Warning, this is going to be a long review.

Warning, this is going to be a long review.

Short version: If I had lost both my legs in an accident I would risk trying to drive to another hospital rather than be treated here.

Here's the reason for 2 stars. The birth suites are amazing, our third son was born here and the whole experience was fantastic. There's a reason the birth suites has a separate entrance, because the rest of the hospital is a total nightmare.

Other than a birth we've been here on two separate occasions.

Visit #1:
We had to bring our newborn back for jaundice tests. Now keep in mind, we have two week old baby in a waiting room full of sick people, you'd think we'd be some sort of priority. Nope. Not only were we not a priority, they had accidentally lost our check in. So, we've been sitting there for almost three hours, seen the entire waiting room cycle almost twice, before I finally say something to them about it and there's no record of checking us in. Okay, mistakes happen, I'm aggravated but I like to think I'm a reasonable man. One would assume after an incident like this that we would be put on the top of the list. Nope again. We now had to wait for everyone else that had arrived after us because they either lost us or never checked us in. So when we finally go back, they have to take blood from our son. Remember, he's two weeks old, he doesn't have a lot of blood to begin with. After taking the last drop, the phlebotomist drops the vial before getting the lid on and has to start from scratch taking more blood.

Visit #2
We brought our son in (different son, 2 years old) after he hit his head on the playground and had some swelling on his face the next day. Initially they told us he had a bug bite that was causing the swelling. Nope, yet again. We end up leaving and taking him to our pediatrician who tells us there's no bug bite but just to keep an eye on him. Later that day he starts vomiting so we decide to take him to the hospital...again. However, we wanted to avoid this hospital at all costs so we took him to a different one about 25 minutes away. They were awesome, ordered MRI to make sure he was okay and put him on antibiotics because it looked like he also had a sinus infection. However, they didn't have a pediatric wing, so just like a recurring nightmare we found ourselves back at Holmes Melbourne. They kept him overnight to do the tests and monitor his condition. The next day most of the nurses were actually UCF students, but they and the day nurses were great, no complaints. Once the shift change happened and the night nurses came in, any semblance of service or bedside manner went straight to hell.
A few suggestions for the night nurses:
1. You should knock on doors before you open them, not after.
2. If a parent tells you there's one thing you could do that would wake up their sleeping two year old, DON'T do that one thing.
3. If you're going to sit around with the other nurses complaining and talking bad about patients, make sure you're out of earshot of the patients.

If you've made it through this entire thing I apologize about the length, but I promise reading the whole thing was not nearly as bad as having lived it.

If I can offer you any advice, avoid this hospital at all costs, unless you're giving birth, then it's awesome.

If I was shot outside of their ER doors I would go in, but only to ask for an ambulance to take me to another hospital.