Complaint Review: Mercy San Juan Hospital

My daughter recently had a baby here and it was a nightmare experience.

First, she was told to come in but there were no beds available, and so after hours of waiting they sent her home. It is a small maternity ward where they try to move mothers in and out as quickly as possible. One of the doctors even prides himself on doing quick deliveries in order to open up rooms (did he wait tables when he was in med school!)

When she finally was admitted, her doctor who was on duty at the time, never once came to see her. Earlier, the doctor insisted that my daughter would deliver a 7 lb. baby, saying that she is always right in her determinations. She was wrong (the baby was almost 11 lbs), and if she would have done a better job then a lot of my daughter's nightmare could have been averted.

My daughter had made the decision to have as painless a birth as possible (yes, she did go into labor naively!) and so had an epidural. The first one worked for a while, but the anesthesiologist had to re-do it a second time. Their birthing rooms had no comfortable chair for the father to coach from, and there were no choices given as to how my daughter wanted to give birth. She ached with pain from the bed.

The quick delivery doctor (not her own) came in and without telling her what he was doing examined her and broke her waters, which was very painful, especially when she hadn't a clue to what was going on. After about 22 hours, they determined that she was ready to push which she did for at least and hour before the doctor realized that she was only 7 centimeters. The nurse told her that she was 10!!! While this nurse was very nice, obviously she didn't have a clue about how to take a measurement! So now because of all the hours of labor, and the pushing, the doctor finally admitted that the baby was turned wrong and so told my daughter that she would need a C-section. (She burst into tears at this news). While prepping her for that, the anesthesiologist couldn't make a spinal work and so they had to give her general anesthesia!

There is something wrong with a hospital who gives 11 C-sections in a 24 hour period! Everything is done for the ease and benefit of the doctors and staff, and very little consideration is given to the woman in labor. We found the staff to be mostly terse and impatient. When we finally saw the doctor on duty and asked how our daughter was, he simply said, She's fine. And he wasn't at that moment in a rush to get anywhere else.

There has got to be a better place in the Sacramento area to have a baby than this horrid hospital. I've never experienced a more incompetent group.

Nefhusan
Sunnyvale, California
U.S.A.