Adventist Health Mendocino Coast — Local services in Fort Bragg

This is NOT about my last visit... just in general. Adventist has in the past 3 years... NEVER been able to get any lab work or Catscans to my oncologist. Not one single time. Despite numerous amounts of begging and pleading from myself and Sutter. They blame it on needing a new fax machine. 3 years. I even offered to buy them one. Currently i have to waste an entire day at the hospital trying to gather what i need to physically carry to my oncologist before every out of town visit.Nor would they give me a tour of their infusion center or answer any questions, leaving me in a position of not being able to get chemo. (Later I had PT and was horrified they had a tiny waiting room they shared with the fusion center. Very risky for chemo patients to share a waiting room with a high traffic other practice) Prior to them taking over our local hospital, we had a sliding fee scale. Also at the doctor's office, but no more. You can rarely get any issue resolved no matter how long you try, people who work inside the system can't answer questions and rarely bother to actually try and findout anything for you. (And they are pretty pissy about it too if you ask for help. Customer service is not their best skill) and this is in 3 separate locations I've had to deal with. I have to see my doctor over a monitor. And I'm lucky to get that. Adventist forces me (with no car) to somehow get an hour and a half away, each direction, to another town, in order to talk to another doctor on a monitor. WHY can't they do it in the same office? I've asked repeatedly but I just get this🤷‍♀️ Right now I'm able (Thank God for Mendo Coast Clinics) to get some other care at a reasonable price on sliding fee. Care that is not offered in the local town Adventist system... and even if they did...my insurance won't cover it. At least my doctor is good. And he is caring... but I'm having some issues right now that he isn't really trained in and it's causing us some friction. But the things he knows about, he is VERY good at so we are working on what we can. I like him and I trust him. I was honestly shocked that they asked me to review them and gave this link... I'm going to give them 1 star overall. And that's only because there are some people who care there. The system itself sucks. Imaging is pretty good there... the lab is pretty good. The ER is luck of the draw... I went to 3 separate sections of Adventist yesterday and don't even know which one they wanted reviewed... since they couldn't even specify. Kind of sums up my entire experience with them right there. I'd go elsewhere... but there isn't any other hospital...

The ER room was exceptionally crowded when I went in a week late for a shoulder injury. That's my fault. All the nurses were amazing.. especially the lead nurse, Kat, and xray tech. The Doctor however, gave the man next to me lots of attention, who didn't to be in as much pain as I was, an then extra, stronger pill. He actually talked to him. He had sympathy.. I could see it ..and I was like oh boy ..can't wait till he talks to me because he actually looks like he really cares. And then when I got to be my turn he just discarded me. I took x-rays and he came back and gave me ibuprofen at the pharmacy but I had to ask the nurse to go ask him for pain management. I can't move. I haven't moved in a week. The fact that I told everyone that the ibuprofen and Tylenol rotation was making me nauseous really upset me that they didn't give me any pain management that wouldn't, and I had to ask a second time for some. He left me to go get a sling for me,. and then never returned. Never told me my after care. I never got to ask my ending questions like what should I do at home. There's nothing on my discharge papers on what to do other than to call my primary Doctor which I told them I don't have. And then when I went to the pharmacy to get my pain management that I had to ASK for they told me I couldn't have it because it interfered with one of my medications.. that he didn't check with. A medication that I could very easily stop. FOR SEVERAL DAYS to be under pain control. Very frustrating not having an end conversation with the Doctor ..he just left in the middle of our conversation and like I said...

Reception at registration was very kind. My experience from there went bad. The blood work essential for my cancer numbers only 1 test done not 2. I got 2 tries at bloodwork before another nurse was called. She didn’t say a word to me and didn’t reply when I let her know it was a challenge to draw as we can only use 1 arm ( breast cancer) need warming and small needle. She did get blood. Imagining reception was ok but mri experience was not good. 2 more tries to get iv in ( that’s 5 now) head nurse talked on phone while drawing blood and used a vein never used. She didn’t acknowledge me at all. The radiation person was nice but seemed to be irritated at my situation taking longer than expected and mentioned it. In the tube I couldn’t hear woman say hold breath so earplug was taken out. I wasn’t told about loud sounds or what to expect. I’ve only had CT. I have stage 4 metastatic breast cancer in my bones and was getting my liver checked. I came to Fort Bragg as I live in Gualala and with a broke back wanted to drive closer than Santa Rosa. My experience was negative and now I’m sure another blood test to get all numbers done. I had my request from Dr and she copied it. I was left feeling very upset and literally traumatized from this bad experience. I have so much testing I was hoping to use Fort Bragg as my go to imaging spot. It’s wrong to have people in medical field be rude, unkind or uncaring with patients and cancer patients! I would like a phone...