St. Mary's Sacred Heart Hospital — Local services in Lavonia

I recently brought my 8 year old daughter to this emergency room, as she’s been suffering from severe N/V/D for the past two weeks. She’s lost a considerable amount of weight, and I was very surprised, disgusted and disappointed with the lack of professionalism or care from this facility. I have noticed far more negligence by the medical community over the past two years, especially in the southeast, than ever before in my life. Granted; ER staff in general handle traumas, and obviously oftentime dire emergencies but on this day in particular, we were three of five visitors, and the other two were being seen for a patient’s glucose instability/hypoglycemic episode. Most of the staff on this day was busy ordering lunch or, on the Internet- and even with my daughter sitting on the table with an irregular heart rate, unstable blood pressure and OBVIOUS dehydration, was offered absolutely NOTHING. I had to beg for a stool sample culture at minimum to be performed- where I am told that even if it were to come back as positive for Salmonella, Giardia, e. Coli, that they would do nothing and let nature run its course. She is skin and bones right now from whatever is happening to her body!! My son became very ill last year from contracting E. coli from a resort swimming pool while on vacation, and did NOT recover until he was administered an antibiotic. Two weeks now after contracting this mystery illness- my daughter is still experiencing severe abdominal pain as well as incessant diarrhea and I am told when I call to see WHY tests were not done, for bacterial infections or staph, (they already tested for Flu, which was negative so I do not understand WHY they didn’t take any further steps to diagnose..) ‘yes ma’am, we understand and we’re sorry about that’..but still. Nothing is offered to actually diagnose this issue and she is still very ill. They won’t even tell me whether the stool sample culture is negative or positive. In all my years dealing with medical professionals, this staff does not have it together. They can’t seem to distinguish the difference between their policies, how sending a simple factual test result, via email or a patient portal, reading the result over the phone is completely irrelevant to giving medical advice telephonically.. it is ridiculous!

Last year I suffered from a Vertebral Artery Dissection and it took going to Three hospitals and eventually having a stroke and almost dying, to diagnose me. (Virginia is the place to go for exceptional medical care.) ER’s in general like to use ‘migraine headaches’ and ‘stomach flu’ as a catch basin for everything unless you are in cardiac arrest. Even then, they’ll discharge many patients with an ‘anxiety attack’ diagnosis and mask the underlying issue rather than actually trying to treat the source. Population control, maybe??

I don’t know if there was a Georgia hospital memo that was sent out recently, to not give patients anything to help them recover, or administer any tests, or what, but I can definitely see why this hospital has only 2 Stars. And I plan to take all of our records to the local news station, as well as contacting FOX regarding the lack of ethics and professionalism, of following standards and the vows that medical professionals supposedly take before they begin their work in this field in the hopes of ‘helping people’ .. some help...

I have had the unfortunate chance of Dr. Abernathy seeing 2 of my children. Once was my oldest daughter back during Chrismas time. She had the flu, got better, then a few days later ended up 10x worse. Of course it was a Saturday so I took her to the ER. He brushed off her symptoms and acted like it was no big deal she had just spent the entire night screaming and crying at 15 years old because she was so miserable. He practically laughed at the idea it might be Pneumonia. After a little debate and back and forth he ordered a chest Xray “To make me feel better.” He said. She was fine (thank goodness) but the fact he was so crass and rude was uncalled for. Then jump to Today 7/23/24- My 3 year old was standing on the arm of the couch and fell straight to his head. (Yes, he should not be standing on the couch, but what 3 year old listens when mom is not looking?) anyways, I get to the hospital within 30 minutes of him falling, I brought my mom so she could keep him awake. The size of his knot on his head was the larger than a golf ball and it was bulging and black and blue! As any parent would do they bring their child to the ER to have them checked and make sure there are no serious underlying injuries we can’t see from the outside. This doctor comes in the room, asks my kid what happened and he tells him. He then checks his pupils, his ears. Then he pulls out his PHONE and starts to show me a checklist. He reads over the checklist to me and says that because my son has not been ejected from a motor vehicle and did not loose consciousness he does not qualify for ordering a CT scan because the radiation could be more harmful than the benefits. I tell him I have a history of head traumas with my oldest daughter, so I am a bit sensitive about this. I explain my daughter situation and she seemed totally fine as well, but she ended up having a bleed on her brain so I would feel better if they did. He then begins to say, “We have to have this conversation because he does not fit the criteria for ordering a CT scan, and if he ends up with brain cancer later in life, we had this conversation!” Basically saying. If he ends up with cancer it is your fault not ours and you can’t sue us. I cut him off because he tried to keep going, but I held my hand up and told him to let me call his dad and talk to him. He walked out. After this of course anyone with some sense can tell I’m pissed now. So I call my husband and after a few minutes he comes back in, he immediately says, “I’ll order a CT if you want me too, but know I don’t recommend it.” I tell him no and just discharge us at this point. He stayed and tried to make his behavior better by being “nice” with just saying the same crap in a different way. I also understand they are not pediatric based, but his behavior was appalling and uncalled for. We discharged and I am currently observing my child myself. After these last two experiences with Dr. Abernathy I would not take my dog to this hopsital! Go...

It’s been 4 months since we’ve had our baby so I know this review is late but I just wanted to brag on Tanya. She was the head nurse when we had our baby girl in January. there are really no words to describe how amazing she was and how grateful we were for her making our experience the most memorable and most beautiful one I’ve had since the birth of my first baby 10 years ago. (Different hospital) Tanya was so kind to us from the moment she set eyes on us. She made us feel like a family member she hadn’t seen in a while. Any questions I had, no matter the time of the day, no matter how silly — it was answered with love and kindness. I felt seen when I was struggling to breathe feed. It was almost like having a built in mother at the hospital while my momma couldn’t be there with us overnight. She included my husband in every conversation and loved on our sweet baby too. I will forever remember her. We are hoping to visit in case she remembers us so that she can see our baby but if we are not able to, Tanya - if you are reading this. We just want to thank you for being the person you are from the bottom of our hearts. It was snowing while we were and instead of you being completely worried about getting home (even though I’m sure you were) you still chose to come check on us before you left. We still talk about the amazing experience we had and it wasn’t just you alone, Dr B( who is now retired ), the anesthesiologist, the techs who came to speak to us before the procedure, the nurses in addition to Tanya who took care of us after we had her and got back to our room were all so amazing. You cannot be in that field and only love the paycheck. You have to love people and that showed through almost everyone we came in contact with. There wasn’t anything that could have gone better. I hope with our next baby Tanya is still there so that we can see her again! I prayed so hard for the best experience we could have and our prayers were truly answered. We stayed from January 20th-January 23rd I believe. The snow was memorable in itself but we will never forget the staff who really helped me through that even keeping our room clean, always asking if I was okay— I had a csection also and there was another nurse who even helped me shower. You are so vulnerable in that moment and I didn’t feel judged not one time while we were there. Again, thank you from the bottom of our hearts. We pray you all continue to bless other people with the hearts you have. We will forever be grateful for the experience and if this review doesn’t explain well enough, definitely 5 stars and I do recommend the labor+delivery unit a thousand times. We are all doing well and hope you all are too.

Love,

The...