North Shore University Hospital — Local services in Town of North Hempstead

First the nursing in the hospital is excellent. Very dedicated and outstanding staff Medical care as a whole and doctors on the other hand left much to be desired. I was admitted for with a stroke diagnosis at Northwell, Manhasset.I was treated for stroke for 4 days. MRI’s apparently showed no clot and they were unable to identify the source of the stroke. On the 4th day, the story about my diagnosis had changed. One doctor suggested that I had had a migraine, and another suggested that I had something called “conversion disorder”. The doctor got more and more callous and rude on day 4. They even pretended that I was totally fine when in fact my left side – the affected side was clearly weak. I am only able to walk with a walker, do not have strength on my left side and cannot climb stairs on my own. This rush to discharge I attribute to a need for a bed for new patients. On day 5 I was told that once I was given discharge order, I should expect four hours before discharge as I would have to talk to case worker about details of following acute rehab. On day 5 I was rudely woken up from a deep sleep around 8:45am (I was given medications for sleep) . I was shaken out of bed and made to walk with walker. In the groggy state I was not able to fathom what was going on. At a a oboiy 10 am I I was given blood thinner and at 10.30 I was handed discharge papers. Based on the previous days information I had arranged my ride to be picked up in the afternoon. I had to scramble to get my ride come earlier. The meeting with the case worker who was to explain to me home PT procedure before discharge did not take place. When I tried to contact her she said there was no need. Interestingly while telling me that I did not have a stroke, they continued to treat me for it – giving me large doses of blood thinners on all 5 days. I was earlier told repeatedly that I would need acute rehab starting immediately. That too was changed and now I have PT coming to the house where a fulll range of equipment is not available. A family member who is a doctor insists I have had strong stroke symptoms and also tells me that I need acute rehab but since this has not been prescribed my insurance is not going to authorize it. What if I do not recover completely because of these strings of mis-diagnosis and poor communication? On Day 5 I signed the discharge papers and later from home checked the details on-line. The discharge document lied about some things. For one they indicated that I could climb steps up and down without difficulty. I was evaluated for this and a PT had to stand behind me for support while I used cane. My house has steps and it took me a long time to negotiate these when I returned home. How did the hospital make this false claim? To discuss this issue, I called the hospital and pointed it out,. The next thing I know is that that they had changed the report on-line to remove the wording about my ability to climb stairs. This means that in their official evaluation they deemed me fit to climb stairs, changed my diagnosis from stroke to something else. However when they were caught red handed they changed the wording on the discharge report to remove my ability to climb stairs without difficulty. Sp should I be getting acute rehab or not? Evidence on their records seems to change. Since the hospital’s word is what the insurance is going to go by to provide therapy; it is clear that this sloppy (if not purposely manipulative) behavior of the hospital and its doctors could cost me my recovery. And all for what? So they could have a bed? I have been left with a bad taste in my mouth about this hospital (excluding the nurses), doubts about their honesty and some real clear insight about how a patient is held captive by both doctors and the insurance system. The biggest concern is about my recovery & did that get compromised by the doctors?: The problem is that I will not know until several weeks as the recovery is slow with PT. It will be even slower if I should be getting acute PT but have not been...

An ER can be like a war zone... I don't think this varies much from hospital to hospital. My dad was here last month for an incarcerated inguinal hernia, waited for a reaaaaally long time to get a bed, and longer to go through procedures like getting bloods done, pain killers, having herniated intestine popped back into place, cat scan and results...etc. There were mistakes made (they brought him back from the cat scan, but no nurse ever came back in to reactivate the I.V. till we asked abt it... there were a handful of different doctors seeing my dad, and none seemed to have the chance to communicate, including at shift change).

Some of the doctors and nurses were terrific, and we liked the admin staff as well. Based on that night alone, I may have given them 4 stars. But tonight, we came back and they were even busier.

We waited longer to get my dad a bed, and we (me and my step-mom) had to "squeak" (the squeaky wheel gets the oil!) frequently to get things done.

Once we were in the room (which was divided in half so they could add another bed, and portable privacy barriers were between the beds... it was BUSY), my dad's pain got worse. The privacy was horrible... I felt badly for the guy sharing the room as he's trying to explain to the nurse that he saw blood in his sperm and a gob of blood in his urine the other day, and then repeated it all to the doctor)... this guy sharing the room was not in any pain at the moment but nervous about what he saw. I have the doctor a look to tell him that my dad is sitting 4 feet away from him in major pain.

