Lake Charles Memorial Hospital Ratings

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Contents:
Quality of Care - Infectious Diseases - ER Wait Time - Patient Ratings

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Quality of Care - Mortality Rate

How well does Lake Charles Memorial Hospital save lives? 11% worse than the national average, based on the overall mortality rate for critical illnesses.

	Mortality Rate
Heart Attack	15%
Heart Failure	13%
Pneumonia	15%

Infectious Disease at Lake Charles Memorial Hospital

Drug resistant bacteria are becoming the largest health facing the United States. There are an increasing number of drug resistant bacteria, including: drug resistant bacteria due primarily to unnecessary and mis-applied use among humans and livestock, patients with hospitalizations for relatively minor reasons can suddenly face lifethreatening illness.

While many hospitals are implementing questionable flu vaccinations¹ for their employees, many fewer have as rigorous solutions for nosocomial MDR infections.

Infectious Disease	Cases
C. Diff Sickens more than a half million people each year and has a 17% mortality rate after one year2	24
MRSA Causes life-threatening bloodstream infections, pneumonia and surgical site infections. Mortality rates may be as high as 20%3	12

Emergency Room Wait Time Ratings

Time until initial exam: 1h 7m

Non-critical cases where patient is discharged have total visit time of 2 hour and 32 minutes

Serious cases where patients are admitted have 3 hour and 5 minutes to be admitted, then an additional 2 hour and 5 minutes delay before leaving to their room.

Patient Ratings

While customer satisfaction surveys don't necessarily reflect the quality of care provided at the hospital, it can identify some areas that are important standards to maintain, such as managing pain and maintaining a sanitary environment.

Overall Rating: AVERAGE

66% of patients rate the hospital excellent



Footnotes:
¹Questionable efficacy of flu vaccination
²C Diff Mortality Rate
³MRSA Mortality Rate

Lake Charles Memorial Hospital Stories

Share your experience

Dec 22, 2021, 9:52 PM
Lake Charles Memorial Hospital: "Oct. 18, 2021 - Dec. 6, 2021

