Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center

GO SOMEWHERE ELSE if you’re in hurry. Staff was friendly, but the service was SLOW!!! They were not busy and didn’t have any emergencies (e.g. Traffic collisions, gunshots, etc). It took 4 hours for a simple issue.

Clean hospital, but I feel like they force more c section deliveries than any other hospital! I am so devastated! What’s worse is they don’t allow vbac! Almost everyone that I’ve known who has had a baby here ended up with a c section! All they want to do is make money here! I will never ever deliver my babies here!

I just received a bill for a ‘medical examination’ for 700.00 from this hospital. They claim my insurance has not responded to claim from NOVEMBER though I have a copy from my insurance company stating that they finalized the claim within 3 days and the only thing I owe is my co-​pay. Stay away from this place.

My beef is that they don’t tell you that other departments that they might send you to within the hospital might be out-​of-​network and it’s not until months later that you find out the hard way.
At this point with technology, don’t you think you could make financial experience better and more informative. Having parity with other providers in the system should be a no brainier.
Darn.

Neglected, is not a strong enough word to describe how I feel about my experience at this excuse for a hospital. I had to have my appendix removed this week and was admitted on Monday afternoon.
At St. Joseph’s, the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing. Visitors were sent home without seeing me as they were given inaccurate information about my status and whereabouts in the hospital. Your cel phone and belongings are taken and put in a locker so you have no way to communicate with your loved ones. No bedside phone while waiting hours for surgery. While in the Recovery room, the attending nurse was looking at the clock while telling another nurse how she wouldn’t make it home for movie night with her boyfriend. Her interaction with me and the elderly woman next to me lacked compassion. The day after my surgery, the surgeon and nurse did not communicate or had some sort of break-​down and didn’t care a bit that I was left high and dry with pathetic insincere apologies about my pain management and lack of. The surgeon went home without leaving my prescription and for post-​surgery abdominal pain I was offered fu%king Tylenol! My pain level had been extreme!!! Not one other MD in a whole hospital could write a prescription in my surgeon’s absence!!! NOT good enough in my opinion.
My friend who offered to pick me up, waited for over an hour as I tried to leave the hospital failing to get what I needed. After having a surgery, I then had to experience high levels of stress and extreme upset with the amateur emotionless nurses and supervisors on staff. Upon exiting crappy hospital, I had to scramble to my own regular Doctor’s office before they closed, to see if they could kindly provide me with pain meds to get through the following couple of days in recovery. We just about made it before they closed and they thankfully obliged and gave me my meds.
The care offered is sadly 3^rd World status, I expected better for a Californian hospital. I was not offered any help leaving with my overnight bags and had to stumble out, no wheelchair to the door. I have excellent insurance and for what? to be treated like garbage.
There were 2 amazing night nurses (Raymond and Marina) and it’s a pity others are not as terrific as they were.
I am telling everyone I know to avoid this hospital. Two of my neighbors with excellent insurance have had recent negative experiences also and were not treated with respect or quality medical care. My insurance will be billed thousands of dollars for what? Supremely inadequate, sloppy care. Ridiculous for USA standards.

I have read some of the reviews and agree that this hospital isn’t perfect but the nurses and staff cared for my moms needs in a most dignifying way as she was recovering from a heart attack. Because my mom was on life support twice during her stay we got to know the icu nurse Julie quite well. She treated my mom as a person not a job. Love love love Julie in icu.

I see why it has 3 stars. I went to the ER at around 5AM. It was easy to find, easy to find the ER, easy to check in. Then it became awful. They put me in a FREEZING room behind a curtain to separate me from the others waiting to see doctors. The only people in there were security guards? And so they can’t get you help, a blanket, water, tissues, nothing. And in fact, I’m listening to their very jovial and inappropriate conversations while I’m crying, for an hour, behind my curtain waiting to be seen. But then it got worse, because, as was my biggest fear, they brought in another person, a few feet from me behind the curtain, throwing up repeatedly and loudly moaning. So I went from feeling sad and abandoned for me, to wishing someone would help her. When I finally was visited by a nurse, he was absolutely the meanest one I’ve ever met. Absolutely rude. After that, the staff was lovely and things moved faster. Although I figured out my own diagnosis and they concurred. So… a wasted night. Total time there, about 3 hours.

