I am a 29 year old first time mother. I am currently 21 weeks pregnant and throughout my pregnancy I have been dealing with the Kincardine South Bruce Grey County Medical Centre and, due to the fact that my family Doctor is now on vacation for the third time since August. Few of my dealings with doctors, nurses and secretaries have been acceptable over the last 4 months. I will start with my experience tonight as I walked passed a possible Ebola patient who was seated at the front doors of the Emergency department while the nurse grabbed her Haz Mat suit and got a pep talk on how to remain calm from the Doctor on duty. There was no sign posted on the front door to warn my husband and I of what we were walking into. As I walked by the poor young girl with blood shot eyes I though to myself ” wow something is really wrong with her”. As we walked through the second set of glass doors and sat down a frantic nurse in full outfit ( which was terrifying in itself to see) started herding myself and the other patients to the cafeteria located about 2 meters away from the emerg waiting room saying ” go in and don’t come out I have to bring someone in and you will not be protected in the hallway. I could see the girl through the window that looks from the cafeteria to the main entrance hallway sitting there as a lady walked passed her unsuspecting and grabbed the phone by her ( that the infected patient would have just used to call in that she had a cough). As everyone stood afraid in the cafeteria together there was a lot of chatter. Some people were discussing how to escape and if we could or not, others were amazed at the unprofessional way that the doctor had to calm the nurse down in front of them, and my husband and I could only think of our 21 week old daughter that is inside of me! My husband and I rushed out the same way we came in as soon as we could no longer see the infected girl , who also by the way is being treated unprofessionally. It is so great to see the nurses run for their own safety and leave a handful of about 15 people including a little baby under a year to fend for themselves!

That is just one of the terrible experiences that I have had with this hospital. Perhaps we could look at the time that the doctor told me that at 8 weeks pregnant that I had probably lost my baby and not to come back even if I was bleeding and cramping as miscarriages are a natural part of life.

Another lovely experience I had was just this morning. I am waiting to hear back about the fact that I have nitrates and blood in my urine. My Doctor is on holidays for 10 days with no one in the office for the entire time, nor is anyone covering her. Assuming that I have a urinary tract infection my doctor started me on medication. Friday I was so uncomfortable that I went to the emergency department. The Doctor was lovely and very thorough in his exam. They told me that they would call me with my results on Monday. No one called. So I called the emerg department and asked the secretary if I could please know whether I had a Urinary tract infection or not. She said no one in the building was authorized to give out those results and told me no news was good news. I asked that she would please find out for me as I know something is wrong and I need to know what it is. She said ” If I don’t call you back it means I am not allowed to give you any information.”
I hung up very frustrated. She called back a few minutes later and said my test results were negative. I asked How I could have nothing wrong with me if I had pain and that I had nitrated and blood in my urine to which she said ” I thought you said your doctor was on vacation?” I took offense to this question as I still have not been told after I have done 2 urine tests, one with my family doctor on Wednesday and another at emerg on Friday, whether or not I am ok and my doctor is not taking calls until a week from now. The secretary rudely recommended that I should be seen by a doctor again.

So I have the option to go to the hospital with the ” Ebola” outbreak, Drive an hour away, or wait uncomfortably until my doctor returns.

I would appreciate knowing that something is going to be done with this hospital from nurses knitting with their backs to what they think is an empty waiting room to phones that are never answered to all that I have described something should be done. There are a lot of young people out of school and unemployed who are falling through the cracks of our country and unable to pay bills or take care of families watching these people who could care less about their jobs or the people that they are supposed to be helping. There are a lot of young people who could run circles around this pathetic and arrogant staff. I could go on all day with the stories I have accumulated through the last months. Some of the staff there is lovely and hard working, however the majority seems to be fine to just make it through the day still employed. I assume there is not much that the public can do about how they are treated even though my modest house-hold alone pays 2400 dollars a month in taxes.If there is no standard to health care, nor any discipline that is extremely sad. I hope this lengthy letter will be taken seriously.