St. Luke's Hospital — Local services in New Bedford

January 1 2021 visit: I've been living with a condition for 3 years that includes dizziness, nausea, headaches. Equilibrium, type issues. Since 2018. Most recently am scheduled for an MRI etc.. but After 5 days of non-stop symptoms, I decided to go to St. Lukes at around 10:30am 1/1/2021 today to see if I was dehydrated, needed an IV etc. I'm working with my Doctor at that level but needed to feel better from this immediate illness. I walked in to St. Lukes waited in line and spoke with Alexandria Q upon entry. She was excellent. Attentive, clear, demonstrated empathy. It was a pretty normal exchange. As she finished registering me and I asked about seating, a woman entered the registration desk from the back. A nurse named Barbara Jeffrey. This person did not hear my discussion with Alexandria Q where I articulated that this was a 3 year illness that I have been working on with my doctor. It's a vertigo type thing, maybe an ear issue etc. Well because Barbara heard "nausea and vomiting" and nothing else, she just interjected and told me to go to the "covid symptoms" area. She never even looked at me. Just walked in, took command and honestly she should not be representing St. Lukes Hospital. I politely stated, oh this is a 3 year issue, I'm not vomiting or nauseas due to covid. Apparently she has had enough speaking with people because I was abruptly cut off. I told her she was misdiagnosing me and didn't have the benefit of my conversation with Alexandria Q but she didn't listen to that either and called for security (James S.). Within 30 seconds of speaking to me. I never raised my voice or anything that would require security so I was shocked to be threatened with security when I came in for medical assistance. When I was threatened with security, I raised my hands and said, it's ok I will leave. What else could I do because at that point no one was listening and if they threw me into the covid area, what is the chance I would catch covid? Pretty high right? It was a shocking experience but I imagine hospital folks are just so tired of dealing with people. Sort of like that DMV vibe that you get sometimes. They are who you have to speak to but they have no more energy to deal so we have these kinds of interactions. If she had never walked in, I would have been seated by Alexandria and received service. It was such strange experience because you had one person who was communicating perfectly but Barbara came out and she just steam-rolled any conversation and called security when I attempted to provide more data to help her make a better decision - a better outcome. As I was leaving, Barbara Jeffrey who saw I was bent over in pain and I couldn't walk from dizziness, said "have a great day" to me in a super sarcastic way. I told her that the sarcastic comment was definitely extra. She told me I was being rude so she was being rude to me. I wasn't being rude. I am sick. Otherwise why would I go into St. Luke's on New Years day? It was a terrible experience. Security guard James S (known as "jay" apparently) walked over to her as I was leaving asking her what that was about. She proceeded to share my symptoms told him I was throwing up and nauseas and proceeded to belittle me to the security guard. Question for St. Lukes: are nurses supposed to be sharing hippa protected information about patients with security guards? My sense would be no - but I imagine this nurse disregards policies as she disregards common courtesy. I can't imagine having to go to my local emergency room and this is their gatekeeper for service. An angry disrespectful person who disregards hippa. Because apparently St. Luke's is hiring people to be rude to patients and to sick security on them. It's abhorrent frankly. I went home and of course was still feeling awful. I decided to use the feedback portal for South Coast hospitals and went back to ask for names which I how I obtained peoples names. Question for St. Luke's Hospital. Is it normal for many of your employees to purposely hide their name badges? Why do so many of them have...

I have become disenchanted with this hospital again. Somehow, I knew it was too good to last. Though the ER staff can be good, once you are seen, you can be there for 10 or 12 hours waiting to be seen if your complaint doesn't sound life threatening enough for them. I say that because it has happened to me personally. If you are only in severe pain, not having a cardiac arrest and not bleeding out from a GSW, you'd be better off going to St. Anne's, Tobey or Charlton or any other hospital that has the capacity to handle their typical load. I actually had someone drive me to MA General from New Bedford once and still got seen faster, including the travel time.

Most of the staff doctors and hospitalists that treated family members, once they were admitted, were unimpressive.

