4 /5 John Valentine: Update:
I just got off the phone with an amazing young woman named Hannah who actually is The Patient Advocate. She was extremely pleasant and you could hear the compassion she legitimately has for patients. Im updating my formerly 2 star rating to a solid 4, due to Hannahs highly professional attitude. I am leaving what I previously wrote, but will adjust certain parts because of the Patient Advocate.
I hate leaving negative reviews, but this is a combination of good and bad. I recently went to Christus Mother Francis emergency room to seek pain relief for my back, and got basically nothing but resistance. When I sought out to speak to their Patient advocate, I was instead given the run around, and told that they "dont have a patient advocate" (but yet I talked to one today). At this point, I was now upset and kindly asked the receptionist if "I called about 30 or 40 veterans to come down and help me advocate for myself, would someone in charge come out then. At this point the arrival of 2 armed security personnel showed up. The Sergeant who was very easy going, and extremely professional sat down with me and told me that the nurse in charge wanted to talk to me, to help find me a suitable outcome of my back pain and the frustration I was feeling. Unfortunately, that never happened. I was told she was speaking to another patient and by this time I was in severe pain and told the front desk receptionist that I was going to the ER and to please have the head nurse see me over there. A total of three different security officers (all of them very kind), assured me that my health was of the most importance to the hospital and that if I had anymore problems please let them know.
Finally after waiting a while (the ER was completely full, as was the rooms in the back), I was brought back to a triage spot with a really cool nurse, but instead of just one doctor coming to talk to me, he was accompanied by 3 other people.
None of them told me who they were and why they were in the room. One was the doctor, the other was the nurse, but as far as the other 3 people I had no clue who they were.
It was almost like they were trying to intimidate me with a show of force. The doctor at first came off as pretty cocky. As we started to discuss what was going on with my back and had told him that the previous ER doctor hadnt even asked if maybe some type of trauma happened to my back (I was wearing my Purple Heart shirt, and told him I was a medically retired Master Sergeant for service in the Army) so youd think the doctor would have caught that and ask if Id been injured or did something, that had exacerbated my current back pain).
The new doctor stated it wasnt customarily practice to investigate previous injuries of a patient, which no offense but arent they supposed to gather additional facts besides just X-Rays and CAT Scans. How this place calls itself an ER Department is beyond me. Theyre extremely rude and show no sympathy when it comes to handling a patient with pain, the funny thing is that in their pamphlet, on the first passage it states that patients are to expect proper pain management, needless to say they failed. Finally the Doctor and I had talked alone and he recommended some things to do and certain professional doctors that I should follow up with. In the end that ER doctor was immensely helpful to me and Im happy that I had him instead of the previous ER doctor. I strongly urge all patients to investigate and due their due diligence of ensuring this emergency department is the right one for you. Now I will say I had to be admitted here back in October for my gallbladder to be taken out, and everyone of the nurses and Surgeons are 5 star all the way. The hospital is great, but the ER department doctors need a lot of work, especially in the treatment of patients.
