Children's Hospital Oakland ER
- See also: UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital Oakland
Archived Q&A and Reviews
Emergency Room at Children's Hospital
July 2002
I had an undesirable experience with my almost 3yr old son this weekend at Children's Hospital, Urgent Care. Can anyone recommend A hospital in the east Bay with good Pediatric care in the Emergency Room and or Urgent Care Clinic? Maybe someone had a positive experience at Children's? Any feed back you can give is much appreciated! Marn
I have also had bad experiences at CHO the three times that I have gone, including excessive waits (9 hours) in the emergency room (with a child who was later admitted), processes set up for the convenience of the hospital personell, not for the patients and incorrect billing on *every single occasion*. I urge all parents who have had such an experience to write to the CEO of CHO, Tony Papp. The address is: Tony Papp CEO, Children's Hospital Oakland 747 52nd Street Oakland, CA 94609 I did this after a very bad experience, and got a letter back both from him and the medical director of the ER who agreed that my daughter's case had been mishandled, and that they were trying to put into place some changes that might mitigate such an experience.
The problem is, that there are no options for other emergency rooms in the East Bay for children. Most pediatric practices in the East Bay refer to Children's, and all ER's in the near area will transfer the child to Children's. I have been told, though I have not experienced it myself, that Children's is excellent if your child is very sick, or if you have a disease that is unusual or interesting. I investigated other options, and if you truly wish to avoid it you can become a Kaiser member, and use their urgent care clinic, or drive out to John Muir. Your insurance won't, in all likelihood, pay for John Muir. Myriam
You should consider switching to Kaiser if you are that unhappy with Children's Hospital. As far as I know, most non-Kaiser pediatricians in the East Bay will tell you to use Children's for emergencies. So you are not going to have much of a choice. Anyway, Children's is where all the pediatric specialists are, so if you take your child to some other emergency room, they will probably transfer you to Children's.
I have had good experience with both Children's and Kaiser emergency rooms. But if you are really unhappy with Children's then I think your best alternative is to sign up with Kaiser in your next open season for health insurance. Ginger
I've been to the Children's Emergency Room at least four times, at least twice for fevers and twice for cuts. I've been very happy with the medical staff (including the triage nurse) each time. They were professional, friendly, and seemed to be working hard at finding the best solution for my son's problems and making sure they weren't overlooking anything. I've had long waits on each visit, even after getting into an examination room, but I assume that's true of emergency rooms everywhere. I did not believe I was treated unfairly, in comparison to the needs of the other patients who were waiting. The waiting room is not very comfortable or child-friendly, however. I've also found the Children's Advice Line to be very helpful and I've usually gotten very prompt responses. I plan to stick with Children's. Anonymous
We too had to use the Children's Hospital emergency room a couple of months ago. I have to say that the care we received was more than excellent and caring. I'm not sure if they went overboard on testing but I appreciated that they were thorough. However, everything else was pretty unpleasant. We had a three hour wait in the middle of the night in the waiting room, which felt pretty dirty, on hard plastic chairs, obnoxious cartoons blaring loudly in the background and a girl with a bad croupy cough, old enough to be able to cover her mouth, but not doing so. Neither her mother nor any hospital staff intervened in this problem. They were also so crowded that once we were seen we had to stay in a gurney in the hallway for about 3 to 4 hours because there were no rooms available in the ER for us. I know that the hospital can't control how many people come in at any one time and they have to triage the most serious cases first. I'm really okay with that and I would go back there in a heartbeat should the need arise, but it would be nice if they could make their facility more comfortable and accomodating to families with very young children. Hannah
Unfortunaly having experienced multiple broken arms, we have loved UCSF children's hospital in Oakland. A pediatric ER is amazing and has everything kid-sized, and the doctors and nurses there have been great, even when they are super busy. It's one of the reasons why we wouldn't want to leave the Bay Area. We also always called an ambulance for (clearly) broken bones since the EMTs can properly wrap the injured limb before jostling it around in transport, and it gets you past the waiting room.