Citrus Memorial Hospital

When we arrived, we checked in and sat down in the waiting area. We were called within 5 minutes to register. From there, we were brought into a private "holding" room, where my husband put on a hospital gown and got into bed. The CNA came in immediately to take his vitals. The nurses came in and hooked up an I.V. and took his medical history. Then the anestheologist came in and asked several questions and explained what would happen and what to expect afterwards. I had several questions which the doctor answered in great detail. It was chilly in the room, so one of the nurses got two blankets...one for him and one for me. I was told I could hang on to it since the waiting room was so cold. After the anestheologist left and the nurses had my husband prepped, the brought him to another room to administer some medications for the surgery. I went into the waiting room. They showed me a screen where I could see where my husband was every step of the way. Not only that but the volunteer at the desk let me know when he was wheeled into surgery. When the surgery was finished, they let me know that he was in recovery and that the doctor would be down to speak with me about the procedure. After I spoke to the doctor, I had to wait about 2 hours before my husband was brought back down to the original holding room. There was a nurse with us the whole time. He wasn't very hungry because of nausea, so the nurse called the doctor to see if she could give him some medication to alleviate it. He got the shot within 15 minutes. After he was cleared to go home, as we were heading for the elevators, the nurse ran after us and gave us some sandwiches to take with us for when he got home. All in all, we were very pleasantly surprised with the whole experience. I would highly recommend the Same Day Surgery Department for your outpatient surgery needs. They were great. Oh, and they also have complimentary valet parking, so you don't have to worry about parking.

They actually feed you lunch if you're there during lunch. It's the same the nurses, they get to know you and they are all very, very nice.

went excellent and received good news

I contacted the accounts payable office to pay my bill (for a hospital stay in Dec., 2012). At that time the bill was over $1000. I was informed that if I made payments and was unable to completely pay the bill in a year, that I would be turned over to a collection agency. I have had several procedures since then. Each procedure was entered into a separate account. I had trouble and didn't always succeed in getting them to compile them into one account. When there were separate accounts, I needed to make monthly payments to each account. They have lost two checks that I mailed (one in April and one in May). The April payment was credited 6 weeks later. The May payment has never been found. ($121). I normally pay my bills with a mailed check the first of the month. Since June I have hand delivered my payment to the hospital accounts payable dept. It was definitely an inconvenience. When I went to the emergency room in December, I was treated by doctors in the emergency room that were not providers in my insurance plan. I felt that any doctor in a covered emergency room should be covered by the same insurance as the hospital emergency room. I had a biopsy that was sent to the lab at the hospital for processing. The person that read the results again was not covered as a provider by the same insurance as the hospital lab.

In February I received a bill for $1442.05. I contacted the billing department to arrange monthly payments of $50. I was informed that it was not enough and I needed to pay off the bill in either 1 or 2 years (I don't remember which) or the hospital would send the bill to a collector. At $50 a month it would take 29 months. 2/21/13 I paid $1000 from my tax refund at the Billing office and got a receipt 2/5/13 I had a colonoscopy and endoscopy following the doctor's advice after the hospital stay.. 4/1/13 I mailed check #1205 for $50 4/8/13 I sent check #1244 for $71 to Citrus Memorial. Somewhere between the PO and the Hospital the check was lost. It costs me $40 to stop payment on a check at my bank. The hospital found the check in May (13?) 4/29/13 lab work was done at the hospital following a pap smear and biopsy. 5/1/13 I sent check #1258 for $121 to Citrus Memorial after checking the address with the billing office. To this date 6/29/30 they have not received the check. 6/1/13 I went to the billing office and paid with 2 checks: #1290 for $50 and # 1292 for $117.89. I got written receipts for both checks. 6/17/13 I received a letter dated 6/11/13 from Citrus Memorial Hospital saying: and quot;OUR RECORDS INDICATE THAT YOUR ACCOUNT IS NOW PAST DUE. Based upon payment arrangement that you have previously made with us, your account is now past due or you have not made the full payment you agreed to. Please make your payment of $257.32 within the next ten days to allow us time to credit your account.and quot; 6/17/13 I immediately called the billing office at Citrus Memorial and spoke to the same person that I had seen on 6/1/13, She said that they had several accounts for me, that they had not been consolidated. She also said that she would correct the problem. Incidently I have only received 2 letters from the billing office: one in February and one on 6/17/13, I never have received updated billing statements. In the future I will go to the hospital billing office and personally make my payment receiving a written receipt.

