MY WIFE HAD COVID; LACK OF TREATMENT KILLED HER
6-26-23
Dignity Health Urgent Care
1501 N Gilbert Rd
Gilbert, Az. 85234
Chandler Regional Medical Center
1955 W Frye Rd
Chandler. AZ 85224
Arizona Medical Board
1740 W Adams St #4000
Phoenix, Az 85007
“MY WIFE HAD COVID, BUT COVID DIDN’T KILL HER, LACK OF TREATMENT KILLED HER”
I am writing this letter because it has been 18 months since my wife died. I have had two wedding anniversaries pass without my beautiful Christina here to share them with. There is not a day that passes that I do not think about how much I failed her by not having Hydroxy Chloroquine and Ivermectin at home to give her and keep her out of the hospital. When we did go to Dignity Health Urgent Care, we received no help and lost valuable days in my wife’s and my treatment. At Chandler Regional Medical Center, discrimination, unequal treatment, lies, fraud, and protocols robbed her of the last 20-30 years of her life as well as destroying mine and everything we had built together over the last 35 years. Dr. Charles Armstrong should not have been treating patients at Dignity Health Urgent Care if he did not know the Covid protocols, or worse yet, his lack of care about his patients. He failed the number one rule, “do no harm to your patient”. His failure to give a single recommendation was the beginning of the end for my wife. We went to Dignity Health Urgent Care for treatment, to get help, not to take a test and be sent on our way. He had all the time he needed to help us. No one else was there, we were the last ones to leave.
I will never forgive myself for not having therapeutics on hand to keep her out of the hospital. On November 21, 2021 we went to Dignity Health Urgent Care at Baseline and Gilbert Rd. It was a Sunday late afternoon and there was only one other car in the parking lot and only one other person in the ER. My wife and I were taken in separately and interviewed and checked before being put in a room together. Dr. Charles Armstrong came in and said, I will test you for the flu and common illnesses and if negative, I will test you for Covid. He came back 30 minutes later saying the tests were negative and I will test you both for Covid, but we would not know the results for 24 hours. He was ready to let us leave with no recommendation on what we should be doing. My wife’s oxygen level was 98% but having trouble breathing. My oxygen was 95%. I had to ask him to do something to help her with her breathing and he gave her a prescription for a steroid inhaler. Since we were the only ones in the ER at that time, there was no reason he could not have asked more questions and offered suggestions for treatment. We lost valuable time because he did not put his patients first.
Knowing what I know now, all of which I learned well after it was too late to save my wife, is that when we were in the ER that Sunday afternoon, it was the perfect time for Dr. Armstrong to recommend we get a Regeneron treatment since we would both not be stuck on oxygen and denied treatment. We went to the ER to get help, not to be sent home with no recommendations. The nurse called me the next day, Monday, to tell us we both had covid. I waited for a recommendation and again nothing. I called back and asked for a prescription for Ivermectin. She claimed they don’t do that. At this point she should have known we are looking for help. She or Dr. Armstrong should have recommended something instead of just hanging up.
It is my opinion Dr. Charles Armstrong failed to follow his oath as a doctor and do no harm. He was the first line of attack or defense to get help, and his lack of action led to us both getting much worse and eventually my wife dying. How many other people lost a loved one or they barely survived because he failed to be proactive in treating his patient’s? He is the worst kind of doctor there is, no compassion or concern for his patients. We may as well have been patient number 311 and 312. The two days we lost without any recommendation made all the difference in the world. My wife paid the ultimate price and lost her life and I’m alive to prove it.
On Tuesday my wife felt worse and I took her to Chandler Regional Medical Center. Upon checking in, the nurse said she was at 89% oxygen and immediately put her in a wheelchair and put her on oxygen. We were not told at that time that once she is on oxygen, she would not receive Regeneron. Neither were we informed that as a Hospital, they do not believe in Ivermectin. I left her there thinking she was going to get everything she needed. We were defrauded of our rights to choose and be involved in our health care choices. I had Covid as well and could not come back for 10 days. I never received a call for 15 days about her care or what they were doing, how she was doing or anything. The hospital did whatever they wanted to. My wife’s fate was determined by a nurse at check-in and protocol. Your oxygen is below xyz, you get door B. It was the 8th day of Christina being sick when I checked her in. On my 8th day of being sick, I went to Chandler Regional Medical ER for help. The hospital put me in a room and the doctor came in and immediately asked if I had received the shot. I said I hadn’t, it was irrelevant, I am already here. After telling me I was stupid and going to die, he finally agreed to give me Regeneron, but said I had to leave after the procedure was done. Still he did not explain if you are on oxygen you do not get Regeneron.
