Northside Hospital Gwinnett — Local services in Lawrenceville

My latest experience at this hospital and with one particular doctor and nurse was the worst experience I have ever had at any kind of healthcare facility in my 57 years. I was experiencing moderate alcohol withdrawal symptoms at home; these symptoms were serious enough for me to feel it necessary to call an ambulance in case they got worse and progressed to severe as they have in the past. My doctor was Dr. Donald P. Chapman. He entered the room and without speaking to me at all leaned up against the wall and looked at me with utter disdain and said "Why would you come to a hospital to detox? There's no alcohol at the hospital." I stared at him because I thought his comments were ridiculous and uncalled for so he repeated himself..."Why would you come to a hospital to detox? There's no alcohol at the hospital." Hmmm, maybe it was because people can and have died as the result of severe alcohol detox; any healthcare professional knows that but he was obviously being a smart a@@ for no good reason. Then, he says to me "Benzodiazepines." So, he hasn't examined me or asked me one question and has already determined that I'm only there seeking pills to get high. He's probably also concluded that I was homeless (he actually asked me that later on), uneducated, unemployed, and uninsured. In reality, I'm the opposite of all those characterizations. At this point, a nurse came in and inserted an IV and took blood and they began running tests. The nurse looked totally annoyed by me and acted like I was disturbing her evening nap. After three hours, the Dr. came back in and said he couldn't admit me so I was fine with that and while I was getting dressed to leave he asked me if I was single or married; I told him I was single. He then asked me if I was homeless; I told him no. He asked me where I live; I told him a house. He then offered to transfer me to Peachford Psychiatric Hospital as if doing me a favor to give me a place to stay like he didn't believe me. He told me that "Peachford is the best." Anybody familiar with Peachford knows it is a nightmare which has horrific reviews and a solid 2 star (very poor) google rating just like Northside, so maybe that's why he said it is the best because Northside also has horrific reviews and a solid 2 star (very poor) rating. I declined. The nurse came in with a wheelchair to take me to the exit door. When I sat in the wheelchair, the nurse laid a prescription in my lap and then literally took off half running and half jogging through the hospital as if to get rid of me ASAP. I was actually afraid as we approached the door that she was going to wheel me out into the parking lot and dump me on the concrete. When I got home, I saw that the Dr. had given me a 30 day prescription for librium. The instructions only said take up to four pills a day for alcohol withdrawal. I learned later that Librium can slow or stop your breathing, especially if you have recently used alcohol which clearly the doctor knew I had since he joked about me coming to a hospital to detox. Misuse of this medicine can cause addiction, overdose, or death. It's interesting that this Dr. who accused me of only seeking benzodiazepines releases me with a 30 day prescription for benzodiazepines which if not used properly could cause death. Dr. Chapman took no time in explaining the correct way to take this medication. A few days later, I received a bill for about $10,000 for the three hours I spent in the ER; my insurance covered the costs 100%. It seems Northside has adopted a so called "treat' em and street 'em" policy which may in part have, despite them being a not for profit hospital, resulted in Northside being the richest hospital in Georgia and one of the richest hospitals in the US. Dr. Chapman and the nurse who "treated" me at Northside treated me like absolute trash, apparently since I was there due to an alcohol related health issue and despite the fact that the American Medical Association (AMA) has classified alcoholism as a...

Updating my review from 4 years ago because OH BOY. My father was ambulanced here in December at midnight in cardiac arrest. He had a DNR and they coded him for OVER AN HOUR. My brother (as I was out of town, flying back as fast as I could), had to ID our father's broken, beaten body. They performed CPR for over an hour on a frail 130 lb terminal cancer patient on dialysis WITH A DO NOT RESUSCITATE ORDER. Not only that, they BILLED US THOUSANDS for imaging that was NOT done, they did not file ANY of his procedures through his VA insurance and kept telling us they didn't have it on record when we submitted it numerous times, and did not communicate AT ALL with the VA hospital afterwards when we were trying to get the ridiculous billing worked out. I had hoped that when Northside took over this hospital it would improve, but it has only gotten worse.

Unfortunately that's not the only incident in the last six months, either. There are two others.

My seizure-prone husband hit his head hard enough on a bathroom cabinet to punch a hole in the top of his head. He was dizzy, disoriented, and could not tell me his name, and he was rapidly worsening. We waited an hour in the ER with him repeatedly passing out in the wheelchair before he was even triaged. The scariest part is that there was no external bleeding - it was bleeding internally. They triaged him and then sent him back to the waiting room for another HOUR before taking him for an x-ray. Then they finally put him in an ER room. He was nauseous with a headache and was still disoriented when they came in and said they were releasing him. We had to ask for the results of the scan. Multiple times. All we were told was "he's fine." Those aren't results, that's a platitude. At least have the decency to show me the x-ray. So I took my still bleeding, disoriented, nauseous husband with a massive splitting headache back home. And then promptly to our local urgent care, where they actually cleaned and dressed the wound, prescribed him appropriate pain medication, and gave him precautionary antibiotics since his head was injured IN A BATHROOM.

