Police in Florida are going after a doctor who screamed at a sick mom that was asking the reason for the length of her wait before being seen in a clinic. In a video recorded by her daughter, the doctor is seen yelling at the woman and asking her to leave the facility rudely. The same video was published on Facebook, and it already has more than 250,000 views and shares.
The video was posted on Monday by the same sick woman, Jessica Stipe, who arrived at the hospital holding a bucket and vomiting, which progressively worsened as the mother waited. When she calmly asked why it was taking so long, the doctor responded screaming and using an unprofessional language.
The doctor was identified as Dr. Peter Gallogly of Gainesville After Hours Clinic. Now, Florida’s police are carrying a criminal investigation against him after he cursed the patient and told her to “get the f*** out of my office.” Despite Stipe saying she was feeling unwell, the doctor didn’t send her to the emergency. Her appointment was at 6:30 pm on Monday.
The sick mother wrote on her Facebook profile that she started complaining at 7:45 pm, according to the Independent Florida Alligator, the University of Florida’s student newspaper. But the workers at the Clinic only sent her to fill a cup with her urine to see if she was pregnant. “I know I’m not,” the 38-year-old mother told them.
Stipe assures that she could have gotten a better treatment and waited for less time in another clinic.
‘Get your money and get the hell out.’
When Stipe asked the doctor why he had not taken her to an exam room after more than an hour since of her scheduled appointment, Gallogly asked her if she was “kidding” with him. Then, the doctor informed the mother that he’d already run a urine test on her. He continued rhetorically asking her if she thought that further information took only “3 seconds.”
The woman asked for her co-pay back, and the doctor proceeded to get brusque. The video shows him telling her that she’d be waiting even longer if she were in the emergency room or at another clinic.
Almost at the end of the video, it shows the mom saying that she just wanted to go to her home and lay on her bed, and Gallogly proceeded to point right to the door saying “Then fine. Get the hell out.”
“Get your money and get the hell out…” Dr Gallogly said to the mother. “If you go to CareSpot you’re waiting for three hours. Go to the ER and wait for nine hours.”
Right when both mother and daughter were going out of the facility, the daughter told Gallogly that she recorded him on video. He then strongly grabbed her phone, took it from her hands, and began walking off with it – the video shows.
Later, the video also shows, the mother said that she was going to the police. So she did.
The clinic posted a statement from Gallogly on Facebook Wednesday afternoon.
“Ms. Stipe had been increasingly belligerent and abusive to the office staff, cursing them and threatening them with violence, because she was unwell and had been waiting to be seen by me for more than an hour,” Gallogly wrote. “I went to the front desk only because after Ms. Stipe received her refund, she refused to leave the office, and continued her abusive behavior towards staff.”
Source: Miami Herald