I've said this many times before and I will say it again: One thing you absolutely MUST do (speaking as an RN) is go to the admitting department and have them remove any note that identifies you as a JW.
The members of the HLCs, like any other clergy, can obtain printouts of congregants in hospital under the guise of "pastoral care". The best way to avoid an ambush by members of the HLC is to remove any reference to your being a JW.
I found this out when my youngest was born, while still a JW. I had signed a paper stating that I was not interested in receiving pastoral care visits, mainly because Friends™ were planning to visit, and my hospital stay was going to be very brief. So, I'm in my private room, with the curtain drawn, breastfeeding my newborn, on the evening prior to being discharged home, and a stranger popped his head inside the curtain - it was an Elder™ from the HLC checking in to see if I "needed anything". I was upset at his lack of respect for my boundaries (the closed door, the curtain drawn and the CLEAR written refusal of "pastoral visits" on my chart. When I asked him how he knew who I was and where I was, he told me that the hospital's Pastoral Care Team provides them with lists of patients of the various denominations, so they can make Shepherding Calls™. I told him I'd signed a document declining those visits, because I wasn't ill, my hospital stay was going to be brief, and I had plenty of visits with Friends™ from the KH. I reported him to my nurse and the nurse manager after he left.
A few years later, when I had decided that I wanted nothing more to do with the cult, I requested those notations to be removed from my electronic file. Never a problem since then.
