Sooooo, I work in an ER as a patient access representative (fancy way of saying I take information from patients and work with insurance) and let me tell you how much trouble that hospital can get into for taking to you like that. If you recorded them and took it to court, dear lord there's no telling the shit storm that would ensue! The reason being, if they treat you like that over the phone, and then you go out and do something and get seriously hurt or die, then they can be held liable for not making you feel welcome to come in and be treated. And heaven forbid of you were actually in the ER and before you checked in, they treated you like that and then you left. Without getting too far into the endless responsibilities we get as non-clinical workers! We answer the phones for the ER and if someone calls in/walks in asking if they could be seen for suicidal ideation (or anything really) we have prompts that we have to say such as "Of course, we'd be more than happy to see you/help you! Please, come on in/Sign in so we can have a nurse triage you and take you to your room!" If directions are needed, we can give them directions, if they need to speak to a nurse directly, we can transfer the call to one/ask one to meet us in the lobby. There's never any reason for someone to be rude and make you feel unwelcome at a hospital where you are going to make you feel better/healthy!! I'm so sorry that this happened to you when you were feeling like this and I hope you did eventually get some help. :/
I tried to ask a place about being hospitalized bc of suicidal/self harm things and the lady on the phone was the rudest piece of shit and would just keep yelling at me to go to the ER “if it was that bad” and stop wasting her/everyone else’s time and if that doesn’t give you a good idea of how much those places really want to “help” idk what will