Brittany Zaring

Review of Fort Walton Beach Medical Cent...

It is because of our excellent nurses on 3 South- ...

It is because of our excellent nurses on 3 South- Susan and Alex that this hospital will even get a 1 start rating from myself and my husband, Paul (the patient). While visiting Florida on vacation, Paul started to become ill. We first visited an Urgent Care facility that encouraged us to go to the local ER to have a CT scan to confirm the assumption of appendicitis.

Who knew it would take about 6 hours to be seen once we set foot in the ER. But no worries after 90 minutes of waiting and my husband spending his time doubled over in pain, the insensitive charge nurse, Dave, would come out and attempt to squelch our dissatisfaction by letting us know that the ER appreciates our patience but they've had some "real emergencies" that were causing the delay for us and the other folks in the ER to be seen in a timely manner. To their credit they attempted to do blood draws, X-rays, etc while folks were waiting, but while doing so they were asking for everyone's Social Security number in front of everyone. (great privacy protection call here, guys)

Once we were graciously taken behind the wooden ER door, Paul was then told he needed to sit in the hall while he waited on a room. It was here that we learned the lady to our right had a UTI, her prescription, and that she worked for a local airline. We also learned that the lady to our left, who was just in a car accident with her newly born grandson, that she had donated her kidney and we learned her Social Security number. (HIPPA, anyone???)

Paul was then finally taken to a CT and then sat back in the hall for another 30-40 minutes before we were finally given a bed. Flash forward about 60 minutes, one of the ER doctors decided it was finally appropriate to spend 90 seconds with us and tell Paul he had to have his appendix removed and we needed to wait on a surgeon to come talk to him.

The surgeon, Dr. Colvin, and the OR nurse, John, were both wonderful. John spoke with me on OR waiting room phone a few times to keep posted on Paul's progress. Dr. Colvin was wonderful in her post-surgery discussion with me.

Then things started to taken another downward turn- the OR nurse that was transporting Paul to his room (I can't remember her name, but she was a traveling nurse and headed back to WV), was less than wonderful. While taking Paul to the third floor, Paul started to become sick and the nurse did not come prepared with any kind of bag or basin for any kind of emesis (who does that after surgery- isn't it common knowledge that folks are nauseous after surgery). So while Paul is heaving in his bed, the nurse abandons his bed to grab a few paper towels. This caused Paul's bed to begin to roll backwards and had I not caught him in time he would have been jarred into the wall (just what everyone needs right after surgery). Then during the pass-off from OR nurse to floor nurse, the nurse only shows 3 of the incisions and fails to mention the 4th. (who cares if the one along the underwear line becomes infected??)

I do want to reiterate how wonderful Susan and Alex were on 3 South. They helped calm me down and made Paul laugh a few times- which did make the experience much more tolerable. They deserve to work in a better facility.

Overall, this hospital is horrendous. They need to reevaluate it's privacy policies, ER procedures, and post-op procedures. Unacceptable, Fort Walton.