It was first announced that TVRH was granted a CON for a new hospital in Brownwood. I know that is about to expire. I have heard a RUMOR that Watermann is trying to get into that area. At our General Staff meetings at the hospital I get the feeling that TVRH cannot afford a new hospital, ergo the switch to the new ED plan. That might help with the Ambulance issue but my neighbor went in an ambulance, was triaged, and still sat in the waiting room for 6 hours. I think the hospital needs to hear from you all. The only time I went to the ER it was not a long wait. Besides they might see me as a disgruntled employee. Just a suggestion.
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Sally Bowron
Cincinnati, Ohio; Buttonwood TV

copied/pasted the above......

Thank you Sally for your input in this thread! I think what you have said makes alot of sense. So many of us have a bad experience (doesn't matter where) and we just complain about it w/o actually going to the source, or above to share our concerns (albeit complaints). Nothing will change unless there is knowlege......

I still stand though and say that all hospitals (even what we deem the best) will have instances where they fall short of excellence. Because we all are humans we all make mistakes. I know when it concerns life or death, or is personal that doesn't fare well...but it is true.

We literally just returned from the ED about an hour ago. My husband was treated with great care and concern. I did notice patients in the hallway, waiting for a room to open up in the ED. But every patient in this position was still accompanied by the EMTs who brought them in. They did not leave until the patient got a bed.

I,too, am sorry about your experience, but I feel the fact that you were asked to wait indicated that they had triaged others who were in worse shape than you were at the time. I truly think the ED staff do the best they can for their patients. I KNOW nobody in ED wakes in the morning thinking, "I'm going to treat patients badly today just for the heck of it."

Well, if you folks would simply schedule your emergencies well in advance, we wouldn’t have this problem. The ER could then more efficiently adjust their staffing levels accordingly.

I'm so sorry for your bad experience.

We moved here a year ago. The Husband was diagnosed with lymphoma, treated successfully at the Moffit center, he's in full remission.

I had ankle surgery in Orlando, physical therapy locally, very happy with results.

Four months ago I was having severe abdomen pain, diverticulitis, treated with medication, the pain continued. Early one morning I knew I was going south, I told the husband I needed to go to ER. I was petrified because I heard TV hospital horror stories. I was taken in and evaluated, the next day I had emergency surgery for a perforated colon, I was near deaths door. I needed a colostomy bag also. They saved my life, I was a very sick and was hospitalized for 10 days. The treatment I received at The Village hospital was outstanding, my surgeon very competent. Four weeks ago the same surgeon reversed my colostomy bag. I have my wonderful rear-end back. ( I love her so much). Once again, I was treated well at The Village hospital, there was a few issues, but the husband was my advocate and took it under control.

We have also found an excellent internist. I see her on a regular basis, she's on top of my medical issues.

I wish you the best, please don't give up, there is excellent medical care here. Sometimes it's just tough finding your way.

OH my dear girl. I am so glad to hear this happy ending and many hugs for your ordeal. SO GLAD you are o.k.

I agree with you...I think if I was to get sick I would go back to NY..My mother passed away 2 weeks ago from cancer and we didnt even know she was dying from bone and spine cancer until the third time we took her to the hospital and the nurse turned her over and felt a lump on her breast she asked me if my mother never had cancer and I told her yes 14 years ago ..that is when they took more test and told me she had cancer in her bones..We have been living here for 3 years and going to the doctor for blood work and follow up and never once did they ever say she had cancer.she has been complaing of pains but they always said it was her age she was 93 and her bones were getting weak..she was only in the hospital 3 days and in hospice for 3 days and passed away it was a shock to me that my mother was dying of cancer and I didnt even know it...I will ask ques and go futher on certain things when I go to my doctor from now on....

I took my husband to the ER around 11:00 PM one night. He was in bad shape so they took him in the back to an area to be seen. The bed wasn't a regular bed, his legs hung over the end. At 2:00 AM I left and went home. He didn't get admitted till the next afternoon at 2:00 PM. His doctor came in and admitted him, he didn't see a doctor till then.

He had 4 doctors and 3 of them misdiagnosed him. The one that got it right had scans that his office misdiagnosed 3 months earlier They had been watching a spot on his lung. Needless to say, he has stage 4 lung cancer.