The first few days my wife was in the hospital, the nurse informed my son Sean, his mom is doing well, she will be out in a week. In fact, several of the nurses commented on how much they liked my wife. Had Dr. Charles Armstrong or Chandler Regional Hospital or any doctor cared more about my wife than protocol and given my wife Regeneron or told me they wouldn’t, I could have taken her somewhere else for treatment. Instead, I didn’t find out until it was too late. She was not that sick, if she was, she wouldn’t have lasted 27 days, she would have rapidly declined. She was separated out like cattle, based on oxygen level.
I was reading her medical file and mine after her death when I could finally think straight and I now realize I took her to the two worst places I could have taken her for help. My file states, patient requested Regeneron! I didn’t know I had to be the patient and the doctor. My wife would be alive today if she had received Regeneron or Ivermectin or both upon arrival. Even after I received Regeneron, my oxygen dropped to 83% and 84%, but my friends found out we were sick and they brought me hydroxychloroquine, hydroxyl, and I received an IV Vitamin drip. My wife was scared to death that I was going to die at home because I wasn’t getting help and yet I made it and she died in a billiondollar hospital and received less treatment than I did because of fraud, lies, and protocol. I was with my wife the night Dr. Shikri came in and said, “Chris, I have been watching your numbers and if we don’t intubate you now, you will die tonight”. Wow, what a choice. Chris and I looked at each other and decided, If that is what we have to do. That was 18 days after I had dropped her off for help and the first time, I was included in any health care decision. If Dr. Shikri was watching her so closely, why did he have to intubate her in the ER and not have time enough to get her to the ICU to intubate her there? When they wheeled her out of the ER to go to the ICU, she looked dead and basically, she was brain dead from the procedure. Over the next 9 days she never responded to stimulation or opened her eyes. She wasted away for 27 days because you never stopped the infection from destroying her lungs.
SB1377 basically gave you free reign to do whatever you wanted and not be sued and yet you chose the hardest most expensive treatment. SB 1377 also gave you protection to do what is in the best interest of the patient, you could have used Regeneron, Ivermectin or Hydroxychloroquine but chose not to, you never deviated from protocol ever. You never included me in any of her healthcare choices or kept me informed. Dr. Charles Armstrong knew what Dignity’s Regeneron protocols were and should have recommended getting treatment when my wife’s oxygen level was good and would have allowed her to have the treatment. I have never experienced anything so sick in my life. I will never go to a hospital again in my life. How many patients got door B like my wife and died or barely made it because of your protocols that are not posted or explained anywhere. You took away all of my wife’s and my healthcare rights and did whatever you wanted. How many 1000’s died needlessly?
When I could finally see my wife after 10 days, she said how she almost gave up twice. I helped her move around, use the commode, sit in a chair, and build up her spirits. She said the doctors barely poke their heads in and then they say nothing has changed and back out the door. On the 15th day after dropping my wife off, I received a call from a doctor saying, I finally feel good enough to call you and say Christina is doing better these past few days and I am going to watch her tomorrow and Thursday and we will see when I can send her home. On Wednesday her oxygen went back up a little, same on Thursday, and by Friday, she was back to full oxygen support. You see she was never getting better, It was only the fact that after I could finally see her again, and I could hold her hand and be with her did her spirit pick up and she wanted to live.
After Dr. Shikri did the intubation and I was walking behind him as they wheeled her from the ER room to the ICU, I said why didn’t she get Ivermectin? And without even looking back, he said we don’t believe in it. Well maybe you and the Hospital don’t, but I dropped my wife off with the understanding the Hospital would do everything it could to save her. No one told me you would be denying her two very important medications. I got better healthcare from my friends.