I feel very fortunate to live near this hospital. Best in the business. You can disagree it’s OK you’re just wrong. Dr. Gondara is absolutely awesome.

I came to the emergency room after developing severe abdominal pain. At the ER there were only two people there so it took about 10 minutes to get seen. I explained the problem to the doctor and he told me that I may a condition called gastritis. He was nice to explain what it was and was medicine they were going to give me. Soon after a nurse came in can gave me a drink which looked like Pepto Bismol it wasn’t great but it did relieve some of the symptoms. Despite the pain going away my girlfriend told me that I looked pale. Soon after my pain returned severely but the doctor said to take these medicine and I mentioned that I didn’t eat or drink anything because I would throw up but he said you will be fine.
Later that night the pain was so unbearable that I decided to go back and I waited again for 10 minutes and this time they admitted me. Another doctor saw me and was concerned about me. He did some tests which included blood tests, an ultrasound, and urinalysis. One of the nurses said I was severely dehydrated and she put an IV right away. Then she gave me pain and nausea medicine and it helped a lot. Then the doctor came back and it he said there was nothing in my tests that would suggest anything bad. It was some sort of stomach virus so I want home after. Still, I am a little bit disappointed with the first doctor because he could have done tests instead of sending me home after I told him that I was in pain. I wasted hours and if those tests were done, I would have gotten home sooner than later. I would come back if I ever need emergency care if the doctors can do tests first before assuming what is wrong with someone.

I cut my thumb very deep while I was hanging curtains. After 30mins I could not get the bleeding under control. I then knew I had to seek advanced care because the bleeding would not stop. I got there at 06:50am the triage nurse Yolanda was extremely nice. I was taken back to a very clean large private room, the PA Jennifer got me all cleaned up, and she was able to glue my thumb instead of stitches! I was in and out in less then 40mins! Thank you st. Joes ER!

Went to admitting to get a treatment done. The initial lady you see in admitting was so cold. I was so shocked. This is the first face you see in admitting. She should be warm and welcoming. She was cold with the lady in front of me too. How does someone keep there jobs like that when they are serving the public.

Hospital staff are nice, but don’t wash hands or use gloves when providing patient care.
If you’re going to get care here, tell your nurse to wash their hands or use hand sanitizer and wear gloves for your own health and protection.

I came to the ER on a busy Saturday night. One of the young girls at the ER Check-​In desk was having a yelling match with a patient’s concerned husband. From what everyone in the waiting room could hear, the man’s wife had been taken by an ambulance and omitted to the hospital. This being the first he had heard of it, the concerned husband was frantically looking for answers while the young receptionist barked at him to go away and called in security to escort him out.
I sat in the waiting room for about five hours until I was seen by several different nurses, each one asking me to repeat what I had just told the previous nurse. They went over the typical procedures; reason for coming, symptoms, blood tests, etc. After a few more hours of being poked SIX times by nurses who couldn’t find a vein on me, a PA rushed in and said «Your blood results came back, were going to omit to to the hospital right now.»
I had never been omitted to the hospital before, let alone ever stayed overnight in one; needless to say, I was a little nervous. I was wheeled into my room by a nurse and I was so relieved to see that it was a spacious single patient room! It was past 1am at this point and the nurses had started to switch shifts. My night nurses were Tina & Nancy and they were absolutely fantastic! Although I did my best to stay as low maintenance as possible, the girls made sure to check in every few hours to see if I needed anything.
I wasn’t allowed to eat or drink anything for 24 hours since I required surgery, but the girls supplied me with a menu to choose my meals for my stay and made sure to let me know that they would have delicious meals lined up for me once I could eat again.
They definitely were not joking about the delicious meals; I could eat here every day. The food was absolutely delicious and very satisfying.
I wasn’t a fan of the day nurses; they seemed to all be younger and very bitchy.
I don’t remember my surgery at all since I was put to sleep, but I’ve currently been recovering very rapidly and with minimal pain and scaring.
I received my bill recently and let’s just say if I didn’t have insurance, I’d be in debt for an extremely long time.
Over all, my experience was satisfactory. Nurses definitely run this place and don’t get the credit as they deserve. The doctors in the place are like unicorns; it’s rare if you happen to see or interact with one.