I was treated horribly at this hospital stay once I was out of the ICU. I am thankful for the emergency and ICU physicians and nurses.
Dr. Demerson was the worst! She acted like she was better than me all of the time. She dismissed every concern that I had about my health. She literally told me, “Don’t you go there, no,” when I voiced concern about side effects of medications. When I told her about my dizziness, she said that I could have therapy and I thought she meant some physical therapy as she knew I didn’t like medicines and then she said, “medicine” as she was leaving my room. She said, “Ice isn’t water.” I’m not dumb. I know that 1 cup of ice is only going to be about ½ cup of water, but ice is water. She didn’t like that I liked to eat ice. She was always very rude. She was brash and uncaring. She had some of the worst bedside manner that I have ever experienced. I would post on Facebook about the true things happening and I have that right because those doctors work for me. She complained about that. She expected me to promise her that I wouldn’t post on Facebook just because she was doing the job for which she is paid! She came in my room and asked me, “Do I come in here every day and listen to your heart and your lungs? Do I come in here every day and ask you how you are feeling?” She acted like because she did her job that I shouldn’t post about how terrible she was on Facebook when Facebook is the only way for me to get any true attention and it is the only way for me to be able to converse with many of my friends. I don’t have any next of kin that’s alive, any boyfriend or husband, so Facebook is important for things. She took credit for physical therapy for an issue that I still honestly have, but that made things better. I was the only one to suggest it. Dr. Hagen is the one that ordered it. She complained when I put on Facebook that she took all of the credit for something that she didn’t do. She also threatened to call the cops on me. She always tried gaslighting me.
Dr. Hagen had a better bedside manner, but he still often ignored my concerns. He also acted like I was an idiot with understand half lives and side effects when I know that I get a lot of the rare side effects from medicines. Also, it does not make sense that Norvasc was given to me when it says that it should not be used with people who have a pacemaker and that Protonix was given to me when it is known that it causes swallowing problems and I came into the hospital with swallowing problems.
Both doctors always just said “okay,” every time I told them that my feet were vibrating (they still do this). They would just say “okay” when I told them that I was dizzy. This was every day for almost two months.
Nurses complained, too. Pam would always poke the front middle of my finger for checking my blood sugar and then she would throw down gauze and the alcohol pad with the alcohol pad on the finger so it hurt lots. Poking the front fleshy part of the finger hurts lots. Pam complained about my post on Facebook about her when she would never listen to me when I talked to her. She would just go about with sticking my finger and never listen to my requests.
Kaci yelled at me because I would want a Coke Zero with my meals. She started that when I didn’t want to have the PureWick at night and wanted to just wear a pull up because the PureWick made it feel like I pooped my pants all of the time. However, what Kaci said was that I was asking for a Coke Zero every 30 minutes. I would just want one with my meals, not all of the time. She was constantly yelling at me the morning that I asked to not have the PureWick instead of respecting my rights as a patient to not want treatment and this was just over a PureWick, nothing medical.
I had to ask that the CNA, Angela never come back in my room because she was always rude and making me cry as she would constantly ask the same questions over and over again about my losing my family. She also had a very bad energy and the way she always made me feel just when entering my room was horrible. They had her in my room at least four more times. I had to complain about it and one time I was told, “Well, she’s working that side of the floor, so you’re going to have to see her in your room.”
The CNA, Tina, often smelled like cigarette smoke. I was able to tolerate her, though I wasn’t thrilled with her attitude at all.
The physical therapist, Nita, did not have a nice demeanor even though she tried.
They never respected my allergies or dislikes with the menu for my foods. I had to call many times about the foods that they served. The dietitians and nutritionists had no idea that fish is seafood. This is extremely concerning. The smell of green beans makes me gag, but there were green beans in almost every meal that I was served. Broccoli also was not supposed to be served to me and that was sent many times as well. Yes, this was on the slip for me and it was even written “no green beans, no broc,” and those were sent to me. I had to call to make sure that I wasn’t sent fish on a couple of occasions.
I was asleep when one of the custodians came in to clean my room, but if I had been awake, I would’ve immediately said that I didn’t want her in my room. I woke up when she was leaving and she had every sign of COVID and wasn’t wearing a mask. She was coughing and wheezing and as she was leaving a nurse was coming into my room and he said she was also sweating. She shouldn’t have even been allowed to come into the hospital unless it was as a patient.
The hospital did not want to respect federal service dog law when a friend of mine wanted to bring my service dogs to see me. They insisted that they had to have their rabies vaccination and that they wanted registration for them which doesn’t really exist. Everything that you can get is only for profit. None of it is official.
They always made me sit in my room on the 8th floor and were sometimes okay with me only going around the halls on the 8th floor. I even had people complain about me going around the hall on the 8th floor at times.
It was my contractor for repairing hurricane damage on my house that took me outside two times. The second time, though we never left hospital grounds, people complained that I wasn’t there and they said that they were about to call a missing person. They said that I should know what times they did things! There was no set time for things at all! Breakfast would come anywhere from 7am to 9am. Lunch would come anywhere from 11am to 2pm. Dinner would come anywhere from 3:15pm to 6:30pm. The thing that they needed to do was take my blood sugar before I ate. There were plenty of time sthat I had to call and remind them to do this.