Linda

Gamby, you leave alot of questions to your post. Did you PCP order a chest xray and antibiotics? Did you call during regular business hours and get a recording and, if so, did you call back? I know of no MD in the area that does not have an after hours answering service and, if yours doesn't, the problem is your choice of MD, not TVRH.
If you were as ill as you state, why didn't you call 911 instead of transporting yourself? You state you left because of the long wait; did you go to another hospital where you received immediate care or did you go home? If you went home, obviously you were not that sick! As an RN-BSN, I am tired of people being so critical of TVRH.
Are you aware of the folks that abuse the EDs at all hospitals nationwide? People with problems that could be addressed at PCP offices, an urgent care center, people without insurance that have nowhere else to go because they are refused care elsewhere...the list goes on. If you feel that TVRH does not meet your needs, then please move...it seems you are abusing the ED like others who shouldn't be there.
I hope this post is not rejected by this site...both sides of the issue needs to be posted.

My only comment to your post is that I do not think people who have no insurance and nowhere else to go because they are refused care elsewhere are abusing the ER's when they go there.

I think the "abuse" of the ER she refers to is the type of complaint that is ridiculously minor, not the fact that they couldn't be treated elsewhere because of lack of money or insurance.

Honest, thinking people often don't know that ER's have a large portion of scammers who call it an "emergency" when they have something that literally, a school nurse would put a band-aid on or give 2 Tylenol for it.

But when you're not going to pay the bill, why be concerned about what's a "true" emergency?

Sorry state of healthcare in The Villages area
 

Your eyesight is, regret to say, perfect about the general state of healthcare services for The Villages, particularly The Villages Hospital. This is one of the several reasons the Developer has teamed with the University of South Florida to establish a new healthcare system in the area. However, that solution is several years away from opening.

A number of Villagers visit Mayo Clinic Jacksonville for annual check-ups and then monitoring and coordination with the patient's local primary care doc throught the year. Our "local" primary care doc (for the last 8 years) is in Windermere; his is a so-called "concierge practice." We need to see him tomorrow; we call today; they give us a time; we drive one hour and get seen on time, no later than a 15 minute wait -- which beats ALL the unprofessional, uncaring and arrogant docs around here where you take 15 to 20 minutes to drive there and then wait for an hour and a half and more to be taken to a room and another half hour wait for the doc to condescend to see you. We have our primary care doc's cell phone number and can -- and do -- reach him 24x7 if we have an emergency.

Part of the new USF/Villages planned/desired healthcare system is to include a concierge doc component. Whether they can successfully -- for the patient -- pull it off remains to be seen. Successful concierge practices around the US are NOT institutional, they are entrepreneurial. The future Villages/USF healthcare system is going to be institutional; that's their challenge.

If you decide to move elsewhere in Florida seeking a quality healthcare environment, do NOT be misguided or misled by popular press lists such as the US News list of Best Hospitals in the US. In their 2012 list, for Florida they chose Tampa General Hospital. For knowledgeable healthcare management professionals personally suffering high cholesterol, reading that hospital rating caused more cardiac arrests than did their heart disease!

The Orlando area's Florida Hospital system is a much better area choice than is Tampa Bay. However, Florida Hospital's Celebration Health facility, which offers world-class high-tech destination medical specialty services, has a horrible waiting time problem in its ER, because Celebration Health is the closest ER trauma center to the theme parks, and everyone with a bleed or break or contusion of one kind or another gets sent there. Other Orlando hospital ERs are quicker with equal quality outcomes. There are, however, two concierge practices in Celebration and several in greater Orlando.

Good luck with your search and personal management of your healthcare resources.

Well, I had a heart attack just over a year ago and I could not be more satisfied with the excellent care that I got, first from the EMT's, then in the Emergency Room, and finally from the cardiologist assigned to me. The only unpleasant incicdent was when the person in charge of billing got me so upset because she insisted on "shaking me down" while I was still bedridden because she wanted to resolve payment for the hospital stay. I finally got the billing department at the Leesburg location to intervene and all was well.
Perhaps when the 'Affordable Healthcare Act' takes effect we will have the healthcare that all of us are deserving of.

EdV Well stated and spot on. These types of stories are ongoing. I opt for the Munro Medical Community and have found the doctors to be excellent and their staff very responsive.

Hopefully TV Hospital will eventually get its house in order perhaps they need new management?

I think this can happen in any city. Suggest you do a little research on your local options before you give up.

:agree:

IMHO.......Munroe in Ocala is a very good facility.