Stormchild,
Like I said, I'm sorry you had a bad experience and thankyou for your sorry.
Your experience was horrific; the level of care you had was appalling, no wonder the hospital folded.
I don't live in the US. Where I am, (Australia) the RNs are regulated to a high level of accountability. No longer can we shift the blame to anyone else (under doctors' orders was the old excuse), we are the patients' advocates. Things are a little different here it seems. All mistakes/errors must be documented under the regulations and infection controls are stringent eg. handwashing between patients. It's easy to trace a source of infection and link it to who was on duty for instance. Here, whoever didn't act upon your obvious signs Stormchild would have been reprimanded. (We are less litigious here remember).
Another thing I need to get off my chest, and this is not directed at anybody in particular. All nurses are not Ns.
I don't want to further waylay this thread, it's just that it's morning here and I needed to say these things.