Sarasota Memorial Hospital ER

My mom has bad kidney and gall bladder stones, the hospital only serves orange jello at this time, she has to ask every 4 hours for pain medicine, I called as I’m 8 hours away and the 2 from case management and the nurses station on cardiac literally transferred me back and forth 4 times (same people). I honestly think I’d have better luck driving down there and taking them out myself.

Went in last night in extreme pain (10). The nurse who took me back was very ignorant & rude. A guy came in to check heart rate.couldn't get a reading (because I couldn't lay back). She and her pals walked out laughing.waited for another 20 minutes for someone to take blood.these 3 don't belong there. Cruel and no empathy for people finally a kind older nurse came with some pain meds.turned out cracked ribs. Get rid of this garbage.nobody deserves that treat ment! We pay alot of $ to come here and should be treated with the utmost respect!

Front desk nurses station is very loud and party people. One of them even said we are too loud and they just got louder.

No wonder someone came back within 5 mins of being discharged with their kid having a seizure in the car. Guess the staff is too worried about social hour than their patients.

Absolutely the worst. We waited over three hours after the Doctor told us we were being discharged to finally be discharged. Went in at 11 am. Tested positive for Covid and waited until 9 pm to be discharged.

Very long wait, they were slammed with more than the typical days worth of patients. All the staff was pleasant and helpful!

What a shame and a disappointment for the SMH group. ER experience is the worst of all locations. Visited 4 times in the last 3 months. 1st was good, IN-OUT 2.5 hr. 2nd 6hr wait out in 7hr, 3rd 4hr wait out in, 4th 5hr wait oit in 6hr. The cafe closed after 6: 30 pm only one vending machine for drinks (never had luck getting bottled water), the snack machine has a good mix of choices.
No Caffee machine (you need to leave the hospital and get it from McDonald's gas station). Parking and security are great.for a brand new state-of-the-art facility the overall services are very poorly executed.if you need ER services my recommendation is to drive to Main on in Sarasota or North Port campus.

This month I tripped, struck my head and bled heavily. The ER was efficient. Dr. Ruben Holland examined me thoroughly, with a commanding presence and found nothing broken or even needing a stitch. He sent me for a CAT scan. There was no follow up and after over an hour I put back on my bloody clothes and walked home undischarged. The ER did exactly what it had to do. I got the records.

Three dangerous experiences and three major misses by the ER team. One CT misread resulted in partial paralysis. Absolutely execrable "team". Can't comment further because of privacy concerns. Stay away if you can. SMH itself run by amateurs and overseen by political hacks. I would travel all the way to Tampa if possible!

So bad! I will stay away from that ER. It is not safe. I spent 5 hours waiting in the hallway with 4 MONTHS old sick baby w fever on my hand. Breastfeeding at the hallway, trying to make baby not crying and so so. I asked politely just once like the baby is really little, a newborn, sick, I just don’t know what to do, I can wait but I can’t explain that to my newborn. Nurse just said “oh everyone is waiting”. That was 5 hours waiting…. And I can tell that my newborn baby is getting worse…. I went to them and requested to at least recheck vitals cause I see he’s getting worse, he wasn’t responding and just very drowsy. They recheck vitals cause I insist and temperature was much more elevated after 5 hours waiting and fast heart beats. I was so scared for my baby, and started to cry and scream that they must admit us cause he’s getting worse, just really worse and worse on my hands while we waiting 4 hours. Nurses actually also got scared about my baby’s vitals changes and finally let us just go inside where we were waiting for doctor to come also for a long time. And when the doctor came, he said he’s very concerning about too fast heart rate and so on. My The only thoughts was hmmm really… since I was waiting with the newborn on my hands during the night time for 5 hours to be admitted and baby was sick, had a fever, and stress waiting that long … of course his heart rate was too much elevated already. I’m scared to thing what could happen. It was during the night that’s why I came to ED but I was calling to urgent care near by if they can accept us cause it was morning and they was opened and we were still at the waiting room ER not being admitted.that was a nightmare waiting and be scary for your 4 months baby during that waiting. We came at 2 in the morning, and was admitted at 7. Exhausted with worsening of symptoms. And the only reason we finally was admitted is because I requested to recheck vitals in the hallway and it was much worse…I was staying in the hallway the whole night waiting, crying, and seeing my baby getting worse and worse on my hands and having no idea where to go for help and treatment during the night time. I’m afraid to thing how much longer it would take if I wasn’t requested recheck his vitals and scream that they must do something about his condition changes. Terrible, terrible, terrible place. Not safe. I don’t wanna put my baby’s life at risk and not safe practice so I’ll never go there again

I was brought into this hospital by ambulance for health complications I was in no pain at all but then they stuck needles in my arm so many times that left me in pain my arm was done i couldn't make a tight fist for to days probably from all the young people that were sticking needles in my arm over and over because they are not experience in what they were doing don't be the guinea pig like I was for these young people in training to put you in pain

I'm SITTING HERE SINCE 12: 30. I CAN NOT BELIEVE I! NOW IM A VERY PATIENT PERSON. HOWEVER. I DO BELIEVE BCZ I GIVEN THEM CERTSIN