St. Elizabeth's Complaint - any shared stories?
I'm about 4 months along in my pregnancy, and I have been to St. E's now at least 6 times for routine blood work and ultrasounds,
and the "tour" of their labor and delivery area.
It has been horribly
underwhelming. It seriously induces anxiety to try to navigate the
hallways and elevators and uninformed/rude/condescending staff members
and medical staff. I was planning to deliver there because my doctor is
really caring and only works out of this hospital, but as my doctor
says, this is supposed to be a happy time in your life.....going to St.
E's or thinking about heading there for the biggest medical event of my
life does not bring happiness, just dread.
As my husband says, they
simply have a service delivery problem. I say they have a complete lack
of customer service and always seem too busy to care. I have had
important phone messages unreturned, at least a 45 minute wait each time for both of my
scheduled appointments, a 5 minute tour of the labor area that I drove
30 minutes to get to, and serious delays with getting the reports from
my diagnostics back to my doctor so we could review them.
Also
important to note is that I think I would like to try to have a natural
delivery, but all of their practices, and their 39% c-section rate
indicate that is not their priority.
I plan to change doctors and
hospitals (most likely Newton-Wellesley), and I feel like I needed to share my experience with other expecting moms in the hope that this will save someone else some time and
stress in making their decision.
Any shared stories, or words of encouragement?
Re: St. Elizabeth's Complaint - any shared stories?
I must tell you that I had a very pleasant experience at St. Elizabeth's despite a very unpleasant situation. My water broke at 34 weeks 2 days so my son would be delivered early. I was set up with Pitocin to get things moving and all and all it took 36 hours before he was born, naturally. No one EVER mentioned c-section to me. I was consistently checked on and tended to throughout part 1 of our ordeal. And it had nothing to do with my doctor because he apparently was out of town and NEVER came to check on me or check in until the day of my discharge.
Because of the early delivery my son was admitted to the NICU. For the most part the doctors and nurses were terrific. If my son had been born anywhere else he would have been transferred to Children's because of the Level 3 care needed. I was able to stay at St. Elizabeth's even after being discharged because they had room and I needed to be close to my son (I live 20/25 minutes away.)
Anyway, being at St. Elizabeth's made a very difficult situation as easy as it could possibly be.
I have nothing to share on St. E's, but if you do decide to switch, Mt Auburn is my recommendation. Granted I havent really looked around much. I am a nursing student and I did my maternity rotation at Mt Auburn. I was there for 6 weeks and I loved it. They are very supportive of any birth plans. They just underwent some major renovations. It is also where I plan on giving birth. The only thing they dont do is water births. They have tubs for laboring in, but dont do the birthing in there.
Good luck!!
I have had 2 complicated pregnancies both with St. E's and I can't say enough good things about the hospital and staff. I could go on and on for days but I loved it there and my labor and delivery went great and the fact that they are a smaller hospital made me feel like I was the only one there getting care. Sorry you have not had such a great first impression.
I don't know anything about St. E's, but I nearly wound up delivering at MGH (long story) and was in the L&D ward there for 3 days, and loved it. My friends who have delivered at Newton-Wellesley have all had wonderful experiences. In fact my good friend is a NICU nurse and very familiar with L&D at different hospitals in the area, and when I told her I was pg she immediately suggested delivering at NWH.
I delivered at Salem Hospital which was also good, but probably not a convenient location for you.