[Hancle704]

Problem still occurring at TVRH. Today, my neighbor went to ER with Chest pains. No beds in ER so he was seen seen, sent for testing, IV started and then returned to waiting room. The bottleneck IMO, is open beds "upstairs" in hospital, but no nurses . So folks remain in a bed or gurney in ER or out in waiting room until more nursing staff is brought in. This situation occurs now, unlike peak season when there are nurses but no rooms. Meanwhile TV continues to grow, but there does not appear to be a plan in place to manage this problem at TVRH. My wife just spent and extra weekend in hospital occupying a bed because they had no Physical Therapist available to do an assessment of her post hospital needs.

[villages07]

Originally Posted by Hancle704

Problem still occurring at TVRH. Today, my neighbor went to ER with Chest pains. No beds in ER so he was seen seen, sent for testing, IV started and then returned to waiting room. The bottleneck IMO, is open beds "upstairs" in hospital, but no nurses . So folks remain in a bed or gurney in ER or out in waiting room until more nursing staff is brought in. This situation occurs now, unlike peak season when there are nurses but no rooms. Meanwhile TV continues to grow, but there does not appear to be a plan in place to manage this problem at TVRH. My wife just spent and extra weekend in hospital occupying a bed because they had no Physical Therapist available to do an assessment of her post hospital needs.

Hancle.... I can validate your story. Spent more than Six hours at ER today accompanying someone else. He gave up and went home when they said it might be two hours more. If they had communicated better we could have made other, better choices...like Leesburg ER or new ER up on 441. Very poorly run. I am proud of many things about The Villages and the ancillary businesses, but, I am ashamed at how the ER is run. He got the same story about beds upstairs being full.

By the way, I checked TVRH website at the midpoint and it said wait time was 0 minutes. What a farce. Yes, they are quick at checkin and triage but a long, long wait to see a doc.

This is on a Wednesday morning in late May. I can only imagine what it's like on a Saturday night in March!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[dbussone]

Originally Posted by villages07

Hancle.... I can validate your story. Spent more than Six hours at ER today accompanying someone else. He gave up and went home when they said it might be two hours more. If they had communicated better we could have made other, better choices...like Leesburg ER or new ER up on 441. Very poorly run. I am proud of many things about The Villages and the ancillary businesses, but, I am ashamed at how the ER is run. He got the same story about beds upstairs being full.

By the way, I checked TVRH website at the midpoint and it said wait time was 0 minutes. What a farce. Yes, they are quick at checkin and triage but a long, long wait to see a doc.

This is on a Wednesday morning in late May. I can only imagine what it's like on a Saturday night in March!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

TVRH has just added new inpatient beds. And expanded the ER, as well as a holding unit for patients who are staying overnight or waiting for an inpatient bed. If they don't have sufficient nursing/technical staff in off-season, as you imply, that says a lot to me. Staff can also include the ER docs and hospitalists. All can create bottlenecks.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

[Hancle704]

Update on this thread that started in January 2017. Today May 26th the expansion of hospital is supposedly almost complete, there is still some minor construction between ER waiting room and Triage Nurse's station, seasonal visitors have left and today the ER was overloaded, with patients on gurneys and chairs inside the ER, a crowd in waiting room waiting to be seen, 30 patients in ER waiting to be admitted and sent up to rooms and nothing has changed. Why? If there are rooms why does hospital not have enough nursing staff. The bottleneck continues despite all of the expansion. Guess it is just a matter of more homes being sold every month and the hospital is failing to meet the growth curve. There has been a significant increase in urgent care facilities in and around the Villages to handle non life threatening issues, so one must ask what has gone wrong with "America's Healthiest Community"? Do we need another hospital or a new management team and quite possibly competitive wages to attract more nurses? IMO this situation will continue to worsen unless things change rapidly.

[JoMar]

You all do know this isn't a hospital associated with The Villages right?

[Dan9871]

Originally Posted by Xaribe

I have been trying to educate myself on TV. My brother, who lives in Bradenton, said to avoid TV. I was concerned because I have not found much negative about TV until now. The houses and other activities seem fine, yet dental and healthcare seem very lacking with many stories sounding like elderly abuse. I have UHC Advantage, but live in the Northeast. My wife had Merkel Cell Cancer for which medical costs approached $80K, but my out of pocket was at best $1500. So medical care is paramount for me. After reading the responses, I may forget TV. I have never heard so many horror stories. My wife gets a CAT scan every 6 months, and we are 3 yrs now with nothing found.

I do want to thank everyone for providing the information.

Of course you have to decide for yourself about medical care in the villages.

But just to give you another data point to consider...

My wife and I also have UHC Advantage and use Villages Health. She has had serious medical issues this year and been in the ER numerous times, both at TVH and Ocala Regional Medical Center. Both seem to be very busy, have lot's of patients in gurneys in the hallways and take forever to get admitted to the hospital, usually due to lack of beds.

I know that some the doc's and medical people that respond on here on TOTV say that TVH ER needs improvements but from what little I know of ER's it seems about the same as most, at least from a patient's point of view.

But the overall care and quality in the hospitals and from the medical people has been very good. We both feel it is more than equal to what had when we lived in Eastern Mass.

As far as medical costs so far for my wife the cost on paper from the doc's and hospitals is over $280,000. Our out of pocket so far is almost $4500 plus what we pay for Medicare. The UHC Advantage plan we have limits our out of pocket to $4500 so we are just about done with out of pocket for this year.

We've haven't had any issue finding a good PCP or specialists, or getting the tests my wife needs. We've depended on our PCP's recommendations and it has worked out very well.

One time a provider that UHC said we had to use was about 40 minutes away. We found another in the Villages and asked UHC for an exception based strictly on convenience for us. UHC only to one day to approve it without anything more than filling out a request form.

[Hancle704]

Originally Posted by JoMar

You all do know this isn't a hospital associated with The Villages right?

I know, not that it makes any difference. I also know that it was built where Harold Schwartz said it would be built during his lifetime. I also recall when it opened with 60 beds it was already too small and I recall when the hospital needed a hospital taxing authority it was proposed in the Fl Legislature. This proposal despite predictions that hospital would not expand if the referendum was not passed, was voted down by the voters after hearing that part of the money it would raise would go to a developer foundation. Somehow money was raised and what is there after at least 2 expansions is still not capable of meeting today's demands with most or all of the seasonal visitors having left. Concerned if it can't meet today's demands where will ambulances take you during the next peak season when they go on divert. For sure it won't be "golf cart accessible".

[NotGolfer]

Originally Posted by Dan9871

Of course you have to decide for yourself about medical care in the villages.

But just to give you another data point to consider...

My wife and I also have UHC Advantage and use Villages Health. She has had serious medical issues this year and been in the ER numerous times, both at TVH and Ocala Regional Medical Center. Both seem to be very busy, have lot's of patients in gurneys in the hallways and take forever to get admitted to the hospital, usually due to lack of beds.

I know that some the doc's and medical people that respond on here on TOTV say that TVH ER needs improvements but from what little I know of ER's it seems about the same as most, at least from a patient's point of view.

But the overall care and quality in the hospitals and from the medical people has been very good. We both feel it is more than equal to what had when we lived in Eastern Mass.

As far as medical costs so far for my wife the cost on paper from the doc's and hospitals is over $280,000. Our out of pocket so far is almost $4500 plus what we pay for Medicare. The UHC Advantage plan we have limits our out of pocket to $4500 so we are just about done with out of pocket for this year.

We've haven't had any issue finding a good PCP or specialists, or getting the tests my wife needs. We've depended on our PCP's recommendations and it has worked out very well.

One time a provider that UHC said we had to use was about 40 minutes away. We found another in the Villages and asked UHC for an exception based strictly on convenience for us. UHC only to one day to approve it without anything more than filling out a request form.

I have to agree with this! We too have had numerous occassions of transport to both Leesburg hospital and The Villages Hospital as well as admittance to both. No issues except maybe the long ER waiting room wait (if you're a walk-in). I think rather than renumerating on social media sites folks should all band together and call as well as write the admins with their complaints. Perhaps then, management will do something for improvements. I'm not educated on what it takes to run a hospital so perception as a consumer is where I come from. I can't complain about our health care here since we have UHC through T.V. and it's served our needs well.

[Xaribe]

thank you very much for that input. I will also relay the info to my wife. I am sure the data will be very helpful, again, thanks