Northwest Medical Center Sahuarita — Local services in Sahuarita

Northwest Hospital "Quality Care: The primary focus is on providing high quality, safe patient care." The care my family member received was neither safe, nor high quality. A family member, admitted to the inpatient unit at Sahuarita for weakness/falls resulting in an L2 fracture, and low O2 spent 19 hours without food, at least 9 hours covered in his secretions overnight in pain, lying flat on his back with no prescribed oxygen and a back brace, which, at the midpoint, was underneath his head. No fall precautions in place and all the while his nurse was leaning on the wall outside of his room around the corner out of view with her computer in front of her on her cell phone doing non-clinical things. Two hours into her shift, and 20 minutes before a scheduled transport off site for imaging with a pre-transport medication order for pain management and nerves. I help myself to the linen cart and supplies, got the grippy yellow socks. I come back to the room, and the nurses name is changed on the board. I go to the nurses station to find his original nurse, and she's nowhere to be found, and no one knows where she is. Now a new nurses name is on the board and she sits him on the edge of the bed, weak tired and in pain, two feet on the floor, having not eaten, and gave an IV sedative. He almost immediately became woozy and started to fall forward. He would have hit his head on the wall and the floor had I not been there to catch him. Pain management, acceptable patient care and transport were delayed. We are a month out from our awful inpatient visit today, and we have no resolve. Made direct contact with the CNO, said she would call me back in one hour when I called, and never did. I've made at least 15 phone calls to the advocate, with whom we've only spoken to once and were supposed to have updates (we were told this a week ago today.) Northwest Senior Leadership speaks about the importance of employees being heard when it comes to what they need and how that leads to organizational success. Obviously not the case when my spouse works at the facility and I can't get a phone call returned. The food is a joke. Brown paper bag lunch, tech told us they only have a hot plate in the kitchen. Awful hard to heal when you can't get a warm meal. You can say what you want about the other players in town, but TMC and Banner aren't giving out brown paper bag cold meals as primary nutrition for their inpatients. Shame on you Northwest. Profits over patients. It is my sincere hope that this is a one time thing, and that this atrocious care is not reflective of the One Northwest culture that touts a mission to help people get well and live healthier, however, it is my belief that the system is fatally broken, and the facility has literally dropped the proverbial ball in every facet of our miserable journey through their cattle corral. I wouldn't send this place a two week old mutt covered in it's own filth. Please please please, if you are considering this facility and you need an admission, go to anyone...

On January 26th 2025 approximately around 0830, I had called for an ambulance for medical emergency on my behalf. I was extremely sick starting the night before with extremely high fever, chills, 8/10 pain, severe weakness, chest pain, difficulty breathing, and reduced cognitive function. When the medics arrived, they told me my temp was about 105 which matched what I had taken moments prior (105.5). They also stated they heard fluid in my lungs. They immediately tried to cool me down, started IV fluids, and took me to Northwest Hospital in sahuarita AZ 85629.  When I got to the hospital, they said they would have to put me out in the looby (which I understand as I have worked healthcare before) and told me that Tylenol and ibuprofen would fix it. I told them that I had taken those and they didn't but they told me DayQuil and other related things like that don't work. I was still in serve pain with all symptoms still showing. When asked for some pain management they said no then proceeded to disconnected my fluids, put me in the lobby on a very discomforting wheelchair that exasperated my lower back condition. I was not looking for any opiates or the like, just something stronger than ibuprofen. After they gave me the mix, I sat in the lobby for an 1.15 hour , in which then they told me I could go home with Prednisone, Tama flu, as I had tested positive for influenza A. No chest x ray or further evaluation. My fever had been reduced but my pain was still as a solid 7. I also still had severe lethargy and weakness.

I was able to get an appointment 2days later with my primary who found i had moderate pneumonia. She gave me appropriate medications for said diagnosis and for the pain as well.

My chief complaint here is that lack of acknowledgement of patient symptoms chief complaints, and attention to detail. They couldn't even be bothered to check my lungs thoroughly. They stopped my fluids, and the only real reason my fever went down ( as Tylenol and ibuprofen had not worked at home) is because I was sitting in the lobby, half naked, freezing in serve pain. I understand trying to get results but there was zero effective management to help bring any comfort at all. No fluids, no pillow, no actual pain meds ( anything stronger than ibuprofen such as Meloxicam or an injection of Prednisone rather than a pill as I'm leaving). I'm still recovering and still have lingering pain in my back and joints. For reference, I am a paramedic myself. I have worked at every hospital in Pima county and this hospital is the true definition of "Treat to Street". I understand I'm not too priority but they couldn't even manage my chief complaint appropriately and even took away things from me that helped the situation. I have gone here other times before and so have my family members. Each time, the standard of care gets worse ( on the ER side only). I have never written a complaint like this cause I know the system, but this was beyond my reservation. This type of care must be...

I am worried than this may not be the best facility to go to with a critical emergency. The only Hospital within a reasonable radius of Green Valley where thousand of elderly stroke and heart failure candidates live, does not have a proper MRI to scan for all strokes, nor does it have one to do an angiogram? The facility does not have a neurologist in staff? I think I made a huge mistake buying an expensive home in Tubac, because it left me with no money to buy my own helicopter to go into town in case of emergency!

The staff was very nice, but to attempt charging my credit card when I am laying down not able to really move, was crass.

They were attempting to keep me there overnight and then send me into town for an MRI next day? To find out if I had a stroke? And then Dr. tells me they wouldn't be able to do anything if I had one? That may be because it took 2 hours to get a CT scan done when it should have been done within the hour in a nearly empty emergency wing. I guess the bill would have gone nicely up if I had to stayed.for nothing plus transportation to town for an MRI.....

I ended up taking my own medicine to bring my high blood pressure down from 185 because in the 4 hours I was there they did do nothing to bring it down. I left feeling sad and hopeless with the medical system

The treatment was delivered with kindness, but it was very mediocre. The tech was way more responsive, kind and on top of things that the actual nurse. Truly I really would like a full explanation for the possibly obscene amount they are going to claim to my insurance for such a total waste of time and possible harm to my health.

I am open to be enlightened.

Addendum March 10, 2024. Once again ended up in their emergency room. The nurses did not know how to put an IV. Since I have collapsing veins an ultrasound machine is usually required if the nurse is incapable to insert IV. Well, these two were having long conversations about veins and location, like they just came out of school. They poked me and repoked me. But the worst one was just inserting a butterfly needle which should be a fairly painless poke,this time blood was spurting out like a fountain . I requested she bring the ultrasound machine and she angrily replied she didn't have any luck with them. Then I asked that doctor came in to look at the situation. This is the second time I had to suffer immensely to have an IV in either Northwest hospital. He was really cocky and just told me to let the " professionals" do their job. At that point I had enough of the circus, and the nasty attitudes and left again for Holy Cross in Nogales, where they put an IV without me even noticing. For the looks of it, no many people go to this Northwest locale. They have no shame by employing these utter incompetent people who feel they are so entitled to be bully and thoroughly disrespectful. At least I came across Holy Cross in Nogales, same modest establishment but the staff' manners...