Elmhurst Hospital Behavioral Health Center

MALPRACTICE MALPRATICE The psych ward is whole other topic. They will place you with extreme patients who aren't getting proper care either. I had to fake being happy to get out both times when all I wanted was help. Please stay away from the behavioral center. None of the therapists or psychiatrists know about diagnosis. I had them read textbooks to help me and got told no one in the hospital can treat my diagnosis which I got told after years of being there. Most of them do routines so you keep getting random ones. The first therapist I got right after the psych ward was handling my meds too which isn't ethical. he was very new. My OCD got triggered as he made assumptions of my intrusive thoughts. I went to PHP TWICE - no help. Then, I got a new therapist and when I realized I wasn't getting the appropriate help, i got called “entitled” for asking for a referral. All my concerns was ignored by Dr. Rivera does NOT care. I can list the providers I had but I bet they all are the same here. They disrespected all my boundaries and I wish I can write all the words and things I got told during treatment and as I was suicidal. Quite disgusting!! Train your doctors with PhDs apparently and get them trauma informed workshops. The amount of time I got told I didn’t knew my needs and they did. And got told my trauma was my fault which I believed for years. And to stop being a “victim” as I just got out of the psych ward. When you advocate, they use your diagnosis to belittle you and tell you they know your needs. Even the front desk tried to become a therapist but I said that's my personal help. I had to stand all day to get Dr. Rivera to talk to me who didn't care and said my therapist is like a mom to me. There was lack of unprofessional and the attachment is inappropriate. When I would share about OCD, I get research paper shown that there was no such thing as relationship subtype and it wasn't psychosis but dissociation due to my other diagnosis. OCD has subtypes but clearly all is being taught to them is the DSM. Invaliding something I been going through is not it. One therapist and I quote told me “If people in the holocaust could move on, you can too so stop talking about it” just so she could read from the textbook. Thanks for ruining my mental health further and needing further therapy to stop the words I got told to stop echoing in my mind. I had one good psychiatrist but she left and she was nice to help me get off a medicine which was leading me to psychosis. I had to advocate and looking back no doctor cared about the psychosis and called it dissociation. I developed health conditions due to a new psychiatrist's lack of extreme care, and he refused to collaborate with my docs, told me to be on a Mediterranean diet. a gastroenterologist had to give me an antidepressant that helped my symptoms. He made ME research what meds I should take and when I refused to look at my sheet. When I shared that I was suicidal got told 'suicidal is temporary, and you'll be fine.' A patient does not suffer or want it to end in a 'temporary' manner. It's been years, and I still have the health conditions worsening due to the high doses. Even when I called in deep depression, I was told to just go to the psych ward, and it worsened so badly and triggering that I just gave up working with him. I left with zero referrals and the amount of phone calls I got EVEN after I left. And they writing in MyChart they offered me referrals. Don't even get me started on the false notes they written after my appointments to save themselves. I made it clear I am not interested in talking to Dr. Rivera who called me multiple times. I had to beg them to stop calling me for days.. Before I left, I went to Patient Care HR who didn't care at all!! I went so many times and had to retell my concerns. When I left, I got a letter stating I refused help due to notes which was part of my concerns that they were false written. No one knows any therapy and I have a diagnosis that can be cured but the lack of care and knowledge hindered my success.

Francesca Micallef (of Elmhurst Hospital Adult Behavioral Health) engaged in a pattern of repeated, egregious medical malpractice against me. Ms. Micallef failed to provide adequate, medically-necessary care for my severe and life-threatening psychiatric concerns. She failed to provide necessary psychiatric support. Ms. Micallef repeatedly recorded fraudulent and knowingly false statements into my medical record via her medical notes. Ms. Micallef repeatedly recorded knowingly false diagnoses against my repeated and vocal complaints and refused to provide a justification for these incorrect diagnoses. She also did not allow me to correct the record, seek additional testing, or seek a second opinion from another provider at the facility. I made my complaints with her medical malpractice known to her and demanded a new medical provider but she failed to facilitate such a transition, claiming it was impossible. On multiple occasions, I explicitly requested that Ms. Micallef refer me to the Partial Hospitalization Program, a request she repeatedly claimed to be looking into but repeatedly fail to do anything whatsoever about. On multiple occasions, I explicitly requested that Ms. Micallef refer me to an individual psychotherapist. She slow-walked my concern and did not follow up on it for over four months. Ms. Micallef lied to me about the nature of treatments I was receiving. She intentionally withheld information about the class of drugs she was prescribing, in order to prescribe medications that are not FDA-approved for my conditions and are not medically indicated for off-label treatment of my conditions. This dangerous malpractice threatened my physical and mental health. Ms. Micallef ignored my repeated and urgent complaints about the quality and adequacy of her care and failed to provide any options for alternative providers or programs. Ms. Micallef clearly understood, and verbally acknowledged, my chronic and severe symptoms, but failed to act upon them. Ms. Micallef both failed to provide medically necessary care to stabilize and preserve my life, and provided flagrantly incorrect treatment recommendations that endangered my life.