CHI Saint Joseph Health - Women's Hospital at Saint Joseph East

"I delivered here three months ago and am saddened to leave this review. Working for a private practice that delivers at St. Jo, I moved back to KY just to give birth to my first child here. First, I must say I had a beautiful delivery with my provider and nurse. However the rest is absolutely terrible. I had an induction and during my time in the hospital, all of my nurses were new and very unprofessional. My first nurse came into the shift with a runny nose and coughing, and blew my vain… I remained calm, quiet, and understanding. The nurse left the room and switched nurses. Thankful, then I yet realized my new nurse had long stiletto nails that had to do my first cervical exam. Three nurses later, same outcome. I have worked in this industry and everyone knows that you must have short nails??? The worst part - my nurse went through all of my medical history and completely violated Hippa without my consent in front of guests. Thankfully, The delivery was absolutely wonderful. Hoping that the second half of my stay would go smoothly, that’s when I was faced with another terrible experience. When I was wheeled to postpartum, the first nurse I had made my first hour being post partum miserable. She watched my partner and I from the corner of the room and nearly would not leave. I asked her to not wheel our baby out of the room, and to hold off on the bath, as my partner and I wanted to give the first one. She told me that was not an option. After I sternly told her my decisions, I woke up at 5am to my daughter freshly bathed. As a healing mother that finally got 3 hours of sleep, this wasn’t the best experience to wake up to. Not to mention breastfeeding. She was holding my daughter on my breast as she’s newborn SCREAMING. I asked her to please stop and I was educated on how to bond with my child and I didn’t need assistance. She responded “you’re starving her. She’s hungry.” At this point I said bring the formula which she frowned upon. Last but not least, she asked questions such as “was your daughter an accident or planned?” In shock… I was mortified. As a first time mom you’re vulnerable and have a hard time speaking up for yourself, and I thought this was normal . But after speaking with other mothers this was NOT a normal experience. I’m saddened that my beautiful birth was foreshadowed by incompetent nurses. Chance after chance I thought it would get better but it did not. I’ve never seen such a circus presented in a medical setting. I really hope the director here can analyze what is happening behind closed doors in the rooms with patients. I’m not one to leave a bad review but this experience has traumatized me and it took three months to be able to process all of this. Save your time and deliver at Central Baptist. I beg you."

"I had an absolutely terrible experience here. I thought for sure that this hospital, one that is meant for handling women, would be well versed in things like consent or patient information but no, not at all. Beyond that, their bad record keeping is keeping my baby from getting necessary medical care now. Laughing off the symptoms and treatment of preeclampsia is not acceptable. Not telling me where my baby is or if he's ok for an hour or more right after birth is not ok. Lying to me about certain treatments and procedures is not ok. The nurses were mostly sweet, but that's pretty much meaningless with substandard medical care. I regret having gone to this place pretty much every day."

"I had an absolutely horrible experience at this hospital. It has taken me 13 months to try and gather all of my thoughts on it to leave a review. I wasn't going to, but the more I've thought about my experience, the more angry I've gotten. First of all, I went into labor naturally with my water breaking on its own followed by contractions growing in both frequency and intensity. After arriving to St. Joe East, I was all hooked up the way anyone would be to be monitored. Everything was fine with baby and I was trying to get through the contractions, which were manageable, but definitely painful. I was offered an epidural and I explained I wanted to wait and see how I handle things naturally. A short while later, a nurse comes around the bed and begins attaching something to my IV, saying "We're just gonna do a little pitocin," which 1.) "You're just gonna" is not informed consent, and 2.) I didn't want nor need the pitocin as I was progressing naturally with zero signs of distress from baby. Only until they added the pitocin did my contractions become unnaturally severe, if not dangerously, as after this, my baby began experiencing drops in heart rate due to how insanely strong the contractions had gotten. With that, the pain I was trying to manage naturally became so unbearable I couldn't help but moan and howl pretty much constantly. After an hour or two of this and nurses continuing to ask me about an epidural, the doctor (not my OB) comes in to basically shame me for being able to hear me down the hallway, saying "If I can hear you all the way down the hall, you better be crowning." I was made to feel terrible and ashamed of what I was experiencing being asked why I wanted to do that to myself, when it was their fault. If you can't handle the sounds of a woman giving birth, you are in the wrong line of work. I ended up getting the epidural after getting sick of being asked and having absolutely no support. (Also with NO INFORMED CONSENT about risks). Another few hours went by after receiving the epidural which waned quickly. Because I kept having to be repositioned due to the contractions and heart rate situation, the initial epidural line came out and the pain returned even worse. I felt they thought I was being dramatic with my pain as they couldn't understand why I was still in pain after the epidural. They realized what had happened so they gave me a second epidural. I became extremely numb and about 10-15 minutes later, the doctor did a cervical check only to feel my son's head. The pain I had felt in between epidurals was my baby coming, way sooner than what they expected which caught them all off guard. Again, I didn't need the pitocin. I was so numb I couldn't feel anything below the waist so pushing was pretty much impossible for the first 45 minutes. The doctor was rude and discouraging the entire time. After the epidural began waning again about an hour after starting to push, I finally started to feel my legs and butt and ultimately gave birth to my son. Afterwards, things were pretty standard until a moment where a nurse was helping me latch my son to the breast for the first time where I attempted to remove the hospital hat because of skin to skin, plus he was struggling to latch so I thought it might help. This woman snatched the hat back on his head and rudely said not to remove it. I'm sorry? That was MY son. In the moment and within all of the chaos of labor and birth, all of these moments were so fleeting and while there was discomfort and sadness, the magnitude of all of it didn't truly hit me until after I had left the hospital. There's more, but overall, a terribly handled, rushed experience. Edit to add: I've had debilitating back pain ever since my delivery which I 100% attribute to the epidural."

"I had a really rough experience with St. Joseph. They wouldn’t call my midwife, who I found out later was in the hospital at the time we checked in, because “that’s not how they do it, you have to take the doctor on call”. My midwife called me in our room after our baby was born and said she was sorry she missed the birth and didn’t know why nobody called her. The first doctor on call, Dr. Sloane, threatened to send me home at 4 cm dilated if I wouldn’t let them break my water and get things moving. They broke my water and the baby’s heart rate fell so they had to pump water back up in me. The morning doctor on call who delivered my baby, Dr. Carrillo, stitched me up with out any anesthesia while I kicked and screamed and begged her to stop and numb me. This was the most painful part of my 28 hour labor and two hours of pushing. The situation with both doctors and all the nurses refusing multiple times to call my midwife and even telling me she was out of town was ridiculous enough, but their treatment of me was dehumanizing and really hard to believe. I did love my nurse Kelly who was with me through all of the pushing and the complimentary steak dinner."

"Best birthing experience ever! This place is wonderful! From my prenatal appointments up to my birth was amazing. This was the best birthing experience I had out of all three. Doctors and nurses are all well educated and professional. As well as relatable and genuinely concerned about you and baby."