We being here at Saint Joseph since thursday due to my mom chron’s diseases, she end up at the Emergency Room really Ill. She was transfer from E. R to 6 floor where we met the most compassion Register Nurse and assistant, Teddy & Jonathan both were really nice guys that care so much for my mother. Doctor Isaia was also caring but the one that did the most amazing job is Doctor Renner (Surgeon) who did my mom surgery, he was really nice, professional and explain everything step bu step from the beggining until the time he finish the surgery, he came to the waiting room and told me that he had finish the surgery explain what he saw and what he did to help my mom through surgery. I shook his hand and I bless him he is an amazing Surgeon a compassion one who cares deeply about his patientes.

I wouldn’t take my dogs here, even if it were free. If you’ve been harmed by this hospital, I’d love to hear from you as I now volunteer as a patient safety advocate:
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Consumer Reports recently scored this hospital with 37 out of 100. That’s way below failing. It lists them as having a 315% worse than national rating for hospital acquired urinary tract infections. If you google it, you’ll see news reports where this hospital was caught overdosing patients with radiation during CT scans.
My mother went here for elective surgery in 2003, and was dead a day later from hospital acquired sepsis (an infection that causes the body’s organs to shut down). This was just three months after actor John Ritter died there and his family sued for medical negligence.
In 2006, actress Alicia Cole contracted the «flesh eating disease» there, lost a good chunk of her abdomen and nearly died. You can see more about her story at
Jump ahead to 2012 and an ambulance took my disabled sister there with a terrible stomach ache. TWO days later she was dead. First off, they never diagnosed in those two days that she had a small bowel that had strangulated, burst and was seeping toxins into her abdomen. She was in horrific pain the whole time and yet, they didn’t give her any pain medication for over 15 hours, even though I begged and pleaded multiple times. When they finally gave it to her, and I say they… including on-​call doctor Sharad Patel… they gave her a medication 7 times stronger than morphine, which she had at least 6 contraindications for (they never even gave her a physical exam), which knocked her out within seconds. Shortly before they gave her that, though, they gave her Gastrografin, a radioactive beverage to drink for an unnecessary CT scan. Due to the sedative effect of the pain medication, she ended up aspirating the radioactive beverage into her lungs, which caused pulmonary edema and sent her into cardiac arrest.
The nursing staff was under the WRONG impression that she was a DNR (do not resuscitate) and stood around doing nothing while she was laying there with her heart stopped. When they realized they were wrong, they called a code blue (something the telemetry desk monitoring her vitals should have done automatically) and were able to revive her 17 minutes later, but it was too late, she was nearly brain dead. She ended up dying the next day. Her regular nurse, Rose Sansano even admitted in video-​taped deposition that she fully though my sister was a DNR, told other nurses she was a DNR, even though it says NOWHERE in her medical record that she was, and I told them at least 3 times she wasn’t. Her ID bracelet did not show it either.
Aside from the cosmetic «I’m sorry for your loss» statements I got from a few people, the hospital never really apologized for the actions that led to the death of my sister, and in fact fought me tooth and nail when I tried to find out exactly what happened and why. I was asked to participate in their «internal investigation» but that they wouldn’t share any of the results with me. I ended up suing the hospital and the doctor, and the case settled out of court. (These cases are very expensive to bring to court, and disabled people like my sister, along with children, senior citizens and women who don’t work outside the home, are limited by California’s MICRA law. It limits the amount you can sue for pain and suffering damages to $ 250,000. Because of that, it’s next to impossible to find a lawyer who will take your case. The law was instituted in 1975 and has never been raised with inflation. Today that amount should be over $ 1 million.
You can see more about my sister’s story, and a lot of other victim’s stories from right here in California at
While all hospitals do a certain amount of good, life-​saving work, people need to be aware that upwards of 440,000 patients die every year in this country from PREVENTABLE medical errors. I’m not talking simple «mistakes» because «everyone’s human.» I’m talking real, preventable errors… things that they could and should have done that would have saved someone from being harmed or killed.
Look at all the bad reviews from other people here on Unilocal.Be an educated patient. This hospital has the ability and the (Disney) resources to be a world-​class hospital. But they don’t seem to care. Remember, with many patients, if they’re harmed during their stay, it extends their visit at a hospital which could continue to run up the hospital bill, making more money for the hospital.
Ask yourself: Do they really have a lot of incentive to correct their mistakes and send patients and their money home?
The one good thing I can say about this hospital is that they have a terrific patient advocate. If you’re having trouble during your stay here, ask to see Patty Campbell. Just know that she can only do so much under the circumstances.

