- 2 days ago
On July 10, 2025, UAB Medical West, Birmingham, Alabama, entered into a $100,000 settlement agreement with OIG (United States Office Of Inspector General). The settlement agreement resolves allegations that UAB Medical West violated the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA). Based on its investigation, OIG concluded that in May 2023, UAB Medical West failed to provide stabilizing treatment to a patient who presented to UAB Medical West’s freestanding Emergency Department (ED). Specifically, UAB Medical West diagnosed the patient with the emergency medical condition of acute urinary retention. UAB Medical West’s ED staff were unsuccessful in their attempts to catheterize the patient and failed to provide any pain relief. Although UAB Medical West had a urologist on-call for the freestanding ED, and access to specialized urology supplies at its main ED, UAB Medical West discharged the patient with instructions to drive himself to a different medical facility for a urology consultation and stabilizing treatment.
I share my own experience as a patient and customer with UAB. IN 2020 I filed an EMTALA complaint with the Centers For Medicare And Medicaid Services against UAB Hospital (University Of Alabama At Birmingham) after going to their Emergency department in 2019 for what I believed was a broken skull or neck (I later discovered I had broken my skull, the injury can be seen in the images in the video other radiologists said no injuries appeared in, an injury I almost died from). I was triaged and waited 5 Hours before getting so tired I had to go home, I never saw a doctor. I observed other patients ask the front desk about the status of their admittance / processing and saw them threatened they would be forced to leave the hospital if they asked again. I saw other patients who were waiting for over 10 hours. I repeatedly witnessed overdosing drug addicts and homeless off the streets admitted as I stood. In my hands I had the enclosed images from my past CT, X-Rays and MRI which show my injury I was prepared to show the doctors. Mosquitos flew through crowded lobby. The public water dispenser was not cleaned and had insects drop from the machine into my cup of water when I poured. The atmosphere of the ER was not professional and looked like a teenagers dorm room with fast food containers / branded cups etc.. and pizza boxes on the same working areas where they running IV etc...
I believe I may have been "patient dumped" (a violation of EMTALA) and UAB may be mis-triaging potential patients and forcing them to wait so long they eventually leave. I share my other experiences with UAB: being put on a waiting list to see a neurologist for 3 months, only to be called near the appointment and told I would have to wait another month.
I share my own experience as a patient and customer with UAB. IN 2020 I filed an EMTALA complaint with the Centers For Medicare And Medicaid Services against UAB Hospital (University Of Alabama At Birmingham) after going to their Emergency department in 2019 for what I believed was a broken skull or neck (I later discovered I had broken my skull, the injury can be seen in the images in the video other radiologists said no injuries appeared in, an injury I almost died from). I was triaged and waited 5 Hours before getting so tired I had to go home, I never saw a doctor. I observed other patients ask the front desk about the status of their admittance / processing and saw them threatened they would be forced to leave the hospital if they asked again. I saw other patients who were waiting for over 10 hours. I repeatedly witnessed overdosing drug addicts and homeless off the streets admitted as I stood. In my hands I had the enclosed images from my past CT, X-Rays and MRI which show my injury I was prepared to show the doctors. Mosquitos flew through crowded lobby. The public water dispenser was not cleaned and had insects drop from the machine into my cup of water when I poured. The atmosphere of the ER was not professional and looked like a teenagers dorm room with fast food containers / branded cups etc.. and pizza boxes on the same working areas where they running IV etc...
I believe I may have been "patient dumped" (a violation of EMTALA) and UAB may be mis-triaging potential patients and forcing them to wait so long they eventually leave. I share my other experiences with UAB: being put on a waiting list to see a neurologist for 3 months, only to be called near the appointment and told I would have to wait another month.
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00:00All right, as always, you can go to YouTube channel My Medical Nightmare and see 40 plus
00:07hours video on everything that happened to me.
