Bathroom denial
Denial of bathroom use. Forced onto a catheter and/or rectal tube.
These testimony clips are drawn from interviews conducted by CHBMP with families and survivors. Each clip stands as evidence and remembrance. We share them to honor those who came forward, to seek accountability, and to ensure these experiences are never forgotten.
“"He was restrained. Yes. He was restrained. I forgot to say that. While he was completely out of they had him on a paralytic on multiple sedation sedating drugs. Multiple. There's no way that man could have moved, and yet they still had him restrained... I had asked the nurse one time, you know, how full because he couldn't... and they I asked him, you know, how full, how many cc's or whatever can a bladder hold... I remember the next day, I had asked, you know, have they relieved him?”
From the testimony of Kyle Squires
“"I wasn't treated really well at all. You know, I was treated like a second class. I never got any hygiene products while I was in there unless I asked for them. I didn't I was basically I never got my gown changed either. I actually so having nosebleeds while I was in there because I had the oxygen, drying out my my nasal cavity. So I had, like, three or four bad nosebleeds while I was in there. I never got up to use the bathroom, because I was too weak... I was busy sitting there my own fill, it felt like, for a few days. Not good hygiene.”
From the testimony of Kevin Tyykila
“"Could he can you please help me use the bathroom first? And no one take to use the bathroom. And very upset.”
From the testimony of Clare Wiersma
“"My husband, they wouldn't, help him get out of bed to go to the restroom. They told him absolutely not. He was not to get out of bed, that he needed to use a bedpan only. He asked for one of those potty chairs, and they told him absolutely not. And then he had had a, accident with the bedpan that was just, terrific and berate from hospital staff.”
From the testimony of Gerald Lee Shirar
“"Like, they would just leave him in his feces and urine for a really long time. He started, you know, swelling up. His trach was bleeding, and, you know, just kinda really depended on what nursing staff I got. You could tell a lot of those nurses were travel nurses. They weren't even from the area. It was, like, short staffed.”
From the testimony of Samuel E. Perez
“"I had people playing with me where, you know, I sat on the toy on the on the portable bedpan, anywhere from an hour to to two hours in my urine, in my stool. They it was just it got to a point, Patty, that I had asked for the bedpan to always be left with me in the bed. Because after, someone would empty it, I would tell them, please return it to my bed. Because when I would ring the buzzer to go, and ask the bed pan, they it was an hour later, and I couldn't hold it. Mhmm. And, it got really, really, really bad and ugly.”
From the testimony of Cheryl Moran
“"They strip them naked. They just leave them exposed naked without even a sheet poop on themselves. I mean, one or two cases, but everybody in the nation saying the same thing that they're full on naked and pooping on themselves.”
From the testimony of Josephine Hutchens
“"they are letting her sit in her own urine. That just... that was just too much to handle that. Then you knew they weren't taken care of.”
From the testimony of Barbara Lowney
“"I said, she's dying and no one's helping. I've called several times and she peed on herself. I said, please. I put an exclamation. She peed on herself. ... they are letting her die. And then I wrote she's gone. And he writes back, I'm sorry for your loss. My condolences.”
From the testimony of Phyllis Marek
“"he had been trying to get someone's attention, and what had happened when Neil came in...the overnight nurse had had not emptied the catheter bag, and so everything was backing up, and he was in pain...he was so thirsty that but they wouldn't give him anything to drink...the look in his eyes, it's like he's not even hearing us. It was so disturbing to see that.”
From the testimony of Steve Gregory
“"up until that point he had not been bathed, and he had not been fed. ... From the seventeenth of twenty six, he had not had a bath and not had any... Did he have liquids to drink?”
From the testimony of Kevin Wilson
“"And when they really just sat there and destroyed her, they gave her no baths. She didn't get nothing to eat. She was on no feeding tube, no water, no nothing. They starved my child. ... She just laid there. They were I don't know if they ever even rolled her over or anything. I don't know because she was in bad shape from her bottom up. Her hair was never washed. She just was in a bed, laid there till she died.”
From the testimony of April Wyatt
“"And he's like, they won't let me go to the bathroom. And, you know, it was more of just they wanted him to stay in bed the whole time. They didn't want him to get up... I was like, I don't think he has anxiety. But because I think that medication threw him into anxiety is what it was.”
From the testimony of Edward M. Garza
“"at that point, I'm still not able to get up and go to the restroom by myself. And, sometimes I would push my button, and it wouldn't work. And one morning, I was having breakfast, and I needed to use the restroom. And I'm pushing the button, and nobody's coming. So I just laid in my bed praying to God that I fell asleep so I wouldn't have, you know, any accidents. So, they finally came in, and I explained what happened. I told them that I felt ignored. I said I could have been dead. I said no one popped their head in. No one came to check me. Nothing. I said, I wanna go home. I wanna go home now.”
From the testimony of Annette Alves
“"They had a feeding tube in. They had a catheter in. They put the catheter in before he was in the ICU. They wouldn't even let him get up to go to the bathroom. They put a catheter in and, a rectal tube.”
From the testimony of Steven R. Blatt
“"I went back up to his room. I sat with him that whole day and watched him while they wouldn't feed him. They wouldn't get him up to go to the bathroom... I said, you need to treat him. What are you doing to treat him? Treat him? It's been so this has been three days now. Nobody's treating him with anything.”
From the testimony of William Phillips
“"He was not given basic necessities. And he was badgered about getting ventilated. ... I did ask them some I mean, they there was actually blood on his hands, and I I questioned a nurse one time. ... She said, oh, we can't get it all.”
From the testimony of Anthony Payne (Tony) Whatley
“"My mother wasn't allowed to step foot out of that room, not that she could, you know, most of the time anyway, especially after they sedated her and jammed a tube down her throat and ripped her esophagus. You know? I mean, there's no way she could anyway.”
From the testimony of Carol K Vaughan
“"She's like, well, where are you gonna go to the bathroom? There's no bathroom in there. I said, I will wear an adult diaper if I have to. ... There was a toilet there. That doctor lied to me.”
From the testimony of Jeff Kozlovsky
“"Yeah. And they also made him wait for hours to go to the bathroom. Jeff with his his organ transplant... but they still made him wait.”
From the testimony of Jeff Kozlovsky
“"he had horrible pain anal pain from hemorrhoids, and he was told that he could defecate in the bed and that they would then clean clean it up. He they were they were not putting him on a bedpan. They were not, assisting him in any other way with his bowels.”
From the testimony of Tom Ursic
“"He said, nobody's coming in here. I don't know what's going on. I wanna go home. This is BS. I can do this from home. They haven't come in here. They haven't emptied my urinal. I've peed in three times. They're not giving me anything to eat. They're not giving me anything to drink.”
From the testimony of Geoffrey e Bruce
“"And he urinated all over himself, and he was in his urine for hours...And they told him just to defecate on himself. And he ended up defecating on himself because he could no longer hold it...the treatment he received, the twenty hours we were away from him...they gave him no dignity. They gave him nothing as if he was nothing.”
From the testimony of Thomas Joe Suggs
“"He said, can you bring my toothbrush up here? ... he was there from Friday night to Sunday and hadn't got to brush his teeth.”
From the testimony of Howard Moore