Every now and then, we had to step outside the room to grab a nurse or doctor. This is the busy ER experience. If you or your loved ones ever go to an ER, bring an advocate with you. DO NOT GO ALONE. And bring someone who's not afraid to speak up for you.

I can kind of forgive them being short on doctors... and they certainly can't control how busy it is. But there's something they can and SHOULD control a lot better.

We noticed both nurses AND the doctor carrying their blue nitrile gloves in a pocket in their pants. It's very handy in a pinch... but it's not very sanitary when you're grabbing the outside of the glove with your bare hand from your pants. Of course, when we pointed this out to the nurses, they got defensive and tried to explain why it's no big deal, saying that they touched my dad's leg and then the catheter, so it's ok because they're only introducing my dad's own bacteria to himself... yah!

Clean gloves were in boxes mounted on the walls of every room. They need to make it a priority to go for THOSE gloves. No short cuts. Gloves coming from the box can be grabbed right from their collar... much more sanitary than touching the fingers or palm of the glove. Sure, you'll save two while seconds doing it your way and quickly help a patient and send them on their way, but a day or two later they'll be right back in there with a staph infection, which could be worse than the original problem!

I didn't see anyone use the hand sanitizer for all of the hours I spent there. Actually, I used the sanitizer mounted on the wall in the room, and found it to be disgusting. Unlike ordinary sanitizer brands, this one would not air dry. I needed paper towels to dry my hands. Kind of crazy unless there's something I don't know abt this.

Anyway, whoever is in charge of these procedures here should take a good look at this. Most people won't say anything abt it because they're afraid it'll mean they'll be treated poorly in retaliation or something like that. It needs to be said though. Want to be lazy? Do it at home. You're trying your best to save people and you have no idea of you're actually killing them from...

My Mother died in that rat hole in 1999 of lung cancer. Before she died, they tortured her for days.Also the hospice dept came every day urging us to get her out of the hospital and into hospice. the final days were agonizing and the hospice staff administrator constantly hounded us to move her and interfered in us speaking to her as her life was slipping away. at one point she needed to have fluid drained from her lungs and they sent an intern up, the lung Dr staff refused to do the procedure and this very young girl came up with a needle that looked like from a horror movie and shoved it into my mother to draw the fluid out and she almost had a heart attack from it.....then they sealed the hole by shooting powder into her chest cavity and the assistant lung Dr a chinese man laughed as he viewed the xrays.....when I brought flowers into the room, the last flowers my Mother would ever see, a nurse came in foaming at the mouth and grabbed the flowers and took them out of her room and said they use up too much oxygen.....my Mother was a white woman and she shared a room with a 600 pound black female and the staff was black and they came in the room 15 times during 2 hours and checked the black woman and asked her 20 times if she wanted anything to drink and ignored my Mother completely. One day I came near the room and I heard the black woman yelling at my Mother and saying "DIE SOMEWHERE ELSE!" I asked the black staff to please move my Mother to another room and they laughed at me. I went to see the Director of Nursing and got on my hands and knees and begged him to move my Mother so she could die in peace. He called and had to argue on the phone with the black nurses to move her and they finally relented. That night, my brother was sleeping in the room on a cot they brought in, he told me that a nurse came in at 2 am and took Mom's vitals and left the room. He woke up when she came in and fell back to sleep. Just two hours later she was dead with her oxygen mask dangling off her face. You can't tell me that nurse did not know my Mother's death was imminent and could have told my brother so I could have rushed to the hospital to say goodbye. This was done on purpose. We are Jewish and in the "old" days when you were in a Jewish hospital and had a Jewish Dr, you could speak a few Yiddish words and wish them a Happy Passover etc but now, it seems the Jewish Drs go out of there way to show the non Jews there is no favoritism to the detriment of the Jewish patient. The lung dr was Jewish. After my Mother died, I went to a bereavement group led by a Jewish woman and she asked me to tell my story and as I mentioned how my Mother died she smiled ear to ear and I angrily asked her why she did that and she refused to answer me and said that I was "not ready yet" for her group. My Mother was served a cold meal as her last meal on earth and also had a needle shoved into her wrist that caused her excruciating pain on her last day alive. I asked why did you do that, " to check her blood oxygen levels". I said why not use the alligator clip put on the finger instead and the nurse snarled at me. Also after her kidney was removed the Jewish Dr ordered her OUT after 4 days and I said I would file a Medicare grievance and have a 30 day hold put on if he dared try a stunt like that and he backed off. We moved into Westbury in 1955 and when NS Hosp was built and staffed, it was a far cry from what it...