Brunswick Clinics - The Hospital Should Give Up
On a recent fishing trip with my sons it became apparent that we needed to get to a clinic pretty fast. My 10 year old cut his foot. In the old days this would mean a trip to the emergency room, but today in Glynn County we have several clinics that are in place to take care of moderate emergencies.
We first visited the clinic nearest us, that is run by Southeast Georgia Health System, off of Jet Port Road and are grateful that my son did not sever an artery in his mishap. When we first arrived my sons foot was bleeding profusely and we were using one of his dirty socks to apply pressure on his open wound. The only thing that the receptionist did at this point was make sure that I filled out the appropriate forms for them to see him and added our name to the list.
After waiting for 10 minutes I finally asked them to give us something clean for him to apply pressure to his bleeding foot and was met with disdain from the receptionist. She actually would have to get off her ass and do something besides talk on the phone. After it taking a few minutes for her to fill our request another patient was called to the rear, which looked to have an earache!!
Needless to say at this point it was time to leave this clinic and find someone that would be willing to at least examine my sons foot in a quick fashion. After I had wheeled him out to the car the receptionist did open the door to see if we would bring the wheel chair back into the building. This did not happen.
We went to Apple Care around the corner and my son was taken back immediately. He wound up getting four stitches on his big toe. OUCH!!
The difference displayed in the level of care was tremendous. At the clinic ran by the Southeast Georgia Health System we were treated like a number and triage was not performed. Sign in and wait, bleed to death in the process if that is what happens. At Apple Care it was treated like the mini emergency it was. Those with belly aches and runny noses got bumped by the kid bleeding from his foot.
I followed up this experience with a “Practice Manager” for Southeast Georgia Health Systems and explained my concerns. I was assured that this would not happen again and I would receive follow up. Well as expected that never happened either. I guess they have bigger thing to worry about, obviously having trained staff at the clinics is not one of them…
Well finally a different practice manager did contact me. Three weeks after the incident in quest and because their marketing department discovered this article.
Based on the conversation with the her I can see why customer service is not an issue with Southeast Georgia Regional Hospital.
She told me that the employee basically lied in their report of the incident and nothing was going to change with how customers are treated as a number when you enter their clinic.
First come first serve is the rule there. My opinion is don’t go there for a real emergency such as we experienced. The staff is not trained for proper triage of patients coming in the front door.
Anything more than an earache or cold you would be better off to to seek treatment elsewhere.