Montefiore St. Luke's Cornwall — Local services in City of Newburgh

We’ve visited this hospital 2 times:

My wife pregnant 5 months suddenly started to bleed and we rushed her to the nearest hospital’s (St. Lukes) ER. When we arrived, their primary focus was to diligently collect our insurance information, verify it and sign all of their forms. After all of their important stuff was done, collecting/verifying their insurance money, they put my wife in a room. Then we waited, and waited, and waited.. while my wife bled and we were under the impression something happened to the baby. As I looked around – I noticed everybody (the staff) were just hanging around chatting or the surfing the internet. There is very very little sense of urgency or ‘Emergency’ in this hospital. I finally protested and a nurse came to see us. She did a few things, then told us we have to wait for the doctor. We then waited, and waited, and waited.. about two hours. Finally the doctor came to see us. The funny thing is, I realized the doctor was one of the guys sitting there all along surfing the web. Watching basketball scores etc. I did not protest about this because we needed treatment – but man – what horrific service. I would not bring my dog here next time I thought to myself. Our baby was fine btw – my wife had a tear in the placenta. Last week, my 2 year old daughter was very sick from a virus.. after a few days of fighting it, she was completely dehydrated and we were told by her doctor to take her to the nearest ER (St. Lukes) to get her hydrated. Knowing how horrible this hospital is, we reluctantly took her there. Again – a staff of 5 diligently focused on collecting my insurance information, verifying we have insurance and the ability to pay. After they got what they wanted – dropped in a room we were to wait for a nurse. This was at 11:30pm or so. Someone did come check on us, and said that the practitioner would be with us soon. 1am came along. Nothing. 2am came along. Nothing. Everybody clearly just sitting around, chatting, surfing the web. My wife and I decided for the sake of our daughter – we should just check out and go to another hospital’s ER even if we have to drive further. We walked out of our room, walked passed all the staff chatting, sitting around, surfing the web, and no one bothered to ask us if something was wrong, if we were leaving, checking out or what? We kept walking towards the exit, past the receptionist, past security, past the main desk – no one was interested in why what or who. We walked right out, my pregnant wife, my 2yr old in the stroller and myself, right out of the front door. Nobody could care less. It lead me to think that if my 2yrd old were left alone for some reason, anybody could walk right out of there with her.

This place should not be called a hospital. If you cut yourself and need a couple of stitches – by all means, go here and get them done – just be prepared to wait a good 5 hours until they are done surfing the web. If you are in need of TRUE medical service or have a TRUE medical EMERGENCY – avoid this place at all costs – they simply don’t care and you will NOT receive immediate attention (unless its to collect your insurance information). It’s just a ‘boring job’ to them. They are doing it for work – not to help people – not because they like it, but because they have to. And even then – you could die in the waiting room as...

I have a formal complaint pending with Patient Relations and Nursing Supervisors. Hospital attempted to prematurely discharge my father after we were told no retailiation would occur for the complaint. I appealed the discharge as my father had a tube removed earlier in the day and was in too much pain/ too lethargic to move. I have been told I would be updated on pending investigation from complaint but I've heard no updates to date.

UPDATE 12/13/24: My father is back at St. Lukes and despite meticulous review of his regular medications with intake nurses, his regular pain regimen and laxative regimen were not ordered. We asked for a commode and were told a PT eval needed to happen. I sat with him for 12 hours today and no one from PT came to do the eval. My dad sat in pain from severe constipation and compaction despite repeated requests for the eval to use commode. He had no success with a bed pan. Eventually I put my father on the commode myself and cleaned him myself as nurses would not help. From this point forward I didn't leave my dad's side as he finished his course of antibiotics.

OLD REVIEW: It is a hard time for medical professionals and I am thankful for any medical professional who still does their job well, including certain members of the ICU team. That said, speaking generally, without constant proactiveness on the part of the patient's family and intervention from PCP, St Lukes staff generally fail to communicate important updates regarding loved ones. When my dad went in a while back for non-Covid related illness, the family was NEVER given any information on intubated ICU patient who could not speak for himself (my dad). I had to work from the hospital every day just to get an ounce of information about my father's condition. Now, he is in there again and COVID positive and the conditions are downright neglectful (per his account and likely due to the fact that relatives cannot be present to advocate for admitted patients who are COVID-pos). Hospital doctor wanted to discharge my dad 2 days ago and PCP found untreated pneumonia in his scans- we had to ask them NOT to discharge him and to treat the pneumonia, per PCP. The doctors couldn't agree on whether he had pneumonia or not (seems like a thing doctors should be able to figure out?) and hospital was administering no meaningful treatment for COVID for an elderly patient with co-morbidities. Further, the polarity of ratings for this place needs to be reviewed- a lot may be revealed by analyzing such a profound difference in patient experience, including racial bias and perhaps false...

There are times you hit a bump in the road, choose to communicate & address the situation before bashing an organization on social media, and realize the outcome can be a positive one when given the chance. My mother was very unexpectedly diagnosed with Stage 4 terminal cancer on 3-27-2020. On her birthday. Our main concern was her care. About 2 years ago, we had a very bad experience with St. Luke's in Newburgh. 5 day's worth of a domino effect of nonstop problems. We waited for the survey, wrote a letter with it, and it felt like almost immediately, we had a phone call, along with an in-person meeting scheduled to speak about this situation. We thought we would just be sitting down with the Director of Patient Relations to go over what happened since a concerning letter was written. Little did we know, it would be the Director of Patient Relations, the CNO/VP of Patient Care Services, the Assistant CNO, the Head Hospitalist Doctor, and a few others. That in itself showed our situation was concerning enough to have each person take time to not only listen to our situation/problem, but they showed concern, empathy, and care. We were very impressed with the way things were handled. This meeting did not fall on deaf ears. Over the next few months till recently, we have had exceptional patient care from outpatient, to the ER, to whatever floor we were on, etc. Clearly, something was addressed and done to make sure this situation we had did not happen again. Montefiore St. Luke's has had such a bad reputation, but if you take a step back and communicate, and address the situation before coming to social media (like we are all guilty of at some point) things can turn around for the good. When you post negative reviews, what are you actually accomplishing? How can a problem be resolved or addressed if no one is aware of it? Most of the community does not know that there is a Patient/Caregiver Council that is working diligently to make sure these hiccups and issues are addressed and resolved. To have a community that trusts this hospital. The amazing nurses, doctors and staff that are here for you. Consider the old saying "Communication is key." Coming to St Lukes, staying at St Luke, and being discharged from St Lukes is not suppose to be more stress for you. Let them know what they did amazingly, what could be done better, and praise nurses, doctors, and staff for a job well done. Thank you Montefiore St Luke's in Newburgh NY for your caring staff and...