Mr. McGreg: Dr. Nick Riviera! Remember me?! Dr. Nick: Well, if it isn't my old friend Mr. McGreg- with a leg for an arm and an arm for a leg! Hi, everybody! (crowd: Hi, Murray!) So, I had always heard for the longest time that this "hospital" was a veritable abattoir. No, that's not an "Abba tour". If only. Second only to it's murderous Painesville cousin Tri Point(known colloquially about Lake County as "Die Point"), it was highly recommended to never ever ever seek treatment here. Not even for a mild case of the Hershey squirts. Stories abounded of friends in doctor induced comas(not on purpose), botched surgeries, life flight helicopters landing in the parking lot and slicing innocent Subaru Outbacks to ribbons(not confirmed). Yet, this is my mother's neighborhood clinic. She had a successful wrist surgery here. Plenty of blood tests and the like always were performed without incident. Hell, there's always parking and there's Mr. Chicken right across the street! Maybe all the bad publicity and gossip was just a bunch of heresay. I mean how can a functioning facility full of accredited surgeons be a house of horrors? It seems almost unthinkable. It's not like Dr. Nick works here! No..... but there is a Dr. H**k who works here. And he makes Dr. Nick look like Gregory House. My mother had her first colonoscopy last fall at Lake West. It went okay, a lot of delays, but it was covid, no complaining here. They found polyps(which I always thought were a mashup of olives and popsicles, but I guess I was mistaken). She would need colon surgery to remove what was most likely a cancerous section of the poop chute. After Thanksgiving(wouldn't want to deprive ourselves of one last dry turkey and gag inducing jar of Heinz gravy), she went in for the procedure. Our fault- we never got a second opinion or tried to maybe book the operation at a more reputable place. But Dr. H**k was the guy who did the colonoscopy, surely he should handle the surgery. And someone else's hysterectomy, and someone else's elbow surgery, and someone else's hair transplant and someone else's lip injection/ cochlear implant conversion to solar power....yeah, as it turns out Dr. H**k is a literal jack of all trades, master of none. His duties at the hospital range from cardiothoracic specialist to updating the email server to running the floor polisher. We found this out AFTER! She has the cancerous segment removed, begins recovery, all is well. Thank you Dr. H**k, you did a terrific job. Even if your bedside manner is something akin to that of Attila the Hun. A week later- a problem. There is a viscous stanky discharge coming from the...how do I put this...lady hole. My mother is horrified. She has begun to do number two through her number one port. I research it. Turns out to be a fistula- a tear between the walls of the yellow channel and the brown canal. We go back to Dr. H**k. He has never heard of a fistula. What medical school did you say you went to? Trump University! F**k!! It turns out he had "nicked" the lady/ rectal wall. Whoops! "Nick-ed" indeed. A repair surgery is scheduled. It goes, um, poorly. What did you expect. At this point Lake West is becoming my own personal hell. The workers all start to look like characters from a haunted house or worse yet, a Marc's. Mother is sick of going out of the wrong hole and starves herself nearly to death. It is now months later and we are desperate for some kind of solution. Dr. H**k proceeds to wash his hands(I think maybe for the first time in his career) of the whole fiasco. He tells us to look elsewhere for help. And thanks to my rockstar wife- we find it. At Ahuja Medical Center in Beachwood. Under the care of an amazing LADY doctor, my mom has several way more complicated surgeries, spends the summer on the mend, and a year later we are back to normal. Phew! It was a harrowing winter and spring I tells ya. We were all pushed to the brink of cracking up from this medical mishap and subsequent outright unprofessionalism and abandonment of the hippocratic oath. Do no harm. You did alot of harm, Lake West. Especially you, Dr. H**k, you absolute poster boy for the mediocre, entitled male. I implore you all, beg of you...please, PLEASE do not let this man operate on you. You'll be sorry. Now, I am giving this place two stars, because all the nurses, support staff and technicians really are pretty good at their jobs. I just wish they could find work at better hospitals. read more

Absolutely the worst wound care clinic. Did nothing but charges us 1000's for 15 minute appts and want you there weekly. You sit and wait and nothing gets done but you get a bill and a bunch of useless supplies sent to you and billed to you! Has anyone ever been cured going to this clinic because I do not believe it. read more

