Northside Hospital Atlanta — Attraction in Sandy Springs

Although there was a horrific mistake during my discharge from labor and delivery, I want to stress what amazing staff service we had during our stay at the hospital. Out of everyone at the hospital we only came across one unpleasant staff member. All of our nurses, techs, staff, and doctors were so helpful and insightful! The food was pretty good too! I was so grateful for their service in making my stay as comfortable as possible and keeping my baby safe! That being said I really wanted to leave a raving review before the below happened to me during my discharge.

A little background During my pregnancy I had placenta previa and was on full pelvic rest and bed rest for the majority of the time. The placenta didn't move and was covering my cervix so we ended up having to have a c-section at 37 weeks. I lost a lot of blood during the placenta removal and needed 2 blood transfusions to bounce back. Every day in the hospital got a little less painful. Then it was time to go home!

So the reason why I have to give this hospital a lower score is because there was a rush to change shifts and made the HUGE mistake of forgetting to give me any pain medication before we left or at least give us something to hold me over for the night. They even forgot to put my paperwork inside my folder for my son's first appointment and mixed them in with all of my other papers hastily which wouldn't have been so bad on its own.

My last dosage was around 4pm that day. Then we got discharged on the evening of Sunday September 6th 2020, right before shift change around 8pm. Because of the Holiday weekend there were no pharmacies open. So I was left without any pain medication and ended up falling when the pain hit me all at once while my husband was helping me to our bedroom around 1am.

Luckily my husband caught me, but my muscles had strained while he pulled me back up to get me onto the couch and I began to scream uncontrollably, convulse, and go into shock. I did not know I could scream like I did. This pain was nothing compared to my contractions or even the pain the day of when I got up to use the restroom for the first time, which was horrible. This pain was unlike anything I've ever experienced. My husband called 911 and gave me some motrin I had bought before the surgery as quickly as he could.

Thankfully my inlaws were visiting and took my son so he didn't have to see me like that. The whole time all I could think of was how I needed to feed my baby and how I needed to fight through the pain for him so I wouldn't scare him.

The ambulance came and I was convulsing a little less. They took my vitals and walked my husband through checking me for bleeding which was normal looking as far as he could tell. The emt kept saying really horrible rude things like how I should be prepared for a second child because it's just pain and he stood there staring at me instead of bending down to check if I was ok.

Eventually I was able to get to my bed with my husband's help so the ambulance left.

The next day when I checked the wound I had some seeping and splitting so I called the doctor as instructed. She told me to massage the outside of the wound and take a warm shower if I could without rubbing or touching the actual wound. She also instructed me to wear nothing but the mesh panties for at least the day if possible. I followed her instructions and put on an icepack after everything was nice and dry, which felt so great!

Today my wound looks so much better and I just look at my baby and I'm so proud to have made someone so beautiful, strong, and sweet. After all of the pain I'm going through/went through and complications I've endured I'm still so so overjoyed to call this amazing new person my son. However, this terrifying experience is something I hope no one else has to go through due...

I'm a first time grandmother. Watching my daughter give birth to her 1st born child was amazing. I will say the nurses could use some training in how they treat grandparents. It's as if they have no respect for the position we are about to take on in the childs life. Don't get me wrong, I'm certain they've come across some tiring sitiations with family members. The nurses are demeaning, rude and downright disrespectful. In calming my daughters fears and preparing her for labor. I explained to her how the nurses will be the best part of the ordeal. I've always known nurses to be the calm in the middle of the storm. Northside hospital nurses....are the storm. They are tired and aggravated. A couple of the nurses were condescending and sarcastic. Two of the nurses had absolutely no idea what they were doing. Thankfully our first nurse only had 30 mins left on her shift. It was the scariest 30 mins of our lives. She was so tired, we thought we might have to put off my daughters contractions and have her get up and give the nurse her bed. Boy, did that IV go bad. My heart hurt watching her miss that vein. The next nurse (whom we first thought was a brighter light) just turned out to be a timed light. She burned out within minutes. Nothing she said made any sense. She'd left us all looking at one another in so much confusion. We just stopped asking her questions. I promised myself I wouldn't use any names in this review. I must use a description though. There was a nurse, a beautiful Queen that wore a head wrap as if it were her own crown. She spoke in this sweet soft voice. She would drop into the room every now and then. She would bring this beautiful, calm and collected spirit with her. I mean, this nurse knew exactly what to do and at all the right times. It was if my daughter was her own. She would slowly whip around the room, touching this and gathering that. Every move she made was to ensure a need of my daughters had been met. She set the table with all of the tools the doctor would need to bring our grandbaby into the world. She was so graceful and made sure to make pleasant small talk with myself, my husband and our daughters wife. Everytime she left the room and left us with the attending nurse, a dark cloud would take over. She came back during delivery and posed as a wonderful cheerleader offering positive words of encouragement. We are appreciative of her and the hospital for having her on their staff. I will say for the most part, I'm happy our gbaby made it here safe and sound, but the Northside experience just wasn't what I thought it would be. I was shocked at how much money goes into keeping the grounds. Yet how little money goes into keeping the maturnity unit updated. My daughter said the very last nurse she had was a very nice nurse. I missed out on meeting her, as I had gone ahead to get dinner cooked for my daughter and her daughters arrival home. Our gbaby was born exactly one week and one day ago. We are enjoying her little life. So for that Northside, I...

I would NEVER give birth here again. Some of the staff was great, some was terrible and your billing department needs a huge revamp. I had my son in June of last year and the delivery process was already stressful enough. We called ahead of time to nofttify them that we were coming in and admissions advised that I was not registered at the hospital...mind you I paid them almost $400 a few weeks prior. When they finally located me in the system, the staff in the room was great. Fast forward to my recovery room after my c-section. We were told that we would have an hour and then transfer to my normal room...this did not happen. We were in the room for almost 5 hours without anyone coming by. I asked for a bottle of something for my son because he was screaming the entire time and was told someone would be right back and never came back - we did not get anything until being transferred into the next room. We were in the next room less than 48 hours and security had to be called. I was attempting to reach out to my insurance and noticed my laptop was missing, I contacted the nursing manager and security and advised of who all was in my room...they searched her area and low and behold my laptop was found with her personal items. Fast forward to the billing department...the worst I have ever dealt with from any company. I was advised of the payment plan that they would accept. They rep that I was dealing with called and stated that he was increasing my payments without my permission and when asking for a supervisor, he stated no and disconnected the call. The original payment plan has been faithfully taking the payments on the 25th of each month. In April, I call and ask to settle the billing. He told me that I would receive the documentation to do so within the next few days....what do I get...a collections notice. Instead of paying the bill off it gets sent to collections. I reached out to the collections agency and they advised that if the hospital has been taking the money each month it should not have been sent to collections, she attempted to reach out several times and it took over a month for her to her any response and it was the bare minimum. I called twice today, the first rep Michelle, was beyond rude when asking for her supervisor, she advised that she was unable to contact one, I understand they are working remote, but there are available resources and she transferred the call to the self pay department. I contacted the collections agency after and she advised that they hospital is the only ones that could accept the payment and requested to contact them again. Called back again, and spoke with Nicki, she was probably the most decent person I've talked to at your facility, she advised that they are unable to pull the bill out of collections and everything will need tot go thru them. I asked for a supervisor and she was magically able to place me in a queue for one to call me back... Northside y'all have been by far the worst business I have...