00:10All right, according to the United States Department of Health and Human Services Office
00:15of Inspector General, dated July 10th, 2025, UAB Medical West agreed to pay $100,000 for
00:25allegedly violating patient dumping statute by failing to provide stabilizing treatment.
00:33And this location is at 5,000 Medical West Way, Bessemer.
00:37The University of Alabama at Birmingham entered into a $100,000 settlement agreement with OIG.
00:46The agreement resolves allegations that UAB Medical West violated the Emergency Medical
00:52Treatment and Labor Act, EMTALA-MTALA.
00:56Based on its investigation, OIG concluded that in May 2023, UAB failed to provide stabilizing
01:05treatment to a patient who presented to their freestanding emergency department, ED or ER.
01:14Specifically, UAB Medical West diagnosed the patient with the emergency medical condition
01:20of acute urinary retention.
01:23The UAB West staff were unsuccessful in their attempts to catheterize the patient and failed
01:30to provide any pain relief.
01:31Although UAB Medical West had a urologist uncalled for the freestanding ED and access to specialized
01:39urology supplies at its main emergency department, UAB discharged the patient with instructions to
01:45drive himself to a different medical facility for a urology consultation and stabilizing treatment.
01:53I also was a patient and customer with UAB, and I'll go into my own issues briefly.
02:00The x-ray, MRI, and CT images you can see in this video, these are the injuries that I had
02:07in my upper neck and head when I stood five hours at the main UAB emergency department in downtown
02:16Birmingham in 2019.
02:19I never saw a doctor.
02:21My own experience dealing with University of Alabama at Birmingham, UAB medicine repeatedly
02:28is when I had a very serious health concern and time was of the essence.
02:35I was let down again and again, experienced stalling tactics.
02:41You can do some searches on my YouTube channel, and all of my incidents with UAB have been thoroughly
02:47documented.
02:48I was put on a waiting list to see a UAB neurology specialist in 2019.
02:54Three-month waiting list referred by OrthoAlabama Spine and Sports orthopedic doctor Perry L. Savage Sr.
03:04As the appointment date drew closer, I received a phone call and was told that because they were
03:11moving locations, I would have to wait an additional fourth month before I could see a doctor.
03:18Likewise, I've got a recorded telephone call with UAB primary care.
03:24In Leeds, Alabama for March 2023, the young lady on the phone tells me that I will not be able
03:33to see a primary care doctor, that's a regular jack-of-all-trades family doctor at their location
03:40immediately or in a timely fashion, and in fact would have to be put on an eight-month waiting list.
03:46I'll explain my unbelievable experience at the UAB emergency room in 2019.
03:55Yeah, standing room only, and the only way they would admit patients out of the triage queue
04:01is if they collapsed and fainted on the emergency department waiting area floor, which several
04:10patients did during my five-hour wait.
04:13All right, so patient dumping is a reality when it comes to dealing with UAB.
04:18It's good to see some action being taken out there.
04:21A lot of words and talk are exchanged.
04:24Words and talk have a little to no value, in my own opinion.
04:29Additionally, UAB recently closed the deal to acquire the St. Vincent's Ascension Hospitals
04:38in the Birmingham, Alabama area.
04:41Their business methodology and philosophy will be applied to these new facilities as well.
04:48And anybody who goes to these places with your own health care in mind needs to be aware
04:55of the realities.
04:56So, in brief, I had a broken skull injury.
05:02I had this from around July 2018.
05:07I went around to many, many doctors and hospitals in Birmingham.
05:12I tried to get this thing diagnosed.
05:17And we're not even talking about treatment.
05:19Just trying to find out what happened to me.
05:21And I repeatedly found that the doctors, they wouldn't diagnose this thing.
05:32They wouldn't look at it for some reason or another.
05:34I don't have insurance and I have no source of income.
05:38And I think this may be part of the reason.
05:40In the hospital, this is a violation of a United States federal law.
05:46And this is EMTALA.
