My father was undergoing chemotherapy at another facility in Florida. He had been losing a lot of weight due to the treatment. The treatment had been working and he was on maintenance chemo. He had developed Aspergillosis in his right sinus a few months ago, and had been put on medication which was working better than anticipated. Instead of holding the infection at bay, which the doctor had expected, the infection was actually going away.
In the meantime, he began losing weight due to a loss of taste. His weight got very low, and he was referred for surgery to install a feeding tube. My father's doctor expected this procedure to solve the problem. He was admitted to SGMC on May 19, 2015 for the surgery. He underwent the surgery, and the doctors were very pleased with the outcome and expected him to make a full recovery. That was on Wednesday, May 20, 2015. My mother was staying with him and would stay as late as she could before going home for the night. She left late the night of Thursday, May 21, 2015, and my father was alert, talking, no problems.
She received a call Friday morning on May 22, 2015 before she left home to go back to SGMC that my father had been "found" unresponsive. My mother rushed to the hospital, and called me at work to let me know. She told me the doctors told her that he wasn't expected to make it another twenty-four hours. I only had a couple of hours left at work, so I planned to go as soon as I got off. My father passed away about 1:35 p.m. that day. We were told my father had aspirated the nutrients which caused him to become unresponsive. This makes it apparent that he wasn't raised up to the proper angle prior to feeding. If he had been, there would have been no way he could possibly have aspirating something going directly into his stomach.
Having been in charge of a facility myself for some years as part of my career, it was apparent to me that night staff did not make the regular checks they should have throughout the night. This is one of the battles I had to fight with after hours staff myself. It sometimes resulted in an internal affairs investigation when we had an incident occur as a result of the failure to perform these duties. When administration leaves any given facility, things typically change. This is apparently the case at SGMC. It's obvious night staff failed to check on my father regularly through the night. I don't expect there to be any evidence of their negligence in hospital records as I'm sure those have been thoroughly falsified.
After his death, it took two weeks to get the death certificate, so we suspected the doctor was trying to figure out what to list as the cause of death to cover the hospital's obvious negligence. When my mother finally received it, she called me to tell me what it said. The cause was supposedly Pneumonia as a consequence of the aspiration (don't know the exact medical terms for this the doctor used as I don't have a copy in front of me) as a consequence of Aspergillosis. The Aspergillosis had nothing to do with anything, and was not the reason for my father's hospitalization in the first place. It seems very odd this all happened in a matter of a few hours without any hospital staff having any clue there was a problem before it got to this point.
During the six years I lived in Valdosta, I would hear people talking around town in stores and other places of business how they had either gone or would rather go to the former Smith Hospital in Hahira quite frequently. The common thread was the substandard care at SGMC. The occurrences of such conversations were unusually frequent considering I never knew very many people there and these were purely coincidental overheard conversations. This was from 1978-1984. Now I know why there was such a widespread low opinion of SGMC. It seems things haven't changed in all those years.
If you value your health or that of your loved one, and hospitalization is required, go elsewhere. Unfortunately for Valdosta area residents, SGMC has bought up a number of area hospitals including Smith Hospital. This leaves residents with either taking their chances locally or travelling a considerable distance to receive care as is evidenced by SGMC's responses to negative reviews here and the list of hospitals they now own. The fact that this hospital can only muster an average rating of 3.7 out of 5 after nearly 480 reviews shows SGMC has continued on-going problems. From reading other reviews, the problems are not limited to one department or area.
If I still lived there, I would have a medical dog tag made that would read, "Do Not Transport to Any SGMC facility." I would rather take my chances on the highway than to receive treatment there.
Watch out for this doctor he will make you wait so he can charge you out of your butt. I was bring in by ambulance with chest pains and I was left alone with no nurse. The first nurse that come into my room was at lunch time when her shift started. Dr.Owens was no where to be found and was sitting on his lazy a*s. He walked into my room finally after me being there for 4 long hours with some very serious pain and about to die from a blood clot. He talked to my mom for 5 minutes and said well he has a blood clot and turned around and walked off as I was rushed to emergency surgery. If it wasn't for a nurse that was willing to do her job I would be dead right now because Dr.Owens is doing nothing but stealing money from people. He isn't a doctor at all he is someone that just wants a paycheck and I very big one at that. If you ever have to go to the er it would be with the drive to go some where else. I called the company that Dr.Owens works for and they said you have to pay your bill because he did his job very well. All I can say to that is they and Dr.Owens are full of s*.
