St. John's Hospital

My wife and I were recently at St. John's for the birth of our child. We have been there before and the experience was excellent. Even on this visit, the maternity staff was amazing. With that said, there is a glaring reason for the generous two star review. If you are considering St. John's maternity my advice is to call ahead to see how full they are and ask if there is a possibility of being transferred rooms. If there is a 1/1000 chance of being moved, look for a different hospital within your network. The day after my wife's schedule cesarian section we were approached about changing rooms to a different location in the hospital due to a busy unit and "too many labors". We were told the location was secure, staffed with maternity nurses, and the cases in that location were not severe. These selling points, however, were not accurate. The wing itself is a medical/surgical wing (P1). Once entering the wing we were brought to our room at the very end of the hallway. At this point we were the only room in our hallway with a maternity indicator on the door. The room itself was not adequate to a new family. The size of the room could barely fit the bed for mom and baby. In their maternity rooms they have a couch, chair, and back-up chairs in the closet. This room had no such extra seating. We were told they would bring in a chair for me (husband) "if he wants to stay the night". The chair itself folded down flat, but folding it down flat meant the door would be blocked and not allowed to open, preventing anyone from entering or leaving the room. The bathroom was small and cramped, but had to be utilized for my wife to pump. However, the lack of fridge in the room prevented anything from being stored on site. When our child's doctor came in she struggled to find a usable outlet because it was impossible to get to any behind the bed. She settled for the outlet in the bathroom. Needless to say, storing items in the room was next to impossible. With mom and the baby in the room there was barely enough room to walk around, let alone add a chair for a husband/partner. Forget about visitors. The nursing staff, while nice, were not maternity nurses. Some floated to maternity from time to time, but it was not their specific area. When our child had to return to maternity for newborn exams, she had to be picked up by nurses and aids from maternity and brought back to that unit. The wing itself was secure, but on one of my wife's walks she found three rooms with medical isolation carts out front. This does not create a baby friendly environment. Of course we do not know what was going on with other patients on the unit, but because of that concern my wife did not want to leave the room and was concerned about exposure to other illnesses. The room size, lack of maternity resources, and other unknowns on the wing led us to ask both my wife's and baby's doctors for an early discharge. Both doctors said they would ask to be discharged early too if they were staying in those conditions. The discharge paperwork was filed a full hour and twenty minutes before a nurse stopped by to tell us. The hospital staff then did not check with us before they sent my wife's prescriptions to a pharmacy that added 40 minutes to our ride home in the late afternoon. They could not be transferred due to the nature of the medications and time of day (pharmacies closing). Overall our experience was quite miserable once we transferred out of maternity with our newborn. We feel the hospital could have considered other options prior to our transfer off the unit. I may even have felt differently if we were transferred on day of discharge, but we were a mere 24 hrs after surgery and had 2 more nights/3 days left before discharge. We spoke with other individuals who went through this same undesirable experience at St. John's. We understand a unit can be busy, but think that the treatment and care of a family should not be compromised.