My parents are Diane Bates and Joseph Bates. They died on 09/10/21 and 09/17/21. They were both in Morristown Memorial Hospital, part of Atlantic Health. This is their story. 

My parents were away the last week in August in Atlantic City celebrating their 51st wedding anniversary a week early and became sick a few days after they came back home. Myself, my husband and my three kids lived with them. In fact, all seven of us were sick over the course of about 10 days before my mother first went into the hospital, and then my father 2 days later.

Diane Bates 01/07/1947 - 09/10/2021

My mother was brought to the hospital by an ambulance when we found her in bed mumbling and mentally unresponsive in her usual manner. She couldn’t sit up on her own and was incoherent and unable to process what I was saying. We called 9-11. The EMT’s stood around my mother in a semi circle as far as they could, asking about vaccination status while trying to talk to her and tell her she had Covid and she just needed to rest.  I begged them to take her, because I thought she needed oxygen and some IV fluid. It wasn’t until a younger EMT noticed how she was breathing that they made the decision to bring her in. I gave them all of her documentation and they proceeded to take her out of the house into the ambulance to bring her to the hospital. We were told to stay home since we all were dealing with a different stage of illness. 

My mom was dropped off in the emergency room without any attention and labeled unknown patient. She could no longer remember her name and my husband had to travel to the hospital some time after she had left the house to identify her so she could receive treatment. 

She was triaged and eventually given a room in the covid ICU as her oxygen was very low. Within 12 hours of having oxygen and an IV, she was alert, speaking and calling us on the phone asking questions unaware of what she was being given and why she had so much testing done. She did not understand her treatment plan and why she had so many test done.

I had contact with the Doctors, though it was very hard to get anyone to spend more than a minute on the phone with me. I told them my mother’s wishes, no intubation and no Remdesivir. I asked for Ivermectin, Hydroxychloroquine, intravenous Vitamin C, anything that could help her recover. We were told she was too old for Monoclonal Antibodies and that all of the ‘alternative’ medications were not available and would not work. They even told me that the hospital didn’t have access to IV Vitamin C on one occasion, on another I was told the Dr. had access to IV Vitamin C but refused to give it because he didn’t agree with it and on a third occasion (hours before her death on hospice) that she could have it. 

The hospital gave her Remdesivir as well as a series of medications (17+) throughout the course of her ‘treatment’ including a number of heart medications. My mother was naturally minded and holistic and had never taken any mediation other than one or two Advil every few years, prior to what they gave her at the hospital. I had no clue she was receiving all of these medications until I received her medical records after her death. 

***I feel like I have to make note here: Throughout both of my parents time in the hospital, doctor and nurse calls only happened twice a day, even with the ER admittance. Once around 5:00 am and then early afternoon. On several days we would get only a nurse call or a doctor call or the call didn’t come in and I had to reach out to the hospital floor and then it would take an hour or more to get anyone on the phone. 

Not one bit of my parents care at the hospital was approved through me. None of my requests were honored due to their ‘standard of care’ The only decision that was run past me was the decision to put my mom on 'comfort care’. In the end, my mom was given IV Vitamin C by the third Dr. I asked and it felt like I was being humored because it was too late. 

The entire time my parents were in the hospital felt like a black hole of not knowing how they were being treated with limited access and connectivity based on when the Dr’s and nurses felt like taking time out of their day.

At no point did I nor my husband feel like we were allowed to advocate for my parents and at no point did we feel like anyone unaffiliated with the hospital was present to keep them accountable and honest. 

I was asked various times in the beginning by different individuals if my mom was vaccinated, which she wasn’t and would never have wanted to be. She raised me without any vaccinations in my lifetime. 

Within the next 24 hours my mother’s body began to deteriorate fast, her organs were shutting down including her kidneys and she was in constant pain, her oxygen levels began to fall. This deterioration didn’t stop until her death. I got repeated calls from nurses complaining about my mom’s compliance around lying in bed, even though she would call me and say how much pain her body was in and how she couldn’t stand to lie back in certain ways due to that pain. I asked for respiration therapy and some pillows to help her comply with what they were asking. I would bring my mom packaged vegetable juices and protein shakes so she could feed her body but I was never allowed to bring them to her. I would leave it at the front desk of the hospital and be told to leave the premise. She would say how dry her throat was and how hungry she was when I talked to her on the phone. The food and drinks I brought her were not in her reach. 

She was put on ‘comfort care’ not long before she died. She was asked to sign a DNR and a paper stating she didn’t want to be intubated. But she never told me about this. The Dr.’s informed me. They said she just was not getting better and she had reached the maximum of 21 liters of oxygen. Her entire body was in pain and she was declining quickly.

On the day she died, 09/10/21 I was finally allowed to come in to see her for the first time since she was taken out of the house, despite my repeated pleas to support her.

I was told explicitly that the only reason I was allowed to come in was because my father was in a room a few doors down from her and they felt ‘bad’ for me. When I came in, my mom was under a thin sheet in a very cold room, with her chest and bare feet open to the air. There was one tiny pillow under her head (no other pillows in the room at all) and she was no longer responsive. I sat with her and covered her up as best I could. I touched her, held her gently, afraid to hurt her and told her it was okay to leave, even though I knew this was not meant to be her time. She was a healthy and holistic 74 year old woman who just two weeks earlier was walking the boardwalk hand in hand with my dad. Nothing I left off for her was present in the room. Her phone was nowhere near her body.  

During that time in the room, they wheeled my dad in, enclosed in a contraption of plexiglass with a door on the front. He had no idea what he was being rolled into. I’ll tell his story next. Within about 20 minutes of my dad being rolled in, both he and I were told it was time to leave, that we ‘had enough time’ with my mom and shifts were changing so we had to leave immediately. I begged to stay with my mom to be with her while she died. They wouldn’t allow it. She died alone less than 90 minutes later. 

The hospital lost all of her belongings. They just don’t know what happened to everything I brought to the front desk, her phone, charger, clothes, glasses, etc. They even went as far as to blame the funeral home for losing it, although the mortician at the hospital said it was never with her body bag.