Penn State Health Lancaster Medical Center — Local services in East Hempfield Township

I would give a five star for the Emergency room. But a one star for the inpatient review. Most of the nursing staff was great. But the hospitalist and caseworker was very disheartening. My 87 yo Alzheimer family member was admitted. He had been seen in ER three days in a row Finally the last time admitted. He had RSV, UTI and been pulling his foley out. First couple days were fine. The one nurse on his floor was outstanding. Then as he was discharged from medical services and urology, things changed drastically. They wanted him out. I was expected to just send him to any skilled care facility. I had called 20 places on my own, put him on waiting list at a few facilities. Visited numerous places. I had originally put him in a facility prior to his visit here, which he was there for 3 weeks and had 7 ER visits. So was not in a hurray to make another mistake in choosing for him. I felt I was being pushed in getting him out. I wanted to make sure I placed him in the appropriate place. The hospitalist was the worse, made me feel I should have picked any place the case manager suggested. I even told her I had appointments to view 2 facilities that Friday, I spoke with her on Wednesday. She wasn't very happy, felt I should just transfer him to wherever they suggested. I am sure if the people working at Penn State were choosing for their family member they would have been very selective also. I even noticed once I mentioned that some of the facilities would not take him with having one on one in the room, they abruptly stopped that. Then he pulled his foley out again. He was getting very agitated. I feel that his care was pretty much done and nothing was done from that point on, since they wanted him out. I was in the process of appealing his stay when I found a facility to take him. So the day he is transferred to the new facility I was informed that he was worse then when the facility RN assessed him and was in even worse condition from when he was originally admitted. So he is struggling at the facility he is at. Can hardly walk by himself, horrible cough, not getting out of bed and very fragile. He needs 2 people to help him in and out of bed and chair. He was not like this before his admission to Penn State. He seems like he has been heavily medicated at this time. I even asked the case manager at Penn State if they needed the bed and if that was why he was being pushed out. I am sure Medicare had something to do with it also. I even spoke to the urologist ,after having to request they contact me, whom we discussed possible surgery but he mentioned he was at risk with him being diabetic. Didn't even know he was diabetic. Doctor said he may be wrong because he didn't have his chart in front of him. So not sure what that meant. Just so sad, because he originally was at LGH for 26 days and that was a nightmare. But I felt good about Penn State because of the ER care. But since his stay there I have another opinion of Penn State. I had to ask if someone could contact me about his health problem and ask questions about his RSV and infection, I was wanting to know if he presently was positive any longer. Did find out his RSV is negative but no word on his UTI. It is really sad how the medical world and care has gone downhill. I really want to thank the few nurses that really looked out for his well being. But don't have anything nice to say about everything else that had...

We went to the ER on Wednesday after being told to by our primary care physician. My 5 yr old son had a cough and was having breathing problems, and Tuesday we went to our primary care physician who said she heard fluid in his lungs and sent us for a chest X-ray. The chest X-ray showed the beginning of pneumonia so she prescribed antibiotics. On Wednesday morning his breathing was worse, so I called his doctor and she said to take him to the ER. We came to your ER and were completely dismissed by the physician assistant Nicole Bleacher McCardle. She said she did not hear any fluid in his lungs, just some wheezing at the end. She ordered another chest X-ray and a breathing treatment. The respiratory therapist listened to him and said he heard the infection in his lungs and gave him the breathing treatment and said it opened him up more. The physician assistant came back in to explain that they did not see any pneumonia on the chest X-ray, and that some warm honey could help his cough. She never even checked his oxygen level. Meanwhile, he was still breathing very heavy. The nurse came in to discharge us and seemed very unsure about that, he checked his oxygen level which was at 92, but gave us our discharge papers anyway. Obviously, none of this helped my son, so I called back to our doctor, who looked over the chest X-rays from Tuesday, and the one from your ER on Wednesday, and said they still saw the pneumonia. All this time, by son is struggling to breathe. Both doctors at the practice listened to his lungs and both agreed that they heard fluid in his lungs which confirmed what they saw on the chest X-ray. I am not sure why your physician assistant in the ER can’t listen to lungs properly, or didn’t want to help my son, but I will now think twice about coming to your ER in the future. My son has issues every time he gets sick, and we can manage it at home with his nebulizer until, but his breathing was very heavy and he was working very hard to breathe, so I know when it’s time to go to the ER and for the physician assistant to not even listen to me and just dismiss me, is very upsetting. You are now going to send me a bill, for your physician assistant to have done nothing for my son except suggest warm honey. I expect a higher level of care as I don’t just run my kids to the ER for every little thing, but something like struggling to breathe is a problem, and should not be taken lightly as your physician...

This hospital is horrible. I brought my mother here to this hospital at 2AM through the emergency room cause of her pain in her left arm/ hand. One person was in the waiting room. I went with my mother while she was checking in, and the male who was asking my mother questions asked my mother what her pain was from 0 to 10 and 10 being the worst. My mother stated to the male that her pain from her hand was a 10. Now, the time was just about 2:20AM when they were done asking my mother questions and had her sit in the waiting room for about 15 more minutes before having my mother escorted back to a room. After we got to the back room, we waited over an hour just for a person to come in to get her insurance information. Then we waited over 1½ hours more before my mother decided she was fed up with waiting any longer because no one came in the room while we waited 2½ hours in the back room alone just to see about twelve nurses or medical staff all sitting down talking to each other not behind desks while typing but just sitting almost in a circle chatting. Mind you, my mother's pain was still at ten, and no doctor or nurse came to check on her for 2½ hours while she was sitting in the back room. When we were leaving, I started looking to see if maybe they hospital was busy and we were just impatient, but no, most of the rooms, if not 90 percent of the rooms were empty. I wouldn't come back to this hospital if I had a headache or a papercut. This is by far the worst hospital I have ever been to. You are better off treating yourself than getting help from the staff here at Penn State Health Lancaster Medical Center.

After a week of no response the hospital gives a short apology for the job the staff fail to handle. This is my response to that.

So penn State lancaster Medical answered back. Just right now. I'm gonna write back to them. I don't mean to be a person who complains, and I truly don't usually write reviews on anything but good experiences normally. Unfortunately, that service a week ago was as slow as your response to this review. I am sorry, but I will be letting the people I know and everyone who asks that this hospital is by far the worst hospital I've been to, and I lived in, and still to this day work in Philadelphia in and out of hospitals all around Philadelphia. For this hospital to be the worst I've been to is a very horrible thing.... what...