Tri-City Medical Center — Attraction in Oceanside

This is a recap of my 6-1/2 hour ER experience only. On Sunday 11/24 I was transported by Oceanside paramedics after being involved in a serious car accident. I arrived at the ER at 2:30 PM; after waiting outside to be checked in, they placed my gurney in the hallway, directly inside the bay doors. After some intervention by the paramedic (who was told they were trying to find a doctor) at 3:40 a doctor came and removed my neck brace. 10 minutes later I was moved to the triage/ER waiting area. (I have never been in a filthier room in my entire 70 years!) At 5 PM after not having been seen by anyone and in a great deal of pain, my husband asked a nurse for an ice pack. At 6:15 PM after still not having been seen by anyone, my husband again found a nurse and asked for pain medication. At 6:45 PM I was given a CT scan and rolled back to the small, crowded, filthy waiting room. At 7:30 PM I finally spoke with the doctor, who said the written report/discharge papers would be ready in 10-15 minutes. An hour and a half later (after my husband again tracked down a nurse) the paperwork arrived, whereby they rolled me out the back door. While waiting for the car to be brought around, the original paramedics who brought me in came out the back door, saw me, did a double take and said "oh my gosh - are you still here???" At 9 PM we were finally on our way home. A couple of notes: (1) the doctor told me that when she came on duty there were 32 patients waiting to be seen and she was the only ER doctor on duty; (2) not only did the floor in the waiting room looked as though it hadn't been cleaned in a month, I can only imagine the last time the chairs had been wiped down/disinfected. (3) Apparently the room behind us was a staff room - they were certainly having a raucous good time; (4) the restroom? filthier than the waiting room - worse than any bad gas station bathroom; (5) the car I was riding in was rear ended by a Greyhound bus. The window next to me shattered, causing lacerations and leaving pieces of glass on my clothing and skin. Not one single medical professional I interacted with bothered to clean the lacerations, treat the cuts or remove any glass - except for the CT technician who thought I had "sparkly jewelry" on my shirt...All that being said, I understand that the ER department is supposedly undergoing renovation. That is no excuse for the horribly filthy conditions patients waiting to receive care are subject to. I've been to a lot of medical facilities over my lifetime, in particular many in the past 3 years since my husband's cancer diagnosis, and I have never been in a facility where it seemed like there was no "system" or anyone in charge. Is going from room to room calling out patients' names trying to find them seem like a good system? Does discussing patients' medical conditions in the middle of a crowded waiting room seem like it's HIPAA compliant? Having patients in hospital gowns being made to wait in the same room with other patients and visitors doesn't seem to be a sign of caring about the patients. Rather than publicly post this, I would have MUCH preferred to send this in an email to someone in administration, whether it was Gene Ma, or someone in patient liaison, the ER director, etc., but finding contact information for any of these individuals has proven to be most challenging. So here I am. Car accident aside, it was a horrible experience from the time they rolled my gurney in until they slammed my wheelchair into the door on the way out. Someone needs to be in charge. Someone needs to do better. Someone needs to be held accountable. Has anyone in upper management walked through your Triage/ER department lately? If you have, then you are just as responsible as the people working there. Lesson learned; never again. Closest hospital or not I will go the extra distance and pay whatever extra I need to be taken to Scripps La Jolla or Palomar or any other ER that...

