After I fell, Sarasota Memorial Hospital knew I had severe, clean-break facial fractures — forehead, eye socket, and inner cheek. The fractures were so severe, my mouth flexed when I ate. Instead of treating my dangerous condition, the ER doctors and nurses dumped me on fraudulent North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic, where I languished for five days without appropriate medical care. And I’m not alone. The New York Times ran an excellent series about this scandal. Local journalists aren’t warning the public. I am. We’re all at-risk. Please read on…
by Lawrence S. Richardson Jr.
Imagine you trip on a chair in a local restaurant in Venice, Florida, on April 12, 2024. The left side of your face hits the unforgiving tile floor with enormous force, leaving you with cleanly broken bones in your eye socket (near your temple), your forehead (above the eyebrow), and deep within your cheek. You also have many other hairline fractures. The damage is so extensive it nearly detaches the bone that holds the upper row of teeth on the left side of your mouth. The bone flexes when you eat.
If you suffered this trauma, including a brain injury that left you unconscious to the point that you don’t remember anything between the moment you hit the floor to when you were being wheeled into a treatment room, would you expect the doctors and nurses in the emergency room at Sarasota Memorial Hospital – Venice to:
A. Do everything possible to treat the fractures?
B. Send you to a hospital that could treat the fractures if they couldn’t?
C. Send you to an addiction treatment center that can’t treat your fractures?
Unfortunately for me, the doctors and nurses in the ER at Sarasota Memorial Hospital – Venice committed medical malpractice and put my life and health at risk by choosing C.
They knew my face had clean fractures, and, instead of making sure I got the care I desperately needed, they loaded me into an ambulance and sent me on a two hour ride up I-75 to the notorious North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic. I say notorious because the clinic has been the subject of numerous federal and state investigations for:
1. Admitting patients who didn’t belong there;
2. Providing substandard care; and
3. Keeping patients longer than necessary to rip-off public and private health insurers.
The North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic is part of Acadia Health Care, a chain of 50 for-profit psychiatric facilities that the Department of Justice recently fined $20 million for this fraudulent activity.
Sarasota Memorial Hospital – Venice sent me to the treatment center despite the fact that I was not being difficult or abusive to the doctors or nurses. I was dazed, in pain, and eager to receive care for my injuries that also included severely bruised ribs that sent intense pain through my entire body every time I moved. The ER doctors and nurses gave me nothing to alleviate the pain.
The care I received at North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic was equally useless. My time there was spent watching TV, having my vitals taken every four hours – even overnight, which made sleeping impossible – and lining up for meals and meds. The care was so subpar and inappropriate, I had to ask for an Ibuprofen to control my pain every time they distributed drugs. The only attention I received for my facial breaks and multiple fractures was from a nurse who told me, “Don’t sleep on the left side of your face. You have serious fractures.” This advice made me wonder who was crazier my fellow inmates or the healthcare providers.
Other patients received the same abusive treatment from Sarasota Memorial Hospital – Venice and North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic
When I was first admitted to Sarasota Memorial Hospital – Venice, I was under the impression that I was the only one who was abused by the emergency room. Unfortunately, that’s not the case.
While I was wasting five days in North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic, I met a retired veteran who said he went to Sarasota Memorial Hospital – Venice with his wife for treatment of chest tightness and to discuss a problem with alcohol. When his wife went home to get his clothes, Sarasota Memorial Hospital – Venice doctors and nurses made him commit himself and sent him to North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic.
As I knew, when Sarasota Memorial Hospital – Venice performs the dirty deed on patients, they take away their phone and don’t let them call family and friends to tell them what’s happening. In my case, I had a list of contacts in my wallet. Hospital workers sure found my ID and insurance card, but not the list of people who could help me when I was in serious need. When the retired veteran’s wife returned to the hospital, staff told her they didn’t know where her husband was. It took many frantic hours for her to locate him.
As if our stories of abuse aren’t enough, I was at a birthday party in downtown Venice days after my release from North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic telling my tale to friends when a retired veteran next to me said she had a similar experience. She said she had one drink on Christmas Eve day and drove herself to Sarasota Memorial Hospital — Venice for excruciating chest pains. The ER doctors and nurses told her she had pleurisy, an inflammation of the tissue lining the lungs that can be caused by infections such as the flu.
