Memorial Hospital West

Pain scale was assessed regularly and they actually responded to it.

I need to share a negative experience because I believe accountability matters. My 72-year-old mother came to the ER with severe abdominal pain. She was triaged and waited 7 hours before being seen by a doctor. During that wait, she was in visible distress and we asked multiple times for pain relief and were told the doctor hadn't seen her yet so they couldn't give medication. When she was finally evaluated, they discovered she needed emergency gallbladder surgery. She went to the OR and the surgery went fine - no complaints about the surgeon. However, post-operatively she developed a fever that wasn't addressed for over 24 hours. Multiple nurses noted it in the chart but no one escalated it until her temperature hit 103. Turned out she had an infection that required IV antibiotics for an additional 5 days. I'm not a medical professional but common sense says a rising fever after surgery should be addressed promptly, not ignored until it becomes critical. When I raised my concerns with the patient advocate, I was met with empathy but no concrete explanation of what went wrong or what would change. The billing department then sent us a bill that included charges we disputed. That process took 4 months to resolve. The surgical care was good. Everything around it - the wait times, the fever response, the billing - was unacceptable for a hospital of this size and reputation. I share this not to trash the hospital but to push for improvement. My mother deserved better.

My son's scoliosis was monitored here for 3 years. Thorough follow-up.