05:48E-M-T-A-L-A.
05:51And this states that when you go to a hospital in the United States of America,
05:57the hospital is obligated to treat your injuries.
05:59But it hinges on the diagnosis.
06:05And what I found happened to me was the hospitals were repeatedly misdiagnosed me
06:10in order to circumvent, comply with this law.
06:14Alright.
06:15But what I did was, okay, so I'd go in and I'd say,
06:20man, my neck feels like it's broken.
06:22So, they'd come back and they'd say,
06:24oh, you just pulled a muscle.
06:26And they would tell me there were no injuries that showed up in the CT, x-rays, and MRI scans that I had done.
06:35Okay.
06:36Well, there's another law in America.
06:39And this allows patients to obtain their medical records.
06:43And, yeah, I found out some of the medical records were edited to cover the doctors' and nurses' errors.
06:59But, yeah, I got my own records and here's what I found in many of them.
07:05And in the images.
07:06You can get your own images that are taken also.
07:09So, in the images, exactly in the area where I had the pain that I went into the hospital and complained about,
07:17I found that my skull was broken.
07:19It's in the basilar area of my skull, around the occipital condyle, condylar canal, possibly forming magnum.
07:26This is a very serious injury.
07:27It had a hole in the bottom of my skull.
07:31And there's fluid inside your skull, between your brain and your skull.
07:36And this leaked out into a wound in the upper area of my neck.
07:41And this all shows up in imagery.
07:43So, because I couldn't get proper diagnosis and treatment, this area became gradually infected.
07:55And then later I found out it was infested by microorganisms, parasites, and worms.
08:03And all these things can be seen in the MRIs and CT scans.
08:09It was that bad.
08:10All right, so this brings me to our video today.
08:18And this deals with UAB Hospital.
08:22So, I went to UAB and they have some expertise in many of the areas that I think concern my injury.
08:34And we never got to test those because they wouldn't see me.
08:43So, yeah, I went to the hospital.
08:45It was in June 2019.
08:47And I was triaged.
08:52I complained of, I felt, I told them I thought my neck was broken or my skull was broken.
08:59And I also said that I possibly had a CSF leak.
09:02So, I took in past imagery, MRI, CTs, and x-rays that show the injury itself.
09:14And I showed this to the triage nurse.
09:21So, I was triaged.
09:25And I stood in the waiting room.
09:28And I waited there for five hours.
09:34So, after five hours, it was like one or two in the morning.
09:37And I couldn't stand any longer.
09:42The waiting room, it was like full of people.
09:45There were no chairs or seating available.
09:51So, yeah, I had this injury.
09:53I stood five hours.
09:54I was holding on to consciousness.
09:58The best that I could, hopefully, try to see a doctor.
10:05And the doctor, they never saw me.
10:07I was never called back to the back of this hospital to be looked at.
10:14So, yeah, I believe that the UAB, they're using this method of waiting out patients with the five-hour waits.
10:27And when I was there, yeah, I heard about people who were sitting there for like ten hours.
10:33So, yeah, I think UAB, they're using the triage waits as another method to circumvent EMTALA.
10:44They're waiting people out.
10:46So, if you stand there for five hours and you can't stand any longer and you leave, they don't have to see you.
10:54So, I filed a complaint against University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital from this visit, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
11:06So, they launched an investigation, and they investigated UAB Hospital for my complaint.
11:16And I got this back in January of 2021, and it's from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
11:29And they tell me that they did not confirm a violation of the emergency care obligations for UAB Hospital.
11:43So, yeah, I think this is very unfortunate.
11:49My concerns are valid.
11:51And I'll go into what happened to me briefly.
11:55So, yeah, I went in there, stood for five hours, was not attended to.
12:00Okay, my triage condition, I just explained it.
12:04You can see here, these are my medical images.
12:09This is the condition that I had when I was waiting for five hours and not attended to by this hospital.
