This is a wonderful story. I am amazed at the level of casual disregard, not only of your wishes, but of the very reality staring them in the face. Amazed, but not surprised. Sadly, that's what you get with for-profit medical care. If you're perceived as someone who will cost money, not make it, you get the worst medical providers. And halfway decent ones give you the bare minimum care possible. Even drugs are tested on the largest potential market segment, when they may have radically different effects on other members of the population. I am so sorry that you and your wife had to go through this. And suing, while it would force you to relive a traumatic experience, would also hit the hospital in the only thing it cares about...it's wallet. That's the only way to get things to change.