The worst staff I have ever dealt with, my cousin was taken into the hospital on Sunday 4/27/2025 around 5:15-5:30pm for seizures she got while we were in the bathroom, she can’t control them, she does have a medical history of “non-epileptic seizures” back in October 2024, they have not been coming back in months so this startled us. We are from out of town 4 hours away from this place, once the paramedics showed up to the food place we were at they were trying to carry her on the stretcher and the paramedics literally yelled at her to “calm down” like how are you going to tell someone that is having a seizure to CALM DOWN. She was literally trying so hard to control them before she got them more but she can’t and all they said was “she’s not having a seizure, this is all her doing this herself, she’s just having an “event”, so she’s not going to die or anything she’s just has to be taken to the hospital because she’s all shaky and we can’t just leave her” seriously ? So these grown men made it sound like she was faking it the whole time! Like why would we want to be at a hospital during our weekend vacation 4 HOURS AWAY from home? Once we got there there I waited in the waiting room for 30 min, they don’t go and call any visitors once they get transferred in a room, you have to go yourself and check with the security guard. I walked in after checking with them and my cousin was not being checked on, they had taken blood from what it looked like and had a vital machine. She was still having like “seizures or compulsions” I asked a short Hispanic young nurse that was there around 6:25 what have they done to her since she got there? All she said was “the doctor will tell you when she gets here” so I’m thinking “she has all these wires on her (no IV) and she couldn’t just tell me the basics ?” We were in room C27 The Nurse Autumn comes in to cover night shift and she seemed annoyed she had to do her job and check on my cousin, one of the nurses (didn’t get her name) but anyone that was working during that day and in that room asked her if she had taking any substance that day and my cousin said no because she didn’t! And the nurse said “she smells like alcohol” must’ve been her own breath because everyone there looked hung over or something as I overheard Nurse Autumn who was just arriving to her shift talking to another on how she should’ve called out because they were hungover from the night before. Nurse Autumn brings my cousin food and tosses the food on the table and just slides it to her and mumbles “let’s see how you’re feeling after” with an annoyed attitude or maybe hungover like she did not want to be there. If they assumed that she was under a substance ? Wouldn’t they have put her on an IV? They even asked if she had an IV before we left ? Like you guys are the ones working there and supposed to know what you guys put on your patients? Very unprofessional.

At the end of everything they literally gave her a sheet diagnosing her that she has PNES and it says “ if you have psychogenic non-epileptic seizures (PNES), it is very important to understand that your PNES is a real illness. Your seizures are not fake. They just have a different cause than other seizures. PNES can be treated. Work with your mental health provider to find a treatment that works for you. After experiencing all of this I check their reviews and there’s no way they have worst reviews than a motel 6. Never experience anything like that. They need to hire better...

I brought my adult son to the ER regarding mental issues on Tuesday, April 3 at about 5:30-6. He was seen about 1:30am Wednesday. The doctor spent about 5 minutes with him and said well your son says he's not going to hurt himself or anyone else so I'm sending him home regardless that he had deep cuts on his hands and has been acting very strange. The very next night he disappeared into the night and we have not seen him since. Then we find out he was brought back to Tri City. I realize there are laws, HIPPA but they do not help the police.

If your life depends on it, do not go here! If you are a missing person pray you do not go here! My son was brought here and the police could not even get information!! My son is a missing person.We are still in a hold pattern on this. We received no calls today from the hospital today even though we have have left many phone calls with Tri City Hospital personnel (even though yesterday I left messages with/spoke with at least 5 people and departments). I would advise never go to Tri City Medical Center if at all possible. Tri City is only worried about being sued (which one person told me), not the patients.They do not care or return phone calls.

Shame on Tri City Medical Center!!!

These are the departments and heads I called and left messages with: President of Tri City, Steve Dietlin Head Nurse Supervisior, Sharon Schultz Social Services, Steven Chavez-Matzel & Kim Jones Mental Health Dept.- Sara Jyousi,

Also shame on the lady who only answered the main line phone very unprofessionally "Tri City" with no name, or or how can I help you and who told me I was rude because I wanted to know the name of the Patient Relations person!! That is all I asked and she went into this diatribe about how the hospital is laying people off and now there are two people with that position. But she would not tell me the name of those 2 people. Finally after telling me I was rude (because you know, my son is missing and I am really at the end of my rope, but too bad for me) she transfers me to the Presidents office! This hospital does not want you to know the name of the people who work in various departments!!! You have to beg!!

I will say some of the people I was able to speak with were kind and exhibited compassion to our situation, like the secretary to the President, Terri, Susan Bond and Scott Livingston. Nevertheless, I did not hear from ANY of them today. Not ONE!

Also there was a security guard in ER that was extremely threatening and menacing to my daughter when she tried to bring my son his wallet with his ID. His name was either Darrin or Derick or something like that. He literally told them to get out or else and chased them down the hall when they tried to go to the main hospital entrance!! This is not a person that you want to encounter when you go to an ER trying to help a loved family member! Ron and I were AFRAID to go to ER to bring a missing persons poster!

HIPPA laws are ridiculous! The police cannot even get around that! A murderer could come into the hospital and they would not tell the police if they felt that 'he was not threatening to harm someone or himself"!!! So OK, kill someone and run to the hospital because they will shelter and...