my fiance was at a routine appointment for his specialist who has an office at magee. He had an bump on the back of his head which became infected and started causing pain & stiffness down his neck. instead of heading to another hospital, he just decided to go to magee's ER since he was already there.
At first, they took his condition very seriously since he had pain and stiffness in his neck. They scheduled a CT scan at 1pm. He went back at 130 for it. it took the doctors forever to give the results of the scan. Obviously myself and his entire family were extremely worried and we were all waiting on answers.. but no one could give us any. He was given a tinyyyy triage room in the ER. he kept asking for results, but they were in the middle of a shift change and said he'd have to wait.
Finally 4 hours later (!!!!!!!) he demanded his results and was told he had a severe infection centimeters from his brain which had now spread down to his neck. If the infection became any closer to his skull, they would have to cut open his skull and scrape out the infection to avoid it hitting the brain. They "admitted" him and said he needed IV antibiotics immediately.... only it didn't happen immediately. Another hour later (5 hours after getting CT scan!!!) he had some antibiotics in his system.
He is a smoker and asked for a nicotine patch... it took 2 hours and multiple times asking to finally get one. He had arrived at the hospital around noon and was never given a menu. Finally 6 hours later the poor kid was finally given the option to eat. Please keep in mind that even though admitted, we were still in the tinyyyyyyy ER triage room. Finally at 9pm (9 hours after first getting to ER) we were given a room on the 5th floor.
So..... Why is this review 3 stars then if the care was so horrible? ..because of the absolutely amazing nurses and staff from unit 5800. They treated us so kind and genuine. It was a whole new world up there. After sitting in the ER for 9 hours with shitty care, we almost demanded to be transferred to Presby. Thankfully we never made that call and because of that he was treated like gold by the staff on Unit 5800. I asked why they were so much more kind and patient care tech said that the unit was for cancer patients and end-of-life patients.. she said you had to have compassion to work on that unit. They were absolutely amazing.
I would personally give them 5 stars but because of the care ive witnessed from staff in maternity ward as well as nurses & unit secretaries at ER, I have to give it an average 3 stars. I really hope Magee does something about the ER people. They treated my fiance completely horrible!!!! (except for Daniel who was his nurse).
Also I went to the cafeteria for coffee....they were out of coffee. I waited 2 minutes while standing in front of 5 workers to finish their convo about burnt almond torte to ask where to get more coffee. They all looked at me but kept their conversation going.
UPMC prides itself in top level care. Sadly (besides Unit 5800) I have never ever ever witnessed top level care at Magee Hospital. God forbid something would ever happen to me.. I told my family to NEVER send me to this hospital. Please re-train your staff on customer service, kindness, compassion because a few of them are lacking ALL of those traits!