Instead of treating her condition, the doctors and nurses at Sarasota Memorial Hospital – Venice tried to get her to sign forms so they could ship her off to North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic. She smartly refused to sign anything. At that point, the “compassionate” doctors and nurses released her out a back door. Suffering sharp pains with every breath, she had to walk all the way around the hospital to her car. She drove to an urgent care facility and received the care she should have received at the hospital.
The New York Times is running stories about the patient abuse at hospitals like Sarasota Memorial Hospital – Venice and North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic
If you don’t believe this is happening at Sarasota Memorial Hospital – Venice, read a series of articles featured on our Media page published since September in the New York Times that explore in detail and with multiple examples the abuse being meted out by hospitals like Sarasota Memorial Hospital – Venice and the North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic. Unfortunately, the articles are behind a paywall, but it’s actually worth signing up for a discounted subscription on a temporary basis to read them. Other media outlets that have covered the scandal are not.
(Read the Articles on our Media page.)
It’s important to note here that the New York Times series, reported by Jessica Silver-Greenberg and Katie Thomas, reveals the fact that Acadia Healthcare, parent of North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic, sent representatives to hospitals to pressure ER doctors and nurses to send patients to Acadia Healthcare facilities. In addition, they reported that Acadia Healthcare representatives have built relationships directly with police officers and paramedics to encourage them to bring patients directly to Acadia Healthcare facilities.
Southwest Florida newspapers won’t cover this major scandal at Sarasota Memorial Hospital – Venice and North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic
Eager to expose and end the medical malpractice at Sarasota Memorial Hospital – Venice and North Tampa Behavior Health Clinic, I wrote editors at the Tampa Bay Times (which actually ran a great expose calling for a federal investigation of North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic in 2019), the Sarasota Herald Tribune, and Venice Gondolier.
The editors didn’t respond to me and I still haven’t seen a word of coverage locally — outside superb reports by Brittany Muller, a reporter for WFLA in Tampa . This is why few people in our immediate area are aware of the medical malpractice going on at Sarasota Memorial Hospital – Venice and North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic.
Federal officials are investigating my experiences at Sarasota Memorial Hospital – Venice and North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic
To expose the patient abuse, I also contacted federal and state agencies to request that they investigate this situation with mixed results. At my request, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services launched an investigation of Sarasota Memorial Hospital – Venice in July. Investigators are trying to determine if the hospital is guilty of patient dumping. It’s against the law for hospitals to send patients who haven’t been stabilized to other health care facilities. My broken face certainly wasn’t stabilized. The cleanly broken bones could have led to internal bleeding or worse. The investigator in my case, who is located in Fort Myers, has not yet issued a final report.
At my request, the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration launched an investigation into North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic. Weeks later an investigator in the Clearwater office sent me a letter stating that the agency didn’t find any problems. Why?
Because the agency doesn’t base its conclusions on what happened to me or other patients, which can be easily established through our health records. Instead, investigators are sent to a facility to see how it’s functioning on that day. I’m pretty sure North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic put on its game-day face after the New York Times articles were published and the Justice Department hit its parent company, Acadia Healthcare, with the $20 million fine. I also asked the state to investigate Sarasota Memorial Hospital – Venice, but received no response.
In addition to these agencies, I have requested federal investigations into civil rights violations based on a uniquely disturbing event that occurred when I was at Sarasota Memorial Hospital – Venice. Again, imagine you have a head injury that knocked you out cold and left you with serious facial bone breaks and other fractures. The nurse supervising your care tells you first that the hospital can’t treat your injuries so it’s going to send you to another hospital, then she clarifies that it’s a behavioral treatment center.
She then hands you a clipboard with forms on it that she tells you to review and sign. You don’t want to sign away your rights to the state but then four Sarasota Memorial Hospital safety officers or sheriff’s deputies (they both wear green uniforms, so I’m not sure which agency) file in and stand at stern attention at the end of your bed. It’s pretty clear at that point, you either submit to the intimidation and sign the Marchman Act papers committing yourself to state supervision for 72 hours or you’re going to jail – even though you have never in your entire life been charged with a single crime. Dazed and confused from head trauma, I signed away my rights and was shipped off to North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic.
The Justice Department turned down my request for a civil rights investigation. I guess a patient with a head injury being intimidated into signing away his rights doesn’t matter to the department.
