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Posts Tagged ‘Avoid Santa Cabrini’

Hospital: Santa Cabrini, St-Leonard (Montreal)
It was December 2006 and my boyfriend at the time started coughing up blood. He was rushed from RDP to Santa Cabrini by ambulance, “because that hospital had room”. Well, no kidding. Worst hospital in the world.

They checked him out, noticed something on his lungs, did some X-rays. Sent him home. He had a few meetings with the Chief Surgeon, one of which occured in the hospital hallway. Whatever happened to “Doctor-Patient confidentiality”, especially when just behind him, there’s a poster advertising it?? Mr. Doctor stood in the hallway, some file folders in one arm and his coat over the other, obviously on his way out.

He was to have some other check-ups, however they kept getting bumped. Seems if you’ve got a friend who schedules appointments there, or if you’re Italian, you get preferential treatment and get bumped up in the queue.

A few months went by and he started coughing up blood again. This was June 2007. He was once again admitted to Santa Cabrini, ended up having an operation to have the lung “cleaned up”. They FINALLY did a biopsy (7 months after the first sign that should have indicated that there was a big problem). He had tubes coming out of his side for days.

He was eventually taken off the drain, sewn up, and was told he could go home. Before he left, they told him “Monday is St-Jean Baptiste, call back on Tuesday and schedule an appoitment with the oncologist in two weeks”. Really… wait two weeks to meet with the oncologist??

The day finally came for his appointment, the oncologist looked at his file, pointed out that it looked like he had a small tumor on his testicle, and told him to come back the following day to meet “the Specialist”.

FINALLY, a doctor who was COMPETANT in that good for nothing hospital. This particular doctor, or specialist, floats around from hospital to hospital and takes cases. He took one look at my boyfriend’s file, asked him what the hell he was doing there, told him not to even bother going home to get clothes, to head straight to St-Mary’s hospital and that they’d be waiting for him in Emergency.

Turned out that his testicular cancer had become Stage 4 cancer and luckily had not reached his brain, but had come pretty close… it had damaged his lungs pretty badly.

Two to three weeks in ICU, an operation to remove the affected testicle, eight weeks of chemotherapy and a blood transfusion… thanks, Santa Cabrini, for being such a GREAT hospital… and I’m saying that with the utmost sarcasm.

His father was also forced to go to that hospital for prostate cancer and a hernia, and his appointments were also hard to get. He’d have one, and it would get bumped because of some lame reason.

If you need medical attention, go to a REAL hospital. Avoid Santa Cabrini like the plague.

E.B.