Then while in the ICU, Dr. Mullins calls me to give me an update. I said I saw Chris this morning and then Dr. Mullins said, “you don’t want an update?” I said, yes, I do, I am only saying I saw her this morning. Dr. Mullins then said I was hoping to see more improvement. Now you have to know this was only the second day she had seen my wife. I again asked why did my wife not get Regeneron? This was the first time someone actually said if you’re on oxygen, you don’t get Regeneron. Then Dr. Mullins went on to say, we are no longer dealing with Covid, we are dealing with trying to get her lungs to recover. The next day I was with my wife when Dr. Mullins came in. After talking for a few minutes, I asked her to show me her x-ray. She pulled up the X-ray and her left lung was all white and her right lung only had a little black near the top of her lung. I looked at Dr. Mullins and said, she is down to 20-25% of her lungs, she would be lucky to be in a wheelchair and on oxygen the rest of her life. Dr. Mullins said, that’s the best case scenario, if she makes it out of here, she will most likely die of a secondary infection in a breathing facility. I knew right then and there my beautiful wife was never coming home. The following day I had the nurse on duty pull up my wife x-ray from when I checked her in, I was thinking maybe I didn’t get her in fast enough. But her x-ray showed 90% healthy lungs, only a few white spots. As a Hospital you denied her Regeneron and Ivermectin and let her waste away. You gave me Regeneron supposedly because I requested it, I also had Hydroxychloroquine, Hydroxyl and an IV vitamin drip. As a Hospital, you don’t believe in Hydroxy Chloroquine or Hydroxyl, so the fact that I survived must mean the Regeneron made the difference and yet you never gave it to her. My wife would be here today if you had only given her Regeneron! You don’t think the 2 hours and 45 minutes it takes to receive Regeneron wouldn’t have been better spent when she first arrived than the 2 hours and 45 minutes it took her to die once you removed her from all the machines?
I don’t know how you can live with yourselves knowing you didn’t do everything you could have and people died needlessly!
In the end, I want it recorded in Dr. Charles Armstrong’s file that he did nothing to treat me or my wife and she died as a result.
I want it noted that the Hospital put protocol and the Hospital bottom line ahead of taking care of my wife and again it led to Christina’s death and who knows how many more deaths!
Let me put it this way. I am a Pest Control Advisor to farmers in Arizona. I am licensed to apply restricted use chemicals to crops to protect them from pests that can destroy their crops. Now let’s say you hire me to check your cotton crop and I say I will do everything I can to protect your crop. Then at the end of the season you ask why your cotton crop was a disaster? Upon further questioning, you ask me why did lygus eat up my crop, didn’t I use Transform or Carbine? I respond saying, no, I don’t believe in those two products. I used Warrior and Baythroid. Then you ask, why I didn’t tell you I don’t believe in Transform or Carbine. Had you known you would have hired someone else to take care of your crop. I misled you and I claimed I would do everything I could and I robbed you of your choices. I should have told you up front what I would and wouldn’t do! In this hypothetical situation I would be sued and out of a job.
I wish every day that my wife would have made it and that I could have died in her place. She was the glue that made this family work. The boys always preferred to talk with their mom about any problems they were having and it kills me that she is not here to watch her grandchildren grow up. I can barely enjoy my time with my boys and grandchildren because she is not here to enjoy it with me. Dean, our 2ND grandson was born on the same day she died, December 20, a year after her death.
The truth is coming out and I can never bring my beautiful Christina, the best friend and Wife anyone could ever have back. But now that I have said my piece, maybe I can get some sleep and not be angry and full of hate all the time.
And I don’t want to get back a form letter full of all kinds of legalese. Never in a million years when I took my wife in for a little help, did I not believe I wouldn’t be bringing her home in a couple or few days. You took her and did whatever you wanted. There was never any discussion on what the best treatment or options would be. By the time I learned how badly she had deteriorated under your care, it was too late to reverse the damage done. You milked her body for every penny you could and in the end, I lost my wife, the one thing I loved more than anything else in this world. As Hospital you made record profits and I lost my wife. I have to live with the fact I failed her twice, first by not being prepared with therapeutics to keep her out of the hospital and second, the fact that I took her to her death when I chose Chandler Regional Medical Center.
James Holland
602-501-3416
jamesholland@reagan.com
mychristina.life