El Camino Hospital

Reviews 3

MI

Mingcheng Chen

Our daughter is over 2 months old, and I still think of those horrible moments during my wifes delivery now and then, thus I decide to share my experience here. We didnt share all to the hospital staff collecting satisfaction survey, because (1) my wife successfully delivered our daughter, and (2) we simply didnt want to ruin our mood on the day we came back home. First of all, we thank all the doctors. They are responsible, skillful, and supportive. Without them the delivery would have become a very painful torture. We also thank some of the nurses. They are kind, helpful, and encouraging, which offered us great hope and peace. Together, they saved two stars in my rating. Due to the limit on the number of words, only major points are listed below. 1. My wife was connected to the epidural machine, the IV fluid machine, the urine drainage bag, and some monitors. For some reason I dont remember, the nurses opened her gown, and found that a previous nurse didnt take off her T-shirt. Then they started taking off the T-shirt. They did it in a very careless way, so that my wife even shouted out asking them to be careful (she had been silent for a long time due to the lack of strength and the fever). With a strengthful pull, a nurse eventually broke the wire to the epidural machine, which was connected to my wifes spine. How could they directly start pulling the T-shirt without thinking? As I remember, that seemed topologically impossible. They might need to cut the T-shirt or whatever, but dont tell me breaking the wire was the plan. With the basic knowledge of epidural, and the fresh memory that my wife asked for it with tears earlier, I was shocked and horrified (definitely the most horrible moment in my life, even including all the nightmares). The doctor was not there, so I was extremely anxious and almost cried asking for the doctor. It was definitely not the plan of the nurses, as they started discussing what to do about it (I used "it" instead of "the accident" because they seemed very sensitive to this word). After I dont know how long, an anesthetist came. He observed the broken wire for a while and proposed two approaches for me to choose (so please dont tell me it was the plan of the nurses before they broke it). Thanks to this great anesthetist, the wire was repaired in time. However, my wife was totally exhausted. I didnt dare to imagine what is going to happen. The best I could hope for at that time is C-section, and my wife coming home alive. Thanks to the great doctors, we had a successful vaginal delivery in the end. Three remarkable details: (1) When I asked for the doctor coming, one nurse told me that the doctor was not coming because they could handle that. One nurse said something like "You dont have experiences, but we did it all the time". Excuse me? I dont feel thats comforting, and I dont trust you anymore. In case anything bad happens, it is just another day to you. (2) Another quote from them, "Doctors are busy. You are unlucky that your doctor is XXX". Excuse me? That is something you say to a desperate husband? BTW, Dr. XXX is great. (3) After the great anesthetist reconnected the wire, one of the nurses kept phrasing what just happened to me, from which I feel they are very sensitive to the word "accident". Excuse me? The delivery is still ongoing! 2. Some nurses discussed the difficulties loudly so that I could hear, as if they didnt worry about worrying me and my wife. For example, they talked about using vacuum, and their confusion about something I dont know. Ironically, sometimes they turned to us saying something supposed to be encouraging. I was totally exhausted by their behaviors, and I might even hope the discomfort on my wife could distract her attention away from their "stealth discussions". 3. My wife felt a strange pain at some spot during the delivery and no one figured out why. When our daughter was born and we moved to the mother-baby unit, the nurse there found no pee in the bag and my wifes bladder was holding the urine from the beginning.

AN

Anita Danford

Practically no medical doctor oversight. Dangerous and substandard contamination and infectious disease control. El Camino Hospital needs to be audited and investigated. 15 years ago this hospital saved my husbands life. Our families recent trip to the El Camino ER with our daughter felt like one of those "worst case" healthcare nightmares you read about in the news. RED FLAG #1: In ER my daughters IV tubing, clearly filled with her blood backed up in the tubing was tossed in the garbage can in the waiting room by a nurse, NOT a RED bio waste collection receptical. I watched other families with small children also be quickly placed in this common area waiting room...the same garbage small children were tossing their candy wrappers in. My daughter was "in ER" for fever, high white blood cell count (medical term = SEPSIS with yet unknown "target" meaning ER was quickly doing blood cultures to figure out which of many infectious diseases could be the cause of her blood infection). RED FLAG #2: Once our daughter was admitted to El Camino and transferred to a hospital floor my daughter was not seen by ANY medical doctor for 27 hours... all we heard was "not doctor available" to see her despite pages and requests every couple hours to see ANY doctor of ANY kind for a quick update and to get some questions answered and to get some VERY important MEDICATIONS authorized. We had no diagnosis, left hanging on IF her sepsis (blood infection) was improving or spiking out of control. The nurses had no info to share other than "the doctor is being paged but not here and had not responded when she will be here, sometimes it can be 2 days until a doctor shows up". What a difficult job to be a nurse at this hospital I thought! After 27 hours, when a physician arrived and it was clear they did not yet understand our daughters labs or case. When questioned about her Mono test, Flu test ...this doctor had no idea the results and also had no idea our daughter had MISSED critical auto immune medications that we had been having the nurses page her about. The physician even yelled back at us during our questions as to why our daughters "treatment plan" had disallowed her critically important and regular auto immune drugs that were part of her normal auto immune treatment. If this all doesnt sound concerning enough yet ...remember a girl that has a preexisting auto immune disease that is already on immune suppression drugs and is then diagnosed with sepsis is a health "tinder box" waiting to blow. We were also told an Infectious Disease doctor would see our daughter "first thing in the morning" on DAY 3. This doctor never showed up as promised. We ultimately just left the hospital out of grave concern for the quality of care provided by this hospital. If you LOVE your family member, route the ambulance to any hospital but El Camino Hospital. Something has changed with the quality of care. STAY SAFE. STAY AWAY.

TR

tracy townsend

the bathrooms are a joke. the bathroom in my rv is better to shower in than theirs. the designer should pay back whatever el camino paid him because all of these bathrooms need to be fixed. today the nurse was having a bad morning and told me i couldnt shower. really? no one would bring me a gown or towels so i showered using 3 washcloths to dry off with and had to flag down a vlunteer to find me a gown. (my nurse actually had a laugh over my embarassment. then lunch came and it was a hunk of disgustingprocessed turkey meat and i mean a hunk. nothing else besides my ice tea and a rice krispi treat. now for dinner they sent me a small salad with dirty lettuce, two tomatos, two cucumbers and italian dressing(which i already informed them i could not have 1 because i hate it and two i cant have the sodium. so i went to the cafeteria and it wasnt much better. everything on the patient menu is indian food (yuck) or some sort of slop. when asked there arent more conventional options i was told there are a lot of indians on the maternity ward. hello, i have lived in mt view my whole life and have never seen a lot of indians in the los altos area. el camino used to have good food and a better nursing staff but with the remodel i guess they cant afford a good cafeteria or pleasant nurses. worst hospital stay ever!!! i was here in december and it was just as bad, so i would not call this a one time experience. i just ordered delivery because i havent eaten since 8am and i need something in my stomach. oh, one of the nurses ordered me a milkshake wich came to me warm, seperated, sour and with no straw. i had to throw it away it was so disgusting.