12:19So, yeah, the lobby, the waiting area, it was full of people.
12:27There were a lot of homeless people in this waiting room, a lot of drug addicts.
12:32And I was standing near the front desk.
12:34I watched the people come in and out, and I watched them call the triage list to the back to be attended to.
12:43And their triage list is strange, all right?
12:51By and large, okay, I had this injury, all right?
12:55But by and large, the people they were calling back to be attended to, these were like withdrawing drug addicts and stuff.
13:05And I don't know how this is listed as a more important condition than what I had, for example.
13:17But, yeah, there were mosquitoes that flew around inside this waiting area.
13:23That's not good.
13:25Mosquitoes are a disease vector.
13:27A mosquito is like a flying syringe, all right?
13:29So, the mosquito flies through the waiting area, and it lands, and it sucks the blood out of one person, all right?
13:39So, if it lands on you or lands on me, this can pass diseases around.
13:48And this is not good, especially UAB.
13:53Not acceptable.
13:54I got water.
14:01They had a public water dispensing machine.
14:04I poured water into a styrofoam cup.
14:07Small black worms dropped out of this machine into the cup that I poured water into, and I can't drink that.
14:16But, the other thing that I noticed, the atmosphere of the triage area in the waiting area of UAB hospital in the emergency department, it's like a college dorm room.
14:32Yeah, and many of the nurses there and the medical staff that you can see, they are visible young, like incredibly young.
14:43And then another thing, yeah, around this emergency department in UAB hospital, there are all these fast food restaurants.
14:53And the nurses and the staff that worked in this place, they had, you know, takeout fast food and drinks.
15:06They were just laying around on the triage table, you know, right next to all this expensive medical equipment.
15:19They had like Domino's pizza boxes and all this stuff, and they're sitting there eating at the same time they're attending to these triage patients.
15:37And this is disturbing.
15:40This is not a professional environment, that's my opinion.
15:47But, yeah, UAB, they have plenty of money, obviously.
15:51You can look around at the south side of downtown Birmingham, you can see all the real estate that's owned by UAB.
15:59And then all the other companies that exist around UAB that service UAB.
16:05Between 2018 and 2019, I was an emergency department patient at Ascension St. Vincent's East Hospital in Birmingham, Alabama.
16:15I believe I had broken my neck.
16:17I had an X-ray, two CT scans, and later an MRI looked at by Ascension St. Vincent's doctors.
16:25Each time they had told me I had no injuries in this area, I knew their diagnosis was an error as my condition worsened.
16:33The area became infected and infested with parasites by summer of 2019.
16:39I almost died.
16:40I obtained my medical records from your hospital along with the X-ray, CT, MRI imagery, and discovered the truth of my injury.
16:47I had broken bone in the underside of my skull in the area of the condylar canal and occipital condyle.
16:53How the doctors could admit such a large and serious injury over multiple hospital visits is inexcusable.
16:59I believe some element of organized corruption may exist in this hospital.
17:04I believe I may have been a victim of patient dumping in the course of my seeking treatment, which is a violation of EMTALA, E-M-T-A-L-A.
17:14When I told medical staff associated with Ascension about my discovery that I had been misdiagnosed repeatedly,
17:21I was personally attacked and my psychological state was challenged.
17:26This is reflected in medical records I obtained later.
17:30I could not obtain proper treatment or diagnosis for this injury because doctors and nurses that I would subsequently have encounters with
17:41would only entertain what the erroneous Ascension ER findings were.
17:46My mother, who was a nurse for 20 years, had the misfortune of working in an Ascension hospital
17:52when I questioned my MRR findings involving St. Vincent's Ambulatory Healthcare Network, LLC,
17:59and Dr. Michael Brandt Ruff, MD, radiologist, in March 2019.
18:05My mother, who was a nurse for 20 years and worked in the Ascension hospital,
18:08she was terminated from her job there around the same time.
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