Too quick, doctor barely listened. Refused to let us get the proper notes for our jobs, refusing to allow us to excuse our points at our jobs so putting us at risk for firing. Didn't even prescribe all the prescriptions he said he would. Dr Karl F Wodrich SHOULD NEVER be near another patient. what a horrible doctor. If I ever dare to come back, I will never want to be treated by him again. Also, paperwork is wrong, the hospital just filed information based on whatever they felt like it. read more

If I could give a Zero I would! My father was transported by ambulance 3 times during 2 months period. They kept mis diagnosing and sending him home. My mom kept calling his lake west doctors telling them they are missing something he is not good something else is going on. Well he could not breath again having chest pains again I took him to cleveland clinic in two days they found three blockages in his heart , they had to insert a pace maker and he has prostate cancer. DO NOT take your family members there, I would not take a stray dog there! read more

A recent experience (yesterday 11/21/22). My wife had been experiencing severe pain, to the point wherein she was incapable of getting out of bed without assistance, since the previous Saturday. Early am, approximately 5:45, she called 9-11, amazing response time from Richmond Heights Fire Department Paramedics. They arrived in less than fifteen minutes (closer to ten) from the time of the call. I was waiting for her, by our front door and carried her out when the ambulance arrived. The ran requisite tests and were ready to take her to a hospital. The inquired which hospital. We had a terrible experience with Hillcrest, as I had taken her to the emergency room, at Hillcrest; wherein we waited nine hours and, not being able to see a physician, we simply left as the pain that she was experiencing wouldn't allow her to stay any longer. So, I told the paramedics .... any place but Hillcrest. He asked, "Lake West", and I responded, "Fine". HUGE (special emphasis added) mistake. After they left, I drove to Lake West, and was informed that she was being a CAT scan, and having blood drawn. She was wheeled out to the waiting room, which was very cold and drafty. After three hours, in that very uncomfortable wheel chair, she was writhing in pain. I made inquiries of her being admitted and was told that she had to wait, in order to see another "physician" (term used loosely. When making inquiries as to how long that would take, I was told "We don't know, it could be several hours". As she could no longer indure the pain, especially within that chair, she begged me to take her home. Which, I informed staff that I would do, but we had to wait until someone could remove the IV, from her arm. That's not the biggest problem. There is no way to get any information on what could be the cause of her trauma. They are not allowed to divulge such over the telephone. However, medical records could forward said information. She logged into her account and there was nothing. I called medical records, of course it was voice mail. Left a detailed message, yet 24 hours later, no call returned. My wife, yesterday afternoon, spoke with medical records and was promised that they would email any results. Of course, nothing was emailed. Therefore, I called medical records, on her behalf, again. Same results. My advice, if you are facing a medical emergency, an honest to goodness medical emergency .... Avoid Lake West as you would avoid the bubonic plague. read more

DO NOT CONE HERE Absolutely terrible, my girlfriend had to be transported here and not one nurse came in her room for multiple hours. Just left us sitting there with nothing to do/eat for hours. We got here at 11:30pm and no one was in here. We are still here and it's 2:17am and no one has talked to us in over an hour. DO NOT COME HERE read more

The staff for the hospital on floors is good. Place is clean BUT...they need to take a lesson from new Cleveland Clinic ER & hospital in Mentor, OH. i don't know WHO runs Lakewest ER but they need to be replaced. It's poorly run & thats putting it mildly. I've waited as long as 5 hours to be seen. Ended up leaving & cried all the way home. My husband was there last year & ok rooms were full but when his heart monitor went off NO ONE MOVED TO HELP. We were right at nurses desk. I have been in a room & called the operator to call nurses desk because NO ONE ANSWERS BUZZERS! What a black mark in this area that place is. SHAME ON THOSE WHO RUN IT! You have talented staff, but what a joke this place is EVEN TO DOCTORS! Thank God for Mentor! We'd have no where to go if not for them. And they have staff who used to work at this place. Just goes to show you how management makes a HUGE HUGE difference!! FIX IT OR CLOSE IT! read more

This review is not over any one stay or experience, but a summary of stays my wife, kids, and myself has experienced. I greatly value their ER and have enormous gratitude for the nurses and doctors that work there. The hospital on the other hand is a tragedy. It is beyond bad. Largely I'm referring to the army of substandard, incompetent, and attitude-god-like-twisted physicians. God help you if you get admitted there and get assigned one of these staff doctors. To go into the stories of how bad these guys are would take a book, but suffice to say that you'll regret it. If you go to the ER there, DO NOT LET THEM ADMIT YOU. Tell them to take you to Hillcrest or UH or check yourself out and get there yourself. With the quality of healthcare we have here the Cleveland area, there is no reason to accept such sub-standard healthcare, so do yourself a favor and go to UH instead. read more

