Eric Nelson

Review of PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical...

Myself and others I know have had consistently poo...

Myself and others I know have had consistently poor care (if you can call it that) from this hospital and I think it's about time that I write a review because this hospital is dangerously incompetent. Unless it is a very urgent emergency I would recommend taking the drive to Skagit to avoid this place.

I was taking a medication which turned out to severely damage my memory for several years, which is no fault of this hospital, so I honestly can't even remember specifically all the times that myself, my girlfriend, and others I've spoken to have been mistreated here except those that happened in that last couple years... my girlfriend has a number of medical issues which often require hospital visits so we have quite a bit of experience. I'll just recount the last time I went in, it's not my place to talk about other people's experiences though I was prompted to write this by another case of malpractice that happened yesterday. This person ended up being driven to a different hospital later where they got her in promptly and found that due to incompetence at St. Joseph her problem is much worse.

So my girlfriend was bitten by a dog pretty badly, it bit several times and then clamped down on her arm and left deep puncture wounds. So we ran into the hospital and after about 20-30 minutes of wait in an empty emergency room (there were doctors and nurses hanging around talking and joking around) we were brought back in to sit down. We were then left there for another 20 minutes after an IV was put in with a saline drip. When our nurse came back she gave my girlfriend a couple pills to take which she did not mention what they were. My girlfriend asked what medications they were and it happened to be an antibiotic which she is deathly allergic to. The nurse apologized and ran off. About 10-15 minutes later another nurse comes in and starts hooking up some medication to her IV. Again my girlfriend asked what the medication was, and it turned out to be the same antibiotic that she is deathly allergic to just in liquid form. This nurse apologized and ran off. Fast forward another 15-20 minutes and the first nurse comes in with some paperwork to fill out since the bite happened at her work and the doctor comes over with discharge papers. We told them that the wound had not even been cleaned and that no medications were given besides the two times that they tried to kill her. So they insist that my girlfriend sign the papers with her arm still bleeding, then went off to get someone to clean the wound and find medication. Another 15-20 minutes later a nurse comes in and actually cleans and bandages the wound. The doctor then came in and tried to prescribe a sulfa drug that my girlfriend is also deathly allergic to before finally looking up her allergies and getting it right.

This "treatment" is unacceptable.