Mike Morris

Review of Exempla St. Josephs

They re too busy to allow family members reach eld...

They re too busy to allow family members reach elderly patients by phone. I live in another city. I learned from my mom s elder care residence that she d been taken to St. Joseph s. I had to call 5 times throughout the day before they could connect me to the phone in her room. The first three times, I was connected to the nurse station by her room and twice connected with the wrong room. The third time, I was asked to call back later and told I should ask the operator to stay on the line when I called back to make sure I got connected. Due to work, I wasn t able to call back for several hours. I told the operator about the issues in the morning and asked her to stay on the line. The operator refused and said it was up to the nurses. When the phone rang through, my call was cut off. I called again, reached the same operator, said we re now up to call number five , and said it would be nice if she d stay on the line so I didn t have to run the phone maze again. She snapped, this is a busy hospital and sent my call through. Happily, I got a friendly nurse on the phone and got to talk to my mom after a day of worrying. I ve had relatives in busy hospitals before, but never had so much trouble reaching them by phone. I take them at their word that they re too busy to care about that.