The Department of Health and Human Services is still considering my case. Let’s hope they understand that I had a disability (a severe head injury) and the Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice safety officers or sheriff’s deputies and Sarasota Memorial Hospital – Venice doctors and nurses took advantage of the situation and prevented me from getting the healthcare I desperately needed.
Prominent law firms won’t take my case against Sarasota Memorial Hospital – Venice because they can only win up to $250,000
Seeking a way to remedy this dangerous situation, I also contacted powerhouse law firms Morgan & Morgan and Searcy Denny. Both law firms treated me with respect, but they said they couldn’t help me because of a state law that protects Sarasota Memorial Hospital – Venice from malpractice lawsuits. Under state law, the most public hospitals can be sued for is $250,000. Keep this in mind the next time you choose between a private hospital or a public hospital.
Both law firms said malpractice lawsuits require them to invest so many hours that $250,000 wouldn’t cover their bills let alone compensate me for pain and suffering. Oddly, neither law firm was interested in going after North Tampa Bay Behavioral Health Clinic, which is part of a for-profit hospital chain that’s not protected by the sovereign immunity that shields Sarasota Memorial Hospital. (I’ll gladly speak with any law firm that is interested in going after either or both of them.)
Delayed treatment by Sarasota Memorial Hospital – Venice and North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic put my health at serious risk
Now back to my medical experience. After I was released from North Tampa Behavioral Treatment Clinic, my general practitioner told me I needed to see a facial surgeon as soon as possible. Unfortunately, my Florida Blue HMO couldn’t find a specialist near me. It took weeks for my general practitioner’s office and me to find one.
The minute I finally met the facial specialist, located near Sarasota Memorial Hospital – Sarasota, he told me he should have seen me within 48 hours of the accident. After an MRI of my head, he located all the fractures and told me he needed to operate on me as soon as possible.
I was admitted to Sarasota Memorial Hospital – Sarasota two weeks later. In a two-hour operation, my surgeon inserted titanium strips to join my eye socket and cheek fractures so they could heal. He told me it was too risky to operate on my forehead fracture. When he was through, the bone that holds my teeth was stabilized.
It’s important to note that the care I received at Sarasota Memorial Hospital – Sarasota was the polar opposite of the abusive non-care I received at Sarasota Memorial Hospital – Venice. The doctors and nurses at Sarasota Memorial Hospital – Sarasota were friendly, professional, and responsive to my needs as a patient. When I told them what happened to me at Sarasota Memorial Hospital – Venice and North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic, they were shocked and dismayed.
I also want you to know that I have always wholeheartedly supported ethical first responders and health care workers. I appreciate all they do to protect us from harm.
How can we stop the patient abuse at Sarasota Memorial Hospital – Venice and North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic?
I created this website to alert the public to this dangerous situation – when the media and law firms weren’t interested – and to ensure that no one else experiences the abuse I was subjected to by health care providers at Sarasota Memorial Hospital – Venice and North Tampa Behavioral Health Clinic.
Is it pleasant for me to go public with my private health situation? No. But it’s worth the sacrifice if it will help others. The odds are pretty good that if I and two other people I met have had similar experiences at Sarasota Memorial Hospital – Venice, there are many more out there in our community who have, too.
I invite patients with similar experiences and conscientious healthcare providers to email your stories to me. And I encourage you to contact federal and state regulators to make sure no one is seriously injured by this abusive behavior.
UPDATE: Sarasota Hospital System’s patient (read hospital) advocate Brian Peal sent me a letter that stated that I was stable and received appropriate medical care while I was at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice. How they can reach this conclusion when, as a 61-year-old man, they didn’t treat the facial fractures — three clean breaks in my brow, eye socket and cheek — that caused by mouth to flex when I bit down is beyond me. If this is their standard of care, we should all think twice before seeking medical treatment at Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice.
Sarasota County Public Hospital Board: Sharon Wetzler DePeters, Britt Riner, Sarah Lodge, Gregory Carter, James Meister. President and CEO: David Verinder. Patient Advocate: Brian Peal, Public Relations Director, Kim Savage, Dr. Reuben Holland, medical director of Sarasota Memorial Hospital’s Emergency and Urgent Care Centers, Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice Campus President Sharon Roush.
Venice resident Lawrence Richardson is an experienced broadcast journalist, newspaper columnist, screenwriter, and public relations, marketing, and crisis communications consultant. Richardson graduated with honors from the University of Southern California’s School of Journalism.
Sarasota Memorial Hospital Has A Dangerous Secret 