• On 6/24/26, at approximately 2 p.m. I arrived at CommonSpirit (Hixson) emergency room.  Upon arrival, I was instructed to enter my SS# on the keypad on the counter and have a seat in the lobby. 
• The child that came in behind me had just suffered a snake bite and no emergent care was shown to him.  He waited two hours before being taken back to a room, only after the mother complained.
• Eventually I was called to Triage where vitals were taken.  The nurse said she was taking blood and I wound up having an IV inserted but was never informed she was doing this until I questioned it.  Her response was “we do this on all patients.”  I was told to go back to the lobby and have a seat, with the IV hanging from my arm. 
• While in Triage, a woman knocked on the open door and walked in.  She said she had been stung by a bee and her epi pen had not worked.  She was still holding the pen.  She began to cry and said her tongue was swelling and it was obvious that she was going into anaphylactic shock.  The nurse’s response?  “Have a seat in the lobby and I’ll be with you in a minute”.  After experiencing anaphylactic shock myself, it is fatal without emergency treatment and time is of the essence.  The woman was taken back to a room momentarily.
• Two hours, 20 minutes later I was called back to a treatment room without a bed.  The room was filthy and disheveled with discarded needle covers, trash and other items on the floor, a filthy plastic water bottle with dirty stickers all over it from a previous patient, despite the sign on the door that read “This Room Has Been Sanitized”.  It was 67 degrees and freezing.  I went out in the hallway and asked for a blanket and refused to sit down due to the room being unclean.  I stood (in pain) for another 35 minutes until the doctor came in.  I voiced my concern about the condition of the room and he immediately told the nurse the room had not been cleaned.  Her response?  “We’re bringing them back as quick as we can and moving them through the rooms as fast as we can.  I guess it didn’t get cleaned”.  He instructed her to move me to another room, again with no bed.  I left a urine sample in the restroom in the hallway (where someone had urinated in the floor) and was taken for a CT scan and returned to the treatment room when it was finished.  I was in pain and forced to sit in a hard chair as I was not considered an “acute” or “emergent” case.  A saline IV was started and put on full drip.  I was given Morphine for pain (while sitting up).  After 20 minutes I was told I was being taken back out to the lobby.  I was in disbelief.  I said “with an IV going and the IV pole to keep up with”?  Yep.  I refused the wheelchair as everyone was staring and I was self-conscious and embarrassed and took a seat in a chair at the end of a row.   
• There was an elderly man who came in before me with chest pain and was with his son.  He was taken back to a room, had an x-ray and returned to the lobby 4 times (that I saw) which was very difficult for him.  Each time he had to transfer from one wheelchair to another to ensure that one was available in each area.  He had been there 5+ hours when I left, still in the lobby.  In addition, the triage nurse came over to his wheelchair in the lobby and said she needed to take more blood.  This was done in front of everyone which almost made me cry for him due to how he had been treated.  What if someone in the lobby had a fear of needles or blood?  How is this ethical??  This was an egregious HIPAA violation.    
• I now had an active IV, an IV pole and was in a lobby that was unsanitized, all while “musical chairs” were occupied, vacated and sat in again by patients that had injuries with blood, very sick people, coughing, sniffing, hygiene issues, etc.  I was beyond freaked out over germs that could enter the IV port or long tubing I was trying to keep up with that kept falling on the floor.   
• A couple came in and sat down next to me.  They began making out and vaping.  Since when is vaping allowed inside – IN AN EMERGENCY ROOM?  Not to mention their amorous activity.  Nothing was said to them.    
• It was now 6:50 p.m.  I went to the front desk and asked how much longer it would be.  The following explanation was given to me by the triage nurse:
  “I have no idea.  All our films are read offsite and they don’t respond.  Since this new system was put in place, they can’t send any of the imaging results electronically.  Their system can’t transmit to ours.  They have to fax them to us and they take forever.  All the same people that have been here for hours all have the same notation on their chart – CT scan pending”.  I then asked if it could be late into the night before I had the results and she said that was entirely possible.
• The triage nurse said this newly implemented CommonSpirit procedure was called “Vertical Flow”.  It consisted of taking patients back to treatment rooms, then returning them to the lobby after completion of x-rays, IVs, urine, etc.  CommonSpirit established this new procedure to keep the rooms rapidly cycling through patients at a high volume, obviously not taking the time to clean the rooms between patients as quickly as they were moving them through.  Dumping them back in the lobby, regardless of their condition, was of utmost importance.    
• The triage nurse said the urine and blood work were back and I asked about the white count.  She began reading all the results loudly until I demanded she stop as this was a HIPAA violation and everyone in the lobby could hear.  It was extremely embarrassing.    
• My IV had finished and there were no instructions for another bag of fluid.  My son had arrived at the hospital and I asked the triage nurse to disconnect my IV as I was leaving.  It was disconnected at the counter in front of the entire lobby.  I left the hospital at approximately 7:05 p.m.
• I was eventually able to access my results online and my CT scan was not READ offsite until 10:27 p.m. that night.  I would have been there possibly all night until it was faxed, the ER doctor reviewed it and finally saw me again. 

As someone who has been a frequent patient at CHI Memorial for many years, I am furious at how they are treating their patients.  It is all about their “Profit Margin” with no regard for patient care or safety.  People are going to die on their watch, and my intent is to bring these issues to light, along with others who have had negative experiences, in the hope that something can be done.  Patients are being forced to change physicians and hospitals as they are too afraid to go to the ER or have procedures or surgeries done under the current administration.

Memorial Hospital was one of the finest hospitals in the region for many decades and its reputation was stellar.  The Sisters of Charity of Nazareth administration made it a cornerstone of healthcare that was unmatched.  To see what it has become is heart-breaking.

Sherri Crawford

Chattanooga,