St. Joseph’s Hospital Emergency

Way over crowded and extremely understaffed. Took grandma to doctors and he told me to take her directly to ER due to having ²¹⁰⁄₁₀₀. Been here 3 ½ hours and have not been seen. This place used to be great. It’s pathetic now.

*** ER regular (Orange) ***
Being a part of the «sandwich» generation (having elderly parents and young kids) life gets very busy! I’m going to start off by providing some background to establish why I think the way I do. My father is the last child of 10 siblings. I’ve had the fortune of sharing the journey with many aunt’s, uncles, cousins, and a mother till the end of their lives. With that being said, I’m in the unique situation of having visited a multitude of physicians, dentists, specialists, and labs over the years to serve as the transporter, translator, and support. This is the least I can do for the wonderful people who filled my life with so much joy and happiness.
So how does this relate to St. Joseph’s Hospital? I can honestly say it’s only one of three local hospitals I will ever visit. Go to wrong one and you are sure to suffer plenty and potentially die from lack of proper care.
Here’s what liked…
* Professional and skilled staff. The most important trait a hospital MUST have is a skilled staff! If they don’t know what they’re doing, it’s pointless. You might as well just stay home and rub some tiger-​balm all over body and pray to the God’s your illness will go away.
* Those skills mentioned above MUST be offered and applied in a timely manner! There is something known as the Golden Hour after trauma that care must be provided in order to have a greater chance of survival. Once too much time has passed there IS a point of no return and whatever damages sustained is permanent. Here’s something really important to note. Tell the staff the severity of your illness. It’s no time to be shy about expressing your pain, discomfort, or duration of the problem. The closer to death you are, the more critical it will be that you are treated sooner.
* Good bedside manners! I love that St. Joseph’s has always treated my family with professionalism and very good bedside manners. As I’ve said before on other reviews, every emergency we (as civilians) encounter is one of the few we will ever encounter in our lives. So it is important that we are treated with compassion and respect. If we DO NOT understand the triage policy then explain it to us. In this way we know that our injury is NOT life threatening, and there’s someone else who IS closer to death that needs care.
* Nice newly/​recent renovation.
* It’s nice that’s there’s valet to park the car in an emergency situation.
* There’s a lot of space in the waiting area.
Here’s what I didn’t like…
* Regular parking in the structure is so far away.
* Parking a lifted or oversized vehicle is difficult and may not be possible. So check the height limitations.
* Having a lot of space in the waiting area is both a good and bad thing. It’s great so you’re not all cramped while waiting. It’s bad when it’s totally full and there are three waiting rooms. That means it will take FOREVER to be seen.
* No Web surfing! I’ve seen it at this hospital and at other ER’s. The staff should save the Web surfing for the break-​room. As a patient in the middle of an emergency like a stroke or heart attack the last thing you want to see is somebody surfing the Web for new a house or WWF. I know the ER run hot or cold /​feast or famine. So save the Web surfing during the down-​time in the break-​room where it’s out of sight.
Low-​down…
* The emergency room you may end up in depends on where you are and how crowded the ER is when you need it.
* I’ve had many good experiences at St. Joseph’s ER and I will put this on the top of the list as one of the potential places to go in the next emergency.