My little sister came to the ER with a dental abscess from a broken tooth and they treated her like a damn drug seeker. They wouldn't even give her TYLENOL. Half of her face was swollen like a balloon - easily twice the size it should have been - and she was having trouble breathing and couldn't see out of one eye due to the swelling from the abscess, which was also easily visible and bleeding fairly badly. She wasn't even asking for pain meds, either - she was asking for antibiotics. We had called the dentist prior to our arrival and they said nope, emergency, go there immediately for antibiotics. I had to leave as it was very late at night and I had to work early the next day. It was 12 hours before she was finally treated and released immediately, in the middle of the night, confused from fever, with NO TRANSPORTATION. Luckily I kept my phone on so I was able to go get her.

Do. Not. Come. Here.

Original review: I have lived nearby for 30 years and the care here has always been hit and miss, though mostly miss. Lazy staff, lazy administration, and a nonchalant attitude about patients characterizes this hospital. In August of 2018, I came here with my now husband for heart and respiratory symptoms- chest pain, arm pain, trouble breathing, dry cough, dizziness, and mild disorientation. They looked at him for an hour, did one EKG and a chest x-ray, said he wasn't having a heart attack, and kicked us out. We had insurance so that was not the reason. They were not busy, either, with three non-life threatening emergency patients in the emergency room. We went to a non associated primary care who diagnosed him almost immediately, gave him the inhaler he needed, and out of the door in 30 minutes with his cure. MAYBE once Northside takes total control this hospital will improve, but it will take a long time for the community to not cringe when they hear "Yeah we had to go to Gwinnett...

The most wretched experience I've ever had at a hospital, so much so that it almost embarrasses me to think I might have told someone I'd had a bad experience about a prior hospital stay. After spending six hours having to sit up in the ER and six more hours sitting on a typically uncomfortable hospital bed waiting to hear whether or not I was even going to be admitted, they finally determined I needed emergency neck fusion surgery. Afterwards they put me on a very old mattress that was completely worn in on one side. The nurses told me another mattress was technically available to some patients, but those were apparently only for people whose skin is falling off or something; they were always evasive about whether or not that or any other alternative was actually available. No special, non-busted mattresses for people who just had neck surgery; apparently it was inconceivable to the nurses, the hospital doctors, the surgery team (not the surgeon himself, obviously, he's very busy!) or the "pain management group" that was managing my care without my knowledge for the first four days, to simply provide a mattress that wasn't already completely spent. My butt spent practically every minute of every day after the surgery sunken into a cheap, disposable "waffle" air mattress thrown over the other mattress, because a mattress costs money, and these things are so cheap they invite you to take them afterwards, presumably because it'd be an expensive environmental issue if they had to dispose of them themselves.

Complaining about it to the hospital produced absolutely no results, nor even the impression that the complaints were being recorded. Complaining about it to my insurance resulted in some lady coming to my room apologizing that she'd been on a ten-day vacation and got back 20 minutes before that very conversation, then telling me that I'd actually been reporting much lower pain levels than what I thought I'd been saying every time they asked me to rate my pain level. She acted surprised when I rebuffed her, as if neither of us could have anticipated that every single nurse who saw me during that stretch of time was not only lying when I said my pain level was a ten; they were lying about it the exact same way, recording that I had said a three instead. If my son wasn't there with me for that conversation and practically the entire stay, they apparently had every intention of "fixing" my issue by gaslighting me into accepting that I wasn't being clear enough about what the mattress was doing to me in the hours and days after my emergency neck surgery.

People say they wouldn't take their dog to a bad enough hospital. I'd gladly take mine just to defecate on her desk, and also the "hospital" doctor that was apparently kind of my doctor and kind of not, a vile little creature named Dr. Kurl, who responded to my complaints by acting like I was an unruly child crying about getting vaccinated. "Ooh, ooh, I'm sorry, ooh, ew, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry you feel that way, ooh, ooh I'm so sorry." Every conversation with a doctor sounded like that, but he in particular appeared to be making a conscious effort to maximize the condescension of every individual "oh" "ew" and "I'm sorry."

Not only a terrible place; it is a terrible place that knows it is terrible, and so splits responsibility for every patient decision between five different groups, none of whom communicate with each other by design. The "pain management group" very clearly wanted me to blame my nurses exclusively, upon being informed that the pain management staff was being wildly misled by every nurse who came in contact with me specifically. Feces does tend to roll downhill.

The TVs were surprisingly nice, though. Obviously those were the cheapest things...