Terrible. I had a confirmed appointment for a kidney ultrasound. Upon arrival, staff seemed to possess good attitudes and professionalism. But at the admitting office, my appointment was completely lost, nonexistent. They try to sort it out and ask me 101 questions. ½ hr later, the admitting office creates a new appt for me. 25 min pass, I’m waiting in another lobby.
Alas, 55 minutes pass and no sign of help.
60. I leave. Good riddance.

Second Update: after attempting to email 5 different people;
Jennifer Gilliam, Health Resource Coordinator
Angelique Campen, ER Director
Kevin Traber, ER Administrative Director
Glenn Bales, CFO
Julie Sprengel, CEO
…and not getting an answer as to why they billed $ 1,523 for a Comprehensive Metabolic Profile (a test that costs between $ 55-​$ 128), nor getting an answer as to why they can justify billing me $ 1,873 for «Emergency Dept Visit Level IV» charge (meaning I was having a life threatening injury when I did not and sat in the ER for 5 hours)…I finally made a formal complaint with California’s Attorney General, and once I hit «update» here I will be filing a report with the local FBI for healthcare fraud. I encourage anyone that has billing issues with this ER to file a report with the Attorney General. They won’t do a full investigation until they have enough complaints.

If there was a zero star I would give it.
Rude staff with an attitude. They will make you feel like you are stupid and they know best. Try to question anything you will annoy them. If you don’t have your own doctor and you have one of their doctors to the procedure that’s the last time you will see them. For follow up they sent their resident doctor or the nurse practitioner. Clean hospital terrible service. Stay away. You e been warned Unilocalers. And I don’t write too many reviews.

My daughter broke her ankle today– or so we thought. Ended up being a sprain. Thank goodness. But anyhow. Wasn’t to thrilled about our emergency room experience. The wait was longer than expected… And I get it… my daughter wasn’t loud and crying hysterically, although she had severe pain, but overall service was not great.
The clerk in front– to the RN who takes your vitals– to the guy who takes the ex rays– to the PA we met with. All treat you like you are a waste of their time. No warmth or sincerity in any of their work. I don’t know. I just think that during a tough time where you need to go to the emergency room, they would have some caring feelings.
My kids have UCLA insurance so we can go to any emergency room we choose. And although this is closest to my house, we won’t be going to this one. (Obviously … Hoping we don’t have to go to the ER again for a while).
Oh! And I gave an extra star for free parking! That was nice.

Caught a flu… feeling chest pain and short of breath when I cough. Couldn’t get hold of my primary care doctor so I went straight to ER.
The Service:
Arriving around 6:40pm, only a few people sitting at the waiting room. 2 staffs behind the check-​in counter. Immediately, they asked me to fill out forms and input my information into their system. 20 minutes later, a male nurse took me inside and did the routine check. Then sent me to radiology department for x-​ray. Since there was other patient inside, I waited about 30 minutes. The technician is so professional and efficient, I was in & out within 5 minutes.
Back to waiting room, waiting for x-​ray result. About 50 minutes later, another nurse asked me to bring my paperwork to another ER department (Fast Track). Then I knew, there are two ER department here. One ER is for critical patients. The other ER is for non life threatening patients. Since the floor plan in this hospital is very confusing so they put on red line on the floor so we can just follow the red line to other ER department.
I was very lucky that no other patient was in the waiting room. The staff behind the counter asked for my insurance information again. Within a few minutes, I was taken to one of the ER beds and waiting for PA. PA showed up within a few minutes & finished up very quickly so that I could go home with my prescription and rest.
I was in the ER about 2.5 hours. It wasn’t a bad experience for my first visit in ER! Even though I was not feeling well but I still didn’t forget to be a Unilocal Elite… taking pictures and writing a review! :D
The Parking: There is a parking lot right in front of ER. It is FREE for ER only or else $ 6 flat fee.