Too bad because it dropped from 5 to 3 in my estimation. Now, to a 2 in 2017. Not the right direction, for sure.

[NB: My original 5-star review follows]

I had to take my Mom to St. Luke's by ambulance Monday night. She has been complaining for months about pressure in her chest. But, the real reason why we came in was that she had been coughing a lot and her temperature went up to an unsafe number.

It does take a very long time in any decent sized city's ER I have been in. St Luke is no exception. My advice is to call for an ambulance if you are hurt so bad waiting in triage or for a doctor may harm you. They have a LOT of ambulance traffic there and it seems to me that ambulance patients get quick service.

So, calling 911 for the ambulance started a 27 hour intense life experience for me. I won't go into all of the details but I will say that they have some very good doctors there. Our ER doctor was going to let her go home with antibiotics and Tylenol that night. Good thing for us, that he said he just felt uncomfortable when he was writing her release papers, so he ordered a CAT scan of her chest while he had her there and when it came back he was surprised at the result.

In the CAT scan, he saw two very small blood clots in Mom's lungs.

His intuition and experience told him to think more about the case and the result was that she got the right diagnosis for her chronic condition that many other doctors has overlooked. It wasn't a little pneumonia; it was clots that could have caused a lot of damage if they stayed untreated.

For the rest of the 27 hours she was in the PCU ward and I observed some really excellent treatment and teamwork. I also saw an excellent implementation of infection control. Everyone who came in the room was cheerful and pleasant. They all did their jobs well,

I was in there 4 years ago and hadn't been all that impressed by the place. I planned to go to St. Anne in Fall River or even out to Cape Cod Hospital if necessary, next time.

Now, I think my choice would be St. Luke Hospital. Whomever is running that place put some excellent effort into making the place work better and hand-offs between services were very precise in communicating completely all of the important information that the new persons would need to be aware of. I study systems to make them work better. This one runs like a Swiss watch,...

Second time going here. Both times the woman checking me in was INCREDIBLY disrespectful. This time I pointed it out and she “apologized” by rudely saying, “I’m sorry I thought I said excuse me.” First off, that’s not an apology. Second, you said excuse me when you got up and walked out of the room. That was AFTER you had already turned and started to talk to someone else while I was answering your questions. Third, you then gave me an attitude because I pointed out your behavior. It’s not just what you say, but how you say it as well. She has a lack of tact when it comes to dealing with me. Not sure if it’s because of who or what I am. Or if she’s like this with everyone, but quite frankly she’s an entitled b. Had the audacity to question me over and over because I hadn’t had my period in three weeks. Like really? Yeah, lady. I’m lying about not being pregnant. Not sure how many times she has her period, but I have it once a month. And…OMG… sometimes it skips a month. Although, it hasn’t been a month yet. So idk. Maybe I should keep her updated since she’s so concerned. Then I get back in RAZ and while everyone seems nice they were lacking in skills and the place was filthy. The nurse used gloves without washing his hands, and picked up stuff he dropped and still didn’t wash his hands or change his gloves. He also left the computer unlocked. Like fully unlocked. I went up to it to see if there was an additional login. Nope. He just left it open for anyone to see everyone’s info, if they chose. He also left meds in the tray and never administered them. Unless the sink needed reglan, because that’s where he squirted it after discharging me. Oh, and the funky shhht on the remote…they never cleaned it off. Still don’t know if that is blood or rust. Either way it’s disgusting. Then as I was leaving Ms. Sunshine was standing in the hallway by the exit and refused to move. Just stood there. Idk maybe thinking I’d say something. No ma’am. You don’t even deserve the breath it takes for me to say “excuse me.” Block as much as your body can. I can still fit around you. I don’t need to speak to you. Nor do I want to. People like that try to start shht and let me tell you, sweetie, you are lucky that was an ER because I am NOT the one. I came there for help. AND it’s not free either. So get your shht together before the world realizes you ARE dispensable. Never will I go to this...