Brookwood Baptist Medical Center

Reviews 3

LI

Lisa Knox

I would not recommend this hospital to anyone. On September 4,2013 I had a robotic laparoscopic total hysterectomy. On September 12, I returned to the doctors office because I was having complications. I was given a prescription and told that their was nothing to be concerned about. On September 15 I was taken to Northport DCH Emergency Room.I was told that I had a rectovaginal fistula and that I would need surgery (a colostomy bag,to be done the next day).I would have to wear it for six months. However,the ER doctor contacted the doctor who performed the hysterectomy and I was transported back to Brookwood Medical Center ,by ambulance. When I arrived the doctors confirmed that I needed the colostomy bag,but they still needed to do more contrast test. When I returned to my room I was told that their was nothing wrong with my colon and that I did not need a colostomy bag. The contrast test showed that both ureters had been cut and would need to be repaired. During the first attempt to stent my left ureter I was not properly sedated,so I woke up during the procedure. I could feel the doctor making the incisions and injecting the needle into my back. My blood pressure was elevated to 246/199,therefore the surgery had to be stopped. The second attempt was done successfully by a different urologist. The right ureter was so severely damaged it had to be reimplanted a few weeks later. In November I was told that the left ureter had healed and the stent was removed. I thought this was the end of this nightmare;however I continued having urine leakage. On December 17, the left ureter had to be stented again. A few weeks after surgery I started having severe constipation. I complained to the doctor. He prescribed different medications that didnt work. At the time of surgery I had Blue Cross/Blue Shield insurance. The doctor said he would make sure my premium was paid because I wasnt able to return to work. That never happened so my family paid for me to see different GI specialists to try to find out why I was having such severe constipation. I had two colonoscopies done and other tests done and I was told that their was nothing wrong with my colon. I had no insurance so I was referred to UAB charity care program last year. Last year I was told by a GI specialist and surgeon that the colon transit study I had done in 2014 revealed that my colon is not functioning. Their is nothing that can be done to repair my colon. Im going to need to have my entire colon removed(total colectomy) but their still is no guarantee that I want have to wear a colostomy bag for the rest of my life. So my question to the doctors at Brookwood is did you really do a contrast test or did you try to repair my colon and make it worse? I never had any health problems before the hysterectomy but now Im left with a damaged colon, high blood pressure,severe arthritis,depression and anxiety. Lets not forget NO insurance,NO income. I would not recommend Brookwood Medical to ANYONE!!! They really should be shut down.

JA

Janet S

I do not recommend this hospital, at least not the ER! In late August, my mother, a 94 year old copd patient, aspirated on some thick liquid and so I had her taken via ambulance to Brookwood Hospital, as we had had a decent experience there earlier. When she left for the hospital, her oxygen was reading 93% on about a liter of o2. I had to drive behind the ambulance to the hospital, so I arrived a few minutes behind her at the ER. When I got there, she was on a gurney waiting for a room with a cannula in her nose...with NO OXYGEN attached to it. I was terrified; I asked the emts where her oxygen was and they told me she wasnt on any. I told them I could see that; why was she not on any? They said this was because the doctor wanted to see what her baseline was on room air. She was gasping help me, and getting weaker. I told them her baseline on room air would be crossed abgs, low oxygen, elevated co2.hypercapnea and acidic pH, and possibly DEATH, and to get her on oxygen STAT. They did not do this; and when they finally got her into a room and on oxygen and a monitor, her oxygen was reading in the 50s. Once admitted, she got decent care and rallied; but the insult of that severe distress, which could have easily been avoided - when the emts picked her up at her home, they asked me what her normal oxygen flow was!!! and I had told them, so I expected them to maintain it until she got settled in the ER, as crossed gasses were not an issue when they came and got her. When her blood gasses were drawn in the ER, her co2 was reading around 90 and her pH around 7.20, which can be fatal, especially in someone of her age. She recovered enough to stabilize and get discharged home after nearly a week in the hospital, but she never recovered from the overall insult of that crisis to her body systems, and died at home 6 days after her discharge. That hospital had treated her before, and those emts had transported her to that and another hospital numerous times; there was no excuse for that dangerous level of incompetence. She was also badly bruised on her legs when she got home, and the nurses neglected her dangerously for most of the day of her discharge. Dont take anyone you care about to that ER. They have some good doctors and nurses there, or at least they used to, but that quality is not consistent to the point that it is like Russian Roulette.

AM

Amanda Fox

This is by far the worst hospital in the Birmingham metropolitan area. Spend a few hours waiting to be seen in the ER after you wake up with numbness in your entire calf and foot, and get to be billed hundreds of dollars so a doctor can walk in, spend two seconds looking at you, and refer you to a neurologist that you will never be able to see because youre uninsured, hence the reason why you ended up in their horrible ER in the first place. No physical examination, no diagnostic tests of any sort. Then at a later date, be brought to the ER by ambulance because a sudden pain in your head in the middle of the night has escalated to the worst pain in your life, all you can do is scream and wish to become unconscious. Even though it was pretty clear that I was having my very first migraine at the age of 22, they gave me NO pain medicine or medication of any sort besides IV fluids, which did absolutely nothing. Dont get me wrong, I know about drug seekers and that theyre a huge problem in emergency rooms, but I didnt want opiates. Ive since found out that ibuprofen is effective for treating the migraines Ive had since then, but for whatever reason they could not be bothered to give me any. I even asked a doctor straight up to "Give me that medicine you give to people who are having a migraine," meaning triptans, a class of medication that helps a lot of migraine sufferers. Im sure they thought I was asking for opiates, and felt validated in their decision to let me scream in pain all night and vomit all over myself. After about eight hours of vomiting and screaming, my pain finally began to subside on its own and it seemed like they were in a pretty huge rush for me to leave the ER. Maybe they had lots of other patients to not treat. But its pretty surprising that their ER is so hesitant to treat patients who are suffering in pain, yet their ICU gives morphine to known substance abusers despite their family members explicitly asking them not to. With so many hospitals in the Birmingham area there is no reason to ever go to Brookwood. If one day I am literally dying and have five minutes to live, I will demand to be taken to any other hospital that is not Brookwood. Oh, and if you post any sort of critical review or comment on their Facebook page they will block you from ever posting again. Good thing there are other venues for that, right?