I need to start by saying that this USED to be a great hospital and emergency room. My grandpa was a heart patient at this hospital for over 20 years. I delivered my child here, as did most of my cousins, aunts and my mom. Yes, I was born here. ALL OF THAT HAS COMPLETELY CHANGED. Since this review is specifically for the emergency room, I’ll stick with that:
First of all, I hate going to the hospital, let alone the ER. Especially when I already know what to expect here. So when you arrive, expect to stay at least 4 – 6 hours (sometimes more). I actually left the last time I was here after sitting in the waiting room for 4 hours, without even being called back. I was here for extremely bad chest pain, shortness of breath, and cramping (I was pregnant at this time — on a quick side note, I actually had to come in twice during my pregnancy. If you hit the 20 week mark, they are supposed to send you upstairs to labor and delivery but when I came in at 21 weeks they refused to do that and I still waited for 3 hours before getting a room). It doesn’t matter what day or time you come, there will be tons of people. Because everyone who doesn’t have insurance thinks it’s okay to go to the ER for every little cold or other minor thing that they should be seeing a regular doctor for (or at least going to urgent care). It is so beyond ridiculous now, it has become a joke.
Second, their service (if you can call it that) has completely gone downhill. Everyone is so rude. From the check-​in staff to the nurses. I can’t really speak on the doctors since you usually only see them for a total of 5 minutes out of your 6 hour stay. But I was very annoyed that he told me I could have 2 very serious diagnoses but he didn’t test for them?! Only told me to keep an eye on my symptoms and if they get worse to come back. Ha. Apparently all of the quality nurses decided to go to Hoag, because everyone is always rude here. And the nurses are very incompetent. You actually never see them either unless it’s when they come in to mess up your IV. On a very recent trip here, my nurse did not come in once to check on me or give me the medication that the doctor ordered. I had to remind her about it pretty much right before I was going to be discharged (I actually told her that I didn’t want it, just wanted to remind her what she was SUPPOSED to do), yet for 45 MINUTES (yes, I timed it!) I got to listen to her talking to another nurse in the hallway about all of their personal stories. By the time their conversation was done, I knew that one of the nurses was married, which college her son went to and I knew all about a date the other nurse was going to have and what she would be wearing. Plus a lot more. But that’s okay, don’t worry about your patients and what you’re supposed to do for them. I was seriously appalled. And the front staff does the same thing.
Moral of the story, if you’re in need of quality (or just plain decent) care, stay away from here. It makes me very sad to say, since this hospital has been like a second home to me and I can find my way around the entire place with my eyes closed. But they are definitely not what they used to be. I will be switching my insurance so all of my care and providers are strictly through Hoag (even though Hoag and St. Jo are affiliated, Hoag has now far surpassed St. Joseph in many aspects). And if you decide to come here anyway, or don’t have any other choice, best of luck to you!
P. S. You have to park valet and that is $ 4. Even if you are the actual patient and drove yourself, you have to pay. Unless you want to park in the structure across the street and walk. So you better not be in any actual real emergency. At least no one else here is, which is why they don’t mind.

Pros:
— Professional and courteous service by valet.
— Waiting room has abundant seating.
— Most triage RN’s are pretty efficiency oriented.
–ER doctors tend to be very forthright with you.
–RN Staff is pretty cool once you have a room and sometimes will get you a sack meal to go depending on condition.
Cons:
— Above Service costs $ 4 to $ 9 but weekly parking is rumored to be $ 25.
— Limited real estate on wall plugs to charge Cell phones.
— Tonight’s triage RN was taking longer than most then looked at his cell phone.
–Sometimes you just want the pain meds to kick in already.
–Sometimes their satire lost on you.
–Not being referred to an outside Dr. that accepts your insurance.
–Long wait times and hurting while you wait.
«Overall»
Pro:
— Place people end up coming to get treated.
Con:
–Being declared Duchess of the ER on Unilocal…
((By the way Nurse Sean is awesome))…

This ER is the worse specially since there are too many patient, the nurses are not friendly and long waiting. When I told them that my mom cannot breath and in pain, they just asked her to wait. There’s no sort of urgency, there are not enough beds to admit mom into the emergency to be taken in and checked by the ER Dr. There is nothing they would do! We are not very happy with this facility!

Nurses where very attentive, did not miss any tests and where very honest in regards to the diagnosis and treatments provided.

I previously wrote a rather scathing review of the E.R. based on my first experience. While accurate, I have since learned that it is not reflective of how the E.R. actually operates. My previous (invalid) review was based on on problems, but I learned subsequently that the problems were atypical of the operation and due in part to the new computer system have many bugs that caused a backlog in processing.
I returned with my partner a few days later, and subsequently again a month later and both experiences were literally so different from the first experience that you would have thought they were not the same E.R.
Both times we were triaged and into a treatment room within 30 minutes of arrival. There has been a recent renovation of the treatment area and most treatment rooms are now private rather than the open area sectioned off by curtains that is prevalent in the older E.R.s. So you have a lot more privacy and no worry about nearby patients overhearing everything that you and the staff discuss about your condition.
There are at least 75 treatment rooms and probably more, and staff are attentive to you. In all of St. Joseph hospital staff are always attentive and friendly.
Parking is only by valet, but it is a reasonable $ 4.00, much less expensive than the parking garage for the main hospital. There is an ample supply of wheel chairs right outside of the unloading area so if you need this type of assistance, you have it. The valet could also get you medical staff to assist if necessary.
There are a growing number of E.R.s that have an on-​line «appointment system» to cut down on E.R. waits for non-​critical E.R. visits. Unfortunately, St. J. s isn’t’ part of that system, but it should be.

