Charley B

Review of PeaceHealth

The out-patient facilities and staff are good. In ...

The out-patient facilities and staff are good. In a separate review, I gave my Peace Health out-patient primary care doctor 5 stars. I think she deserves 5 stars and out-patient facility 4 stars, but since that wasn't an option, I gave my out-patient primary care 5 stars. I give the excellent cafeteria food and staff 5 stars.

However, this review's star rating is about emergency room and in-patient facilities and care, which I have had wildly varying experiences with. I struggled with how many stars to leave in this review. Staff varies wildly from 1 to 5 stars, but 3 stars would be a good average for staff. The beds are torture devices deserving 1 star. Overall, I felt this review of ER and in-patient should be 2.5 stars, but that's not an option. So I was generous and gave 3 stars, but 2.5 stars is how I really feel.

Peace Health ER beds/gurneys are extremely uncomfortable. If I lie on one for an hour, it becomes very painful for my back. Other hospitals' ERs have more comfortable beds/gurneys. The ER staff and doctors are hit and miss. Some good. Some terrible. ER experience will depend on the luck of which staff and doctor you get.

The in-patient experience is similar to ER experience. Very uncomfortable beds that become painful within hours made my back hurt so bad that I couldn't sleep for 2 days I was there. The in-patient staff is some good, some bad). On the bright side, it seemed like more than half the in-patient staff were good.

Overall I give PH 3 stars in this review of their ER and in-patient care. PH outpatient care is good, possibly excellent, but that's another topic for another review.

When my neck was broken in a car accident and I was brought in by ambulance strapped to a hard stretcher board. After checking my vitals and taking X-rays, the ER staff put me in a back room and left me unattended for 3 hours and seemingly forgot me, until I started screaming. When I first started screaming, staff callously ignored me and kept walking by the open door to my room. When a staff member finally checked on me, he looked at my X-rays and discovered my neck was broken. After that they make a serious effort to help me. I was there another 3 hours before being released in a neck collar with no pain meds and a written prescription. All pharmacies in town were closed by that time. So no pain meds until the next day when my family went to pharmacy to get prescription filled. That was worst night of my life.

On another occasion, I had stepped on a nail and got prompt quality care at the ER.

On another occasion, I was having chest pains (I have a history of heart failure) and ER staff gave me prompt quality care.

On another occasion, I was having chest pains and ER staff (different doctor this time) gave me almost no care at all. All staff did was take my BP and heart rate. Nothing else. Seriously?

On another occasion, my dad went to ER with chest pain and he's known to have serious heart failure problems. He was in waiting room for an hour and all they did was take his blood pressure. He never even got into the ER. Just the waiting room. So after an hour in waiting room, my elderly mom helped him back to their car and drove him to Kaiser Hospital in Portland where he received prompt medical care. Peacehealth ER sent my dad a bill for $3500 for taking his blood pressure in the waiting room. Nothing else was done for him. No other exam. No treatment. He never got past the waiting room.

Going to Peach Health ER or in-patient facilities is a roll of the dice regarding which staff you get and the quality of care. The care might be good, or terrible. You never know until you get there. The only consistent thing is the gurneys and beds are terribly uncomfortable, and it get more miserable the longer you're there. Other hospitals have more comfortable gurneys and very comfortable beds. Why can't PH have consistent quality care and comfortable beds like other hospitals? If PH improved the beds that'd be a major improvement worthy of an additional star and would make me willing to be an in-patient at PH.