Palomar Medical Center Palomar Health You could Die here! Escondido California

This place almost killed. I have Kaiser insurance, so I went to Kaisers urgent care facility. I had a bowel obstruction and upon examination of the Dr. I was told that I needed a CT scan and bloodwork. Unfortunately, their CT was broken, so they wanted to send me via ambulance to Palomar Medical Center. I couldnt go by ambulance because I had my 28 year old severly autist son with me and didnt have anyone to come and get him. The Dr. at Kaiser told me that it was very important that I went by ambulance because it could rupture and become life threatening at any moment. I had no choice, so I drove myself to Palomar.

At Palomar I was told that I needed to go to the ER. Once there, I expected to get the scan immediately because Kaiser is signed with Palomar. Instead, even after explaining "everything" to the intakle nurses, I had to wait over an hour to be called into the Triage center. Once there I again explained to the nurse that I was sent there by Kaiser for a CT scan and bloodwork due to a bowel obstruction. The nurse behaved as though doing the job she gets paid for was an inconvenience to her and stated "We have our own Doctors and they will examine you to decide what we should do." After three days of great pain and a fourth day spent in waiting rooms with my son, who was reaching the meltdown stage, I got up and left. I had to get home to give my son his insulin and behavior medications.

Kaiser has no continuation of care and Palomar treats everyone in the ER as though they have a cold or flu. I could have died waiting for them to get around to helping me and no-one was interested in the fact that I had been sent by a board certified Doctor with a medical condition that could could cost me my life and would have resulted in a very serios situation without care. Fortunately, I dodged the bullet so to speak, but I was very sick for the next week.

This is medical care at its worst. I was surprised to find that others had died due to this lack of attention. I intend to take this grievance to the state, as well as the local news media, in the hopes that it will help prevent this happening to others and to do what I can to raise public awareness on this subject.

And, to add insult to injury, I received a bill for $477 without even being seen by a doctor.