Review of Mercy Hospital Emergency Room in Bakersfield, California

In November of 2007, I was feeling pretty bad. I was having sharp pains in my right side around where I thought my appendix was located. The stabbing pains were quite painful and I was crying which scared me because I don't cry unless the pain is very bad. I was scared enough that I even suggested that I needed to go to the hospital emergency room. This was on a Friday night at nearly 10pm so I was feeling very bad indeed to suggest a trip to the hospital!

I had to call my parents to come and pick me up to take me to the hospital because I live with my adult daughter but she has three small children to take care so she couldn't take me to the hospital. And since I was in so much pain and crying, I couldn't drive myself over there. At the time I didn't even think of an ambulance which shows just how far gone I was.

My parents came to pick me up at approximately 10:30pm and then we had to decide which hospital emergency room to go to. I live in downtown Bakersfield California and am closest to Mercy Hospital located at 2215 Truxtun Ave so that's where we decided to go. We were all pretty sure it didn't matter which hospital emergency room we went to because we were going to be there all night anyway!

The emergency room entrance to Mercy Hospital is located directly behind the hospital and you can access it by going onto 16th Street. The hospital is absolutely huge and takes up more than a block with Truxtun Ave at the front and 16th Street at the back. 'A' Street and 'D' Street complete the big rectangle that is the main hospital building that is Mercy Hospital.

My dad drove the car right up into the emergency room driveway located off 16th Street where the ambulances go and stopped. One of the security guards came out and then brought me a wheelchair and even helped me into it. I was still crying and I was scared too because I thought for sure that I was having appendix trouble and that I'd have to have an operation immediately! Hospitals, doctors and operations have always been frightening to me.

I was pushed me into the emergency room waiting area and I sat to the side while my mother went over to registration to register me and fill out any paperwork that was needed. They let her do most of it but they needed me for my signature and insurance cards which I was able to do.

The doorway that I went into was the waiting area of the emergency room and it has a long narrow room with chairs lined up against the left wall. To the right is a locked doorway into the hospital where the doctors and nurses and all the patients go. Also to the right behind glass are the admitting clerks where you fill out your paperwork for admittance. They have a TV on the end wall where there is also a doorway where you go to find the restrooms.

The emergency room wasn't busy the evening that I went fortunately so within about thirty minutes I was taken into the back where they put me into a hospital bed and put in an IV and connected me to their machines. Since I was in a lot of pain, the nurse gave me several different pain medications through IV and also gave me an antihistamine to help the pain medications work more effectively. I don't really understand how that works but the pain medications definitely helped and I laid in the hospital bed with my mother at my side and drifted in and out of sleep.

The nurse took a blood sample and asked me questions. When she drew the blood she did it quickly and got the vein the first time. Then a short time later, the doctor came by and talked to me and asked me some more questions and told me they were going to do a cat scan of my side.

I'm not sure how much later it was when the man who does the CT came by to wheel me on a gurney to the CT room. He had a few more questions for me and it seemed important that I weigh less than 400 pounds because anyone over 400 pounds was not going to fit through the CT machine. I do weigh a little less than 400 pounds fortunately so I did fit into the machine. The man helped me onto the CT table that would take me into the machine and asked me to be as still as possible so the CT image would be clear and readable. Since I was on quite a few pain meds at the time, I am not certain how long the test took but the man handling it was very nice and there was no pain involved. After he was done, he wheeled me back to my original spot where my mother was waiting for me.

After about an hour, the doctor, Dr. Marino, came to talk to me. He explained that my appendix was fine but that I had a large mass on my right ovary which was what was causing me the pain and that it needed to be removed as soon as possible. Dr. Marino explained that Mercy Hospital did not have an OB/GYN department at their Truxtun Ave. hospital but that I would need to be driven by ambulance to their Southwest facility for the actual operation. I was very scared and could not deal with the thought of an immediate operation so I told Dr. Marino that I would not be having the operation at that time but that I needed to go home to try to deal with all the ramifications of the news of a large ovarian mass inside my body.

Dr. Marino did recommend that I get the operation as soon as possible because there was always some possibility that the ovarian mass was cancerous. Dr. Marino wrote me several prescriptions for pain medications and laxatives. I didn't understand the need for laxatives and Dr. Marino told me that pain medications can cause constipation which would cause me pain because of my ovarian mass. He had the nurse make copies of all the tests they'd done and the results and had everything put together in an envelope for me to give to my own primary care doctor. Dr. Marino stressed several times that I needed to get to my doctor right away and not to put off having my ovarian mass removed.

Once all the paperwork was complete and I was released from the hospital, I returned home. All total the time I spent at Mercy Hospital from the moment I was wheeled in until the moment I was wheeled out was four and a half hours. I found all the staff; security guard, nurses, CT tech and doctor to be very kind and helpful.

Several months later I received a copy of the bill for my emergency visit to Mercy Hospital from my insurance company. The total was nearly eight thousand dollars. Since I am unfamiliar with emergency rooms and their prices, I am unable to say if this is comparable to other hospital emergency room prices.

I do recommend the Mercy Hospital Emergency Room for anyone who has a medical emergency in the middle of the night especially if you are somewhere near the area of downtown Bakersfield.