I recently had a very bad and embarrassing experience at Credit Valley Hospital emergency ward.  I had to take my Visitor mom into emergency due to abdominal pain and Diarrhea and the level of service and the knowledge of the doctors and behaviour of nurses on duty is shameful.  My suggestion is if the doctors are not aware of the Hospitals rate cards they should not misguide patients and their families.  Specially cheating Visitors shames this Country called Canada that we are proud.  The ER doctor advised that one CAT Scan was required and would cost about $900.00 to $1100.00 maximum.  However, when the invoice came in I was shocked to see two charges of $1,465.00 each for 2 different CT scan.  No mention of Cat Scan.

Even after her pain had subsided and I requested the doctor on duty to let her go home, the doctor on Duty for the night pressurised us to have my mom admitted to the hospital so that proper diagnosis for the diarrhea could be done and her stool samples sent to lab, if she had any more motions after her morning breakfast. She promised that my mom would be shifted to a ward and given a room in an hour max.  We were there from almost 3 in the afternoon till 5 am in the morning, without them giving any treatment to my mom to cure her diarrhea, without her being given anything to eat, her clothes were wet because of her motion passing two three times which we had to clean as the nurses would not allow her to go to the washroom on time and my mom was cold.  At night I had my husband bring over a extra pair of clothing which was also wet, thanks to the stubborn emergency nurses that refused to listen to our problem and instead made faces and spoke rudely to us, when I made a second or third request.

Even after more than 2 hours had passed after the night doctor promised a room in the ward, the nurse on duty said no bed was available and they did not know when one would be available. My mom refused to stay at the hospital any longer and she felt so humiliated and ashamed.

And the worst shocker was the $3,085.00 charge  for the room that was never made available to my mom.

It is so embarrassing that a well known hospital like Credit Valley in a first world country like Canada has nurses with such bad attitude and behavioural issues and Doctors that provide false and misleading information and misguide uninsured patients and their families.  If my mom was not travelling the following week back to India, I would have taken her to some private doctor, which I probably should have.  Atleast she would have got proper treatment without being shown attitude.

Till date my mom talks about the bad treatment she received at a Canadian Hospital and she does not even know about the invoice yet.

Even in countries like India, which is considered a third world country, the hospitals, staff, nurses and the treatment that the patients receive is 100 times better than what my mom received in emergency in this country.

I hope some action is taken and I am going to raise this issue with the hospitals Patient Relations office as well.