South Georgia Medical Center Reviews
My father was undergoing chemotherapy at another facility in Florida. He had been losing a lot of weight due to the treatment. The treatment had been working and he was on maintenance chemo. He had developed Aspergillosis in his right sinus a few months ago, and had been put on medication which was working better than anticipated. Instead of holding the infection at bay, which the doctor had expected, the infection was actually going away.
In the meantime, he began losing weight due to a loss of taste. His weight got very low, and he was referred for surgery to install a feeding tube. My father's doctor expected this procedure to solve the problem. He was admitted to SGMC on May 19, 2015 for the surgery. He underwent the surgery, and the doctors were very pleased with the outcome and expected him to make a full recovery. That was on Wednesday, May 20, 2015. My mother was staying with him and would stay as late as she could before going home for the night. She left late the night of Thursday, May 21, 2015, and my father was alert, talking, no problems.
She received a call Friday morning on May 22, 2015 before she left home to go back to SGMC that my father had been "found" unresponsive. My mother rushed to the hospital, and called me at work to let me know. She told me the doctors told her that he wasn't expected to make it another twenty-four hours. I only had a couple of hours left at work, so I planned to go as soon as I got off. My father passed away about 1:35 p.m. that day. We were told my father had aspirated the nutrients which caused him to become unresponsive. This makes it apparent that he wasn't raised up to the proper angle prior to feeding. If he had been, there would have been no way he could possibly have aspirating something going directly into his stomach.
Having been in charge of a facility myself for some years as part of my career, it was apparent to me that night staff did not make the regular checks they should have throughout the night. This is one of the battles I had to fight with after hours staff myself. It sometimes resulted in an internal affairs investigation when we had an incident occur as a result of the failure to perform these duties. When administration leaves any given facility, things typically change. This is apparently the case at SGMC. It's obvious night staff failed to check on my father regularly through the night. I don't expect there to be any evidence of their negligence in hospital records as I'm sure those have been thoroughly falsified.
After his death, it took two weeks to get the death certificate, so we suspected the doctor was trying to figure out what to list as the cause of death to cover the hospital's obvious negligence. When my mother finally received it, she called me to tell me what it said. The cause was supposedly Pneumonia as a consequence of the aspiration (don't know the exact medical terms for this the doctor used as I don't have a copy in front of me) as a consequence of Aspergillosis. The Aspergillosis had nothing to do with anything, and was not the reason for my father's hospitalization in the first place. It seems very odd this all happened in a matter of a few hours without any hospital staff having any clue there was a problem before it got to this point.
During the six years I lived in Valdosta, I would hear people talking around town in stores and other places of business how they had either gone or would rather go to the former Smith Hospital in Hahira quite frequently. The common thread was the substandard care at SGMC. The occurrences of such conversations were unusually frequent considering I never knew very many people there and these were purely coincidental overheard conversations. This was from 1978-1984. Now I know why there was such a widespread low opinion of SGMC. It seems things haven't changed in all those years.
If you value your health or that of your loved one, and hospitalization is required, go elsewhere. Unfortunately for Valdosta area residents, SGMC has bought up a number of area hospitals including Smith Hospital. This leaves residents with either taking their chances locally or travelling a considerable distance to receive care as is evidenced by SGMC's responses to negative reviews here and the list of hospitals they now own. The fact that this hospital can only muster an average rating of 3.7 out of 5 after nearly 480 reviews shows SGMC has continued on-going problems. From reading other reviews, the problems are not limited to one department or area.
If I still lived there, I would have a medical dog tag made that would read, "Do Not Transport to Any SGMC facility." I would rather take my chances on the highway than to receive treatment there.
Watch out for this doctor he will make you wait so he can charge you out of your butt. I was bring in by ambulance with chest pains and I was left alone with no nurse. The first nurse that come into my room was at lunch time when her shift started. Dr.Owens was no where to be found and was sitting on his lazy a*s. He walked into my room finally after me being there for 4 long hours with some very serious pain and about to die from a blood clot. He talked to my mom for 5 minutes and said well he has a blood clot and turned around and walked off as I was rushed to emergency surgery. If it wasn't for a nurse that was willing to do her job I would be dead right now because Dr.Owens is doing nothing but stealing money from people. He isn't a doctor at all he is someone that just wants a paycheck and I very big one at that. If you ever have to go to the er it would be with the drive to go some where else. I called the company that Dr.Owens works for and they said you have to pay your bill because he did his job very well. All I can say to that is they and Dr.Owens are full of s*.