Don’t they know that getting fresh air is good for your health? All they ever did was just leave me on that floor and never let me get fresh air. They wouldn’t let me go down by myself. They wouldn’t have a nurse or a physical therapist take me outside. They need people who will take people outside. What they did is not healthy. I was definitely experiencing hospital psychosis. The rooms are the weirdest shapes with the televisions at the weirdest angles and too high to watch comfortably which always made me feel upside down and disoriented.
I always asked for my door to stay wide open and a friend of mine put a sign on the door to say I wanted the door wide open. Most people did not pay attention to that, though. I needed it that way so I wouldn’t experience terrible anxiety with the way the room made me feel, but others didn’t care.
With the PureWick, when I was first down in a regular room after being in the ICU and I didn’t have control of my bodily functions yet, when I was helped to take a shower, I found that the people who were supposedly cleaning me did NOT clean me. I had to clean my vagina so there wasn’t all kinds of fecal matter in it. I had to clean it REALLY well. It wasn’t just a tiny bit. What they did wasn’t healthy at all and other nurses were complaining just about break down on my skin from urine when the nurses didn’t even clean me correctly.
Then, one night, they asked me if I wanted a sleep aid. I think they said they had given it to me the prior night. I wasn’t completely aware of what was in it and if I had been completely in my right mind I never would have asked for it. It was Rexulti, though the nurse called “Relax-ulti.” It was a Facebook friend that let me know the real name of the drug.
A CNA got me up at 2am after I had been given this sleep aid. I could not stand and the sleep aid was was making my legs weaker than normal and making them buckle. The CNA kept complaining at me telling me that I could do it because I took a shower the previous day. When I took the shower, I had three CNAs holding me up and helping me to balance and get washed up. This CNA then went and shoved me against the counter with the sink and shoved a wash cloth in my hand and told me to wash up. She complained that I didn’t know what bottle was actually soap. How am I supposed to know that? My knees were collapsing and I almost fell down on the floor. The CNA said she had me, but it was definitely very close and she finally managed to get me into bed after barely catching me.
The patient advocate was rarely in her office. I had to leave message and I saw her all of one time while I was in the hospital. This isn’t acceptable. Patient advocates need to be there for the patients and not have to have their time split between two completely different hospital campuses that aren’t near each other.
Only after I was discharged from the hospital did I find out that they scheduled a followup appointment for my pacemaker WHILE I was in the hospital. Not a single person told me or anybody that was allowed to know about my health information (which were a lot of my friends) about this appointment and nobody from the hospital took me to it, either. It might have made me feel better because my pacemaker has never been calibrated.
I was told nothing about my pacemaker and if I hadn’t been the tiniest bit aware of things when they did the operation to implant it was going on, I would’ve had no idea that I had one until Dr. Hagen had said my gasping and not being able to breathe at all for about three breaths was the pacemaker catching up and would’ve been shocked and upset that I had one.
They didn’t discharge me with a home device and I still don’t know the brand or model of the pacemaker even though I asked for it when in the hospital. I only know it is a leadless pacemaker that is implanted in my heart. I am assuming it is the Medtronic Micra, but I don’t know.
While I asked things about my discharge education, the only stuff they gave education about was the diabetes and they didn’t have anything else.
Then, the followup appointments that they scheduled without any consult with me were with two doctors that I don’t trust and therefore, I did not go to those appointments at all and made a different appointment with somebody who it seems I will be able to trust.
My favorite CNA was Don as he always treated me like a human and talked to me like a real person with real concerns. Valance was also a sweetheart. Ellen, Natasha, and Arthur were great nurses.
Janice/Janese, the RN caseworker was also very rude and complained about me posting on Facebook. She expected me to know how everything worked and she actually looked at kicking me out into homeless shelters where I wouldn’t be given decent treatment when it came to medical appointments.
A friend of mine and I could hear the nurses outside at the nurses’ station making fun of the medical conditions of patients. There was even one who was so morbid who would stand right outside of my room door and say horrible things about how long people would probably have to live and make “jokes” about people dying and laugh. It was disgusting and I hated hearing him do this. The nurses need to learn to be professional and not laugh and talk about patient’s health conditions like they did. It only stopped a tiny bit at times. However, that guy nurse that did that, NEVER stopped.
I was told by Dr. Demerson that “it wasn’t professional” for her colleagues to be telling her about posts I made on Facebook. They wouldn’t have been required if I would have been treated decently. Plus, what isn’t professional is the workers doing what they were doing, then. I was the patient. It wasn’t me who was having to be professional posting about the people who were supposed to be working for me not doing their jobs and ignoring my concerns. The not professional people were the ones that are the workers, not the patient!
Also, the institutional, grays, blues, and whites were terrible. Nobody likes looking at only those colors. The hospital is terrible with the colors. Nothing was okay with how it looked, either. More variation of colors and prettier colors are needed. Not only kids need pretty colors. Adults do, too.
Also, comfortable chairs would be nice since the best are not comfortable. I was always hurting when I was there as not a single piece of furniture was comfortable.
Oh, I was also told that I would have home health come to the hotel where I am staying while my house Is under construction so I could have physical therapy and that they would contact me. No such thing has happened. I would love to be able to know what to do to actually get stronger rather than just trying to have to do things for myself and not have any medical help as I am still very weak, I still get dizzy, and walking Is awkward.
MAJOR IMPROVEMENTS ARE NEEDED" - Bridget

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