California ER Doctor Is Suspended After Being Caught On Video Mocking An Emergency Room Patient And Asking If He Is Dead
A Northern California emergency room doctor has been suspended after cursing and mocking a man who said he was having an anxiety attack.
Dr Beth Keegstra, a contract doctor at El Camino Hospital in Los Gatos, was recorded on camera making fun of 20-year-old Samuel Bardwell, who was rushed to the emergency room after he became ill during basketball practice, reported The Mercury News.
VIDEO: Bardwell’s father, Donald, recorded Keegstra pulling on his son’s arms and ordering him to sit up.
‘I’m sorry sir, you were the least sick of all the people who are here who are dying,’ Keegstra is seen saying. ‘There, so you picked your head up. Now don’t try to tell me you can’t move. C’mon, sit up.’
Bardwell suffers from anxiety attacks and takes the drug Klonopin, according to his father. But the college student hadn’t picked up a prescription for two days before suffering an attack after basketball practice.
‘He was on medication for his anxiety, but was off his [medication] for two days because he couldn’t get to the pharmacy before it closed,’ Donald Bardwell told the Mercury News.
Bardwell was attending his first summer basketball class at West Valley College on Monday night when the health problems started.
‘He wasn’t looking too good,’ West Valley basketball coach Scott Eitelgeorge told The Mercury News.
‘It looked like he was having a pretty severe anxiety attack. Sam played for maybe five minutes before he had to step out.’
Bardwell returned and attempted to lift weights before collapsing on the grass outside the weight room, according to Eitelgeorge, who called 911.
Bardwell, who is 7’1″ tall, told NBC Bay Area he waited three hours to see a doctor, and, when Keegstra finally did show up, she was accompanied by a security guard.
That’s when Bardwell’s father took out his cellphone to record, holding it by his chest.
‘You want us to wheel you to your house in a gurney?’ Keegstra is heard saying on the video.
After Bardwell says he’s unable to inhale, Keegstra laughs: ‘He can’t inhale? Wow. He must be dead! Are you dead, sir?’
On the video, Keegstra is also heard cursing several times.
Keegstra, who worked at El Camino since 2010, was not a staff worker but employed by Emeryville-based Vituity.
‘We are saddened that a patient in our care was affected by this behavior and are working to ensure this never happens again,’ Vituity spokeswoman Allison Kundu wrote in an email to The Mercury News.
‘We are conducting a thorough investigation into the matter.’
She added that Keegstra has also been removed ‘from the schedule at all the hospitals she works at’.
By Mary Kekatos | Dailymail