This place is a joke. unorganize Klusterfuk no bed side manners nurse is a dip shit

This place is terrible. The triage nurse has an attitude. There are too many uninsured patients here and the wait time is way too long. 3 to 5 hours and poor care. They take healthier looking people in the back while the sick wait outside. They need to expand and stop people with sniffles without insurance from coming in

The triage nurses and front desk guy are incompetent. My husband sat for over 4 hours with extreme balance issues and nausea. When I checked to see how much longer it would be, the guy at the front was rude. He told me the triage nurses already checked him out and he was fine to wait longer. I explained that he couldn’t walk and could barely stay in his wheelchair. He told me he’d bring him a chair. I explained that he was already in a chair and needed something more secure. He told me he could do nothing else. I asked if I should call an ambulance and have him taken elsewhere and have his records transferred. He said I was welcome to go elsewhere, but they wouldn’t transfer anything, and I could get an ambulance if I felt it was necessary. The comment was sarcastic with an emphasis that an ambulance was uncalled for. I stayed rather than starting over when he said there were 2 patients ahead of him. My husband finally was taken back and admitted for a stroke. If St. Joseph’s ER thinks a stroke isn’t reason for immediate medical attention, I don’t know what is. The rude behavior and dismissing of my concerns was totally uncalled for. I will say when we got called back, the nurses and doctors were all very attentive and concerned, unlike the waiting room staff who could care less about the patients. However, proving you need to be seen isn’t worth going here.

For coming into the ER with a chronic illness and being seen very fast was really surprising. The only reason I came here was because I’m new in town and have Rheumatoid Arthritis and was having a really bad flare up. The whole process took under 2 hours. I’ve worked in hospitals before and this is very good. Having my share of ER and urgent care visits I know all too well people with chronic illnesses are looked down upon and often thrown in the back burner. Everyone was quick and fast. Good job

I will keep this short because I could go on… and on… and on.
(This is for the ER ONLY!)
The good:
–I was processed quickly (15 minutes)
–Was taken to a room quickly
The bad:
–The nurse couldn’t get an IV in for fluids so another nurse had to come do it and there was blood everywhere for a simple IV…
–The Dr. said more than 10 times that I was OBVIOUSLY seeking drugs (I was 34 weeks pregnant…) for extreme leg pain that I was concerned could be DVT that is common in pregnancy. Even though I told him I just wanted to make sure I was not running a deadly blood clot in my leg…
–He prescribed me a pain medication that is not safe for pregnancy (I proceeded to rip it up and throw it in the trash)
It was the strangest experience and all other services from St Joes have been so amazing and beyond expectation that it threw me off. big time.

Horrible place! Been sitting here for 7 hrs. Took four hrs to get a room. 2 hrs for a diagnosis and now it’s been an hour+ and still waiting to get blood work and ultra sound results. Nurses aren’t helpful. Bathrooms are disgusting! Better go somewhere else because this place is a total joke!

I’ve been to my fair share of emergency rooms and this place is one of the best. They’re quick to process you and get to quickly to doctor. I’ve been able to get in to see a doctor in less than 15 minutes.
Bonus tip: If you’re over 20 weeks preggo, they’ll rush to you L&D and you can skip the normal processing.

This Emergency Room is a joke. I’ve now been in here two times in 24 hours, and each time has been a disaster. The doctors and nurses are terrible. They will not help you. They will not answer your questions. And they will not treat you with respect. If you dont mind being ignored for 4+ hours and have some time to kill, definately come to this ER.

Let me start off by saying that the check In clerk with the short ugly hair is a biaatch!
Second, if you need to use the restroom, please use it before arriving because the restrooms are disgusting!!!
Need I say more!!!

3 hour wait minimum for all 3 ER visits I’ve had at this hospital. Nurses were on their phone talking about personal business while I can see the doctor on the computer and watching the tv for about an hour before he comes into the room to see what the problem was. Asked the nurse for anti inflammatory meds and she walks out talks about a wedding, getting non-​tsa products on board a plane while the doctor sits at his desk and come back 45 min with no answer or acknowledgement of my question. Rude, unethical, and no sense of urgency.

The doctors are great. The nurses in the back are great. But I find the nurses who work triage up front. Are flat out RUDE. I’ve been here more times then I would have liked and every time I come. So this isn’t a one time occurrence.