I would give it no stars if I could been here for over 3 hrs. In a room that looks like it has not been clean in days. Half of the people that work here seem like they don't want to be here. Are nurse ask if we wanted a hot blanket. we waited for 45 minutes still no blanket. I got up and just found were they put them and just took one. I will never come to this hospital again. read more

My spouse was in the emergency at Lake West Medical Hospital and was there from 11:30 AM until 9:00 PM with no care and had not ate anything all day. No staff asked if he wanted water or something to eat; until I called to get an updated status and mentioned that he had not ate anything all day. He was treated rudely with no respect and the nurses on staff treated him as if he was bothering them and mentioned some other person been there 8 hours to minimized his concerns. Its apparent that these medical persons should not be in there role due to the lack of compassion is why I cannot even referred to them as professionals. It is with great sadness that I would never go to this hospital again for my family. Hell they may even died and nothing would be done is my true reception of how my husband was treated or I should say lack of treatment. I realize that there is a short of staff but to be out right rude raises high concerns to say the least. I recommend travel elsewhere because these Lake West Hospital Staff really do not care . I am so disappointed in what the medical profession has become. I wanted to write the Chief Medical Officer but could not find this person information to communicate my husband and my experience in dealing with his team. I should mentioned we were there on October 21, 2021 these people need to be in another profession do not go here for the well being of yourself and love ones that's my advice read more

There were some problems that I had while staying here with my wife. The rooms were kept cold, and the room that we were put into had a problem that caused a buzzing noise if we adjusted the thermostat. The noise wasn't too bad in the room. It was more of a nuisance in the hall. Whenever we adjusted it, it would always be adjusted back by someone, so we were cold most of the time. I had to watch my wife have a C-Section while almost unconscious because of the nitrous oxide. She was having so much pain that she was crying. The spinal that was given failed. Then the placement of the local anesthesia must have been off target, because it didn't help enough. Finally they had to give her nitrous oxide. Before the C-section an IV needed to be applied. The nurse doing it went in with the needle, pulled back, pushed in, and was continuing with these prodding movements for long enough to make me cringe to my wife. She never got it at that location, and as I thought, there was one heck of a bruise. When we left the operating room, I asked a nurse if I should take my booties off before stepping out of the room. She told me that it was up to me, and that it didn't matter. I asked because I was wondering if the nurse with blood on the bottom of one of her booties was supposed to take them off before tracking it out of the room into the hall. She didn't go far into the hall, and not where people walk, but where they could if they wanted to. One night one of my kids fell asleep in the room. We were unaware of the policy of children after midnight. It was part of the packet stating that after midnight, no children are allowed at the location. We just didn't see it. At about12:45 A.M. a nurse informed me of that. When I spoke with the head nurse about the long drive, and my one kid sound asleep, she insisted that we leave. I wanted to mention this because given the circumstances; I think that they could have made an exception, especially since they were over a half hour late enforcing the policy. While I had her attention, I spoke to the head nurse about the pain medication, and ask why my wife is never approached at a scheduled time to take it. I also asked if she would enforce the schedule on the board where the nurses are suppose to keep track of it. She said, "Yea, some forget." She said more, but I don't remember exactly. My wife and I were told by another nurse that we needed to ask for pain medications. It was terrible! She was in pain. There would always be a pain med time at night, so because she would be sleeping, and I wasn't there to help, no one would remind them. One nurse went out of her way by calling the doctor, or whoever, to get permission to change the order to begin oxycodone, back to acetaminophen. She then began to lecture about drug abuse as if my wife would become a junky. All my wife wanted was the same pain management as she had the first two times. This same nurse happened to know a friend of ours, and she talked about us poorly. It was a complete violation of our privacy, but I'm sure the conversation was during off hours. She was talking about how she and the other nurses felt about us, probably because of me expressing my concerns. Along with what else was said, we found out that they had a problem with me making ice chunks in the freezer with the Styrofoam cups. I'm not sure what it was exactly, using the freezer, or the cups, who knows. We have had two babies prior to this one at this place. Both times were fine, actually very nice. It hurt paying the tremendous bill this time. Something happened to this place, because it is no way what it was a few years ago. I hope that this helps. It's a pretty bad review, but it needs to be known. I feel bad a little for not reviewing the first two times, because they were good stays; maybe part this nightmare review a bit. read more