Went to ER. Got treatment .

I felt bad for the nurse on during the day. She was older and clearly over whelmed. Her son had committed suicide a few years back and they were having a memorial service for him that weekend she was stressing over. I used to be a crisis counselor and I ended up spending time with her ---when I should have been the patient!!!! But I felt badly for her. My third room mate was a woman my age who also had abdominal surgery the same day I had mine. Why they didn't put us together from the beginning I don't know. It would have made more sense than to keep bouncing me around between old people with dementia who screamed all night long. There was no reason to have me endure that. I was also exposed to a very serious infection called pseudomonas while at Citrus Memorial. My surgeon did not swab my infected incision when I first reported it and when I demanded it days later when after being on antibiotics I was still getting worse, he couldn't get anything to grow --supposedly. I had to leave the county and go to TimberRidge ER to get proper diagnosis and treatment and finally to Monroe Hospital to have a second surgery in November to fix what was done to me at Citrus Memorial. Monroe was like staying at a hotel. I asked for crackers to have with a pain pill and they brought me 2 kinds! The nurses were cheerful and happy not depressed and over worked. I think the on going law suits at Citrus Memorial has taken its toll on staff because once I experienced a happy hospital when several people said they used to work at Citrus Memorial, I knew the difference and what a good hospital experience should be. I had an infectious disease specialist at Monroe give me the proper antibiotics to finally kill the pseudomonas that I contracted from my surgery at Citrus Memorial. I have heard from several people that their infection rate has gotten much higher in recent years. Their heart unit may be good but the rest of the place is not a safe place to go in my opinion. Never again. Especially if you have to have Dr. Golkar has your surgeon because he does not listen to what you say and does not know how to deal with a serious infection.

