ventilator for a few hours when they told us his organs were failing and there was nothing more they could do for him. They took him off the ventilator (my mom agreed thinking she was easing his pain) the morning of February 9th. He breathed on his own for over 9 hours until I drove back from VA to SC and reached his bedside. He passed a few minutes later.

My regret is not being educated about this earlier. I never would have let my dad go into the hospital. I wish I could go back. I’d try to carry him out by myself.  He would still be alive if he never went to the hospital for “help”. Our lives will never be the same.