My Boyfriend Is Being Held In A Hospital Against His Will - Update

Original Post Here.

Location: Delaware

My boyfriend got discharged from the hospital this morning. I was already on my way there when I got the call that they were letting him go so I picked him up and drove him back to our home state.

According to all documentation (that he now has access to) he was mentally competent enough to understand what they were telling him and understand the risks of him leaving. His psych eval yesterday was normal, he was able to answer all questions completely competently (all documented by the psychiatrist) but they still held him claiming possible hepatic encephalopathy. His liver has always reacted badly to opioids because he has had a liver condition his whole life. The hospital knew he had a liver transplant when he came into the hospital and still gave him multiple heavy doses of opioids.

This morning he had a second psych eval by a different doctor. Same questions, he gave the same exact answers, and this doctor said he was cleared to discharge himself and mentally competent enough to do so. They only started relenting and finally listening to him when he threatened to file a lawsuit.

His parents talked to hospital administrators. His nurses and other members of his care team agreed he was not showing signs of being mentally incapacitated yesterday or today. There were a ton of missteps in the handling of his case. The doctors have now admitted he does not have hepatic encephalopathy and there was never an actual diagnosis of it, just suspicion.

The use of restraints while he was not being violent or combative plus the confiscation of his belongings is also especially concerning.

He and his parents are in contact with lawyers and moving forward with a lawsuit as per advice from lawyers in Delaware. They think that based on all of the details he has a solid case for multiple things including medical malpractice and false imprisonment. We have records of pretty much everything (except for a video of him being handcuffed- someone asked for that but his dad was told not to film so he didn’t. But there are multiple witnesses and records from the hospital of this).

For those of you who are still worried that he is going to die of liver failure/rejection, his parents, he, and I have talked and I know what to look out for. He has an appointment scheduled with his liver doctor in a few days. They have known him his whole life and watched him go through everything with his liver condition. They know when there is something seriously wrong going on. He has been with me all day today since I picked him up and has been fine. We even went on an hour long walk outside (per his request after being tied down to a bed for 24 hours for no reason) which is something he cannot do when his liver is failing and/or seriously damaged.

His parents work within the medical industry and tend to always take the doctors side. They also hate lawsuits for personal reasons. It’s very telling that in this case they are encouraging him to file a lawsuit. Every lawyer I know that I have talked to has said he has a case here.

They messed up. They overloaded him with opioids, thought they fucked up his liver, and tried to cover their asses when they realized what they did. The other details of this case make it even worse.

I also want to note that I am really sorry to anyone he has been a dick to. He’s frustrated and venting because the last 48 hours have been extremely stressful. (to be fair, some of y’all were assholes and made a very stressful situation much more stressful. Telling me that I was killing him by trying to get him out did not help whatsoever. And some of you just did not read the whole post.)