On September 25th I called his office to try to get an appointment as my belly button incision was getting red and puffy.The nurse just told me to put a warm compress on it. I called back on the 26th to say it was getting worse and didn't get a return call until so late that they said to come in the next day. I was in a great deal of pain by this time. My husband had to insist that the doctor look at me and not just the nurse. He did not even swab to see what kind of infection it was but just prescribed an antibiotic. He told my husband to pack the wound then cover it with a gauze pad each day. I again told him it felt like broken glass. He said I was fine. I oozed through all the dressing in a matter of hours and we had to keep repacking it. To make a very long story a bit shorter this went on for WEEKS! I don't have the space to cover it all here I have 5 typed pages of what happened to me. He kept telling me I was fine as different colors were coming out of my belly button depending on what I had eaten the night before. I couldn't sit because the pain was so bad. I could stand or lay down only. On October 18th my incision was almost closed over so the dripping and leaking was rare. He said I was fine and took me off of all antibiotics. It had been a month and I wanted to believe him. But by October 23rd I thought I was going to die and my husband took me to the ER at TimberRidge in Ocala. There they swabbed what was coming out of the incision site and took blood samples. I had a fever. They did a CT scan and felt I might have what is called a fistula and that stuff was coming out of my intestine out of the incision site --which would explain why the discharge was yellow if I had butternut soup and purple if I had a blueberry smoothie! They said to call my surgeon. I did the next day but he did not return my call. It took my regular doc to call him on Friday while he was in surgery to get an appt. When I saw him on 10/29 he was FURIOUS that I had a test to see about a fistula and adamant that I did not. He did find out that my infection was Pseudomonas. I asked him what it was and he told me to "look it up on the Internet". I did and found out it was very dangerous and you got it in hospitals. I had enough antibiotics for 2 weeks. When they were almost gone I still did not feel better and had the broken glass feeling still. He was still saying I WAS FINE. I wasn't. TimberRidge got me another surgeon who after speaking with me knew I should have gotten better after 2 months on antibiotics. He scheduled me for surgery ASAP. He opened me up and found that I had a FISTULA!!! Plus Dr. Golkar had stitched my small intestine. Every time he pushed on me and said I was fine he was releasing even more poison into me which is why I always felt worse after my appointments with him. If I had not insisted on being on antibiotics and kept pushing for medical care I would never have gotten better. The Pseudomonas could have killed me without the right combination of antibiotics which I finally got from an infectious disease specialist at Monroe Hospital. Dr. Casebolt saved my life. Most surgeons would not take on a case another surgeon botched but thankfully he did or I would not be here. A direct quote from Dr. Golkar's notes reads " I adamantly expressed to the patient that she did not and does not have any type of fistulous communication with her gastrointestinal tract and that this is simply an umbilical trocar site infection that has taken a while to heals. In my opinion her umbilical trocar site infection has completely resolved based on clinical exam at this point." This was dated on October 29, 2012 Dr. Casebolt's notes from my surgery on 11/14/20112 " Post operative Diagnosis: Small Bowel Fistuala....There was a fair amount of damage in this local area. ... Final Diagnosis: Small bowel, resection: focal mucosal ischemia with mixed inflammation, focal necrosis, and serositis." He had to remove 3 inches of my small bowel where the stitch was. Necrosis is dead tissue where all the Pseudomonas was killing my insides. I don't have the space to explain what it is here if you want to know what it is you need to read up on it but it is very green and stinks and when I told Dr. Golkar that kind of goop was coming out of me he should have had a clue that he wasn't dealing with an every day infection. It is one of the very few that present that color and it can not be killed with the antibiotics he was treating me with at first. It took a combination of drugs at a higher dosage than was being prescribed. He didn't do the surgery correctly since he stitched my intestine. Unfortunately infections are a risk at any hospital but he should have acted more aggressively when mine didn't not clear up for 2 months. He did not listen to my complaints of Pain and the feeling of broken glass nor did he explain why I could not sit for any length of time or have discharge that changed colors that matched the food I ate the previous day. His office staff either did not take messages or he didn't bother to respond to them in either case on 2 occassions I had to wait days for a call back --one needed the intervention of my primary care physician to make it happen. What he said I could not have is exactly what I did have and another surgeon knew in 10 minutes of hearing what I had been going through and looking at the same CT scan that he did that I needed to be back in to an operating room. I stayed one night in Monroe Hospital in a clean private room --all their rooms are private. I came home without an infection and my incisions were able to be packed once a day with no ooze. A journey that started in September was finally over in December when my new incisions were closed cleanly. But since I have now had 2 surgeries in the same spot so close together in time I still have to be careful and it might even take a year before I am truly back to feeling 100% But basically thanks to another Dr. I can finally say I'm fine! It is from my experience that I urge you not to use Dr. Golkar but if you wake up after having an accident and find that he has performed surgery on you stay on top of things. If he says you are fine and you don't feel well listen to your own gut. That's what saved my life. It cost us over $3,000 to get the proper medical care finally. And there is no way to get Dr. Golkar to repay us because of the way the laws are written to protect doctors in this state. I can't even take him to small claims court. But if I can save even one other person from going through the pain and suffering I did it will help. He doesn't listen to his patients. He thinks he knows it all and he obviously does not.

Everything was fine. We were very happy with the hospital, and we were very happy with the people who run it.

I had a heart cath done that included 4 stints, By AAA+ Dr. Stark in CCMH heart unit. All I can say is these people are the best, so caring and so efficent in everyway paossible. I would recommend this heart unit to anybody that needs help, INCLUDING DR. STARK.