The Villages Hospital
 

Last week i came down with kidney stones, let me say they are very very painful. The attack came on fast. With the pain i went to the Villages Hospital. I was told there is a five hour wait in the emergancy room yes 5 hours.

I drove to Leesburg hospital and it was almost an hour. I can"t believe five hour wait. I was in buisness for years and this sounds like mismanagement. With the amount of people and the age in the villages its just not right. Befor i decided to tell this i called to se how much of a wait the other night. I didn"t get the answer i was hoping for. It was the same about five hours. Been talking with nieghbors and seems people know this is more common than not.

I enjoy the Villages and how nice it is But know i am scared to get hurt here with this situation. Would like to hear from others.

Last year when we took our grandson with an Asthma attack they took him in immediately and treated him...before our daughter completed her insurance verification.

Our next door neighbors house guest had a gall bladder attack and he was seen right away, admitted and had surgery the next day.

They said that to you? That there was a five hour wait? Like at a restaurant?

Oh MY!!

A couple of years ago, my doctor ordered a lumbar myleogram which involves a lumbar puncture with a needle to get to the spinal fluid. After the procedure, you are supposed to lay flat for 4 hours to make sure the spinal leak plugs up. If you don't, you can get the world's worst headache that only eases when you lay down. Within one minute of elevating your head, the headache is so severe you get nauseous. Well, the Villages Hospital had me up and out of there 45 minutes after the procedure, and actually called me 1/2 hour after I got home to come back in as some CT pictures needed to be redone. So up I got and went down there where I reported to everyone I had a headache and could I lay down. No, there were no beds available and they made me wait 45 minutes for the CT to be available. Three days of the most excrutiating pain I have ever had later, they had to do a blood patch which is injecting your own blood to coagulate and patch the spinal fluid leak. I couldn't sue because there was no permanent damage so I wrote a complaint letter to every organization imaginable. While I received the most heartfelt of apologies from Lake Medical Imaging, no one at the hospital ever called to simply say "I'm sorry". Because of this, we will never use that hospital again and only go to Munroe Regional in Ocala.

Graciegirl, this was my 1st reaction, you beat me to it!

Went to TVH with severe tachycardia. Had to wait one hour until finished with insurance and finally got seen. Totally unacceptable.

..

When my wife broke her arm, we arived at TVRH ER at 7:30 p.m. She was seen at 2:30 a.m. We went home at 4 a.m.

The hospital apologized. Over and out.

We have just experienced two visits to the ER in March and spent approx 16 hours total in the ER. It is my opinion that the ER is not that busy. It is used as a holding area for people that need to be admitted into the hospital. They try to only take someone from the waiting room into ER when there is a vacant bed, which only happens when someone checks out of the hospital. There is even a TV set in every ER room and meals are brought in for patients.

The first time we were taken back within 30 minutes, but my husband needed attention. The ER halls were lined with beds and all were full. The place was packed.

The second time, we first went to an Urgent Care Center, to avoid the ER. They found my husband to be in CHF (congestive heart failure) and possible pneumonia, and sent him directly to the ER where we waited FOUR hours. I was quite concerned, but the triage nurse did not consider it urgent. IOW, no room at the Inn. When we did get into the ER, he had a bed in the hall for a short time. The halls had several occupied beds, but it was not as packed as the first visit.

I do think the care was good, once you get into the ER, and they are not going to let you die while you are waiting, but there is just no room to take you in ER.

For broken bones and cuts, go to an Urgent Care Center. For life and death problems, go to the ER, by AMBULANCE. You get in the back door.

My husband is doing well, after a total of eight days in the hospital. We are going to Mayo next week to see his cardiologist.

This is the height of the season, and our 1st trip was on a Saturday afternoon and the next, on an early Friday afternoon.

Comparing a "bad night" in a restaurant to a "bad night" at the hospital is absurde.

"I'm sorry Mrs. Smith, the heart surgeon was having a bad night, your husband is dead. I'm sure you understand, things happen. Give us another chance on another day, we really do better. Everybody has a bad day once in a while." :shocked:

I couldn't figure out what you meant...Bad night at a restaurant..reread everything and then ....decided you were talking about my post.

I did say in a post on this thead.

"That is what they said? A five hour wait? Like in a restaurant? "

I meant it to sound absurd. It seems so incredible.

I was trying to envision someone saying that at a hospital. "There will be a five hour wait."

I have waited in many an emergency room, not here but in my life. I have waited for hours. I am guessing that the triage nurse did not rate my injury or my family members emergency as serious as others. But no one ever said it would be a five hour wait, or a ten hour wait.

I don't know how a staff member could gage just how long a wait it would be.

Colin was taken in right away because breathing emergencies are seen first.

As well as a bleeding emergency or a person in shock.

I never thought I was being picked on, or that the hospital was understaffed. I just thought that someone else was dying and we weren't.

Nurses were busy and clerical personnel when quizzed would say something like "We are really busy tonight". That was in those other hospitals in other emergency rooms.

Is the message coming through all these posts that, given the size and demographics of the TV population, we need a larger hospital or a second hospital? When we initially looked at TV a couple of years ago, we toured TVRH and, if memory serves, occupancy was far below 100% implying that beds were available immediately ... apparently that has changed as the population has grown ...

The tone here worries me. I see a return to conditions which the folks at the POA spent so many newspaper columns condemning a while back!

My last visit to an ER in St. Louis ended up taking over 8 hours from arrival to hospital admittance. The largest and most widely-respected hospital in a city with many, many facilities. I was absolutely appalled and at my wit's end; but, in the end, my wife received superb care.

As I personally believe she would have had here, had she even been here to accompany me to TV!

SWR
:beer3:

2nd hospital in TV has been condemned here
 

I remember clearly, reading in all the outcry about the developer and bringing Moffitt Cancer Center here, that many here think it is outrageous and a waste of money and "duplication of services/facilities" to build the 2nd TVRH hospital in the southern end of TV, south of 466A.

Now we see reality coming to the surface in living color. But I suppose the experts here still maintain they know more than TVRH and TV management.

Want small wait times at existing ER, and don't want a 2nd hospital to be built because you're "right" about knowing more about how to run the hospital system.

Can't have it both ways.

Why not just go to one of the "urgent care" facilities in The Villages, and if they can't take care of the problem, they will call 911 and you will be taken to the hospital and probably be seen right away.

Here in RI and most other area's I have been associated with over last few years. If you go to an ER, unless you are in serious shape. You can expect a wait. That is just a fact of life today. If it is serious enough you will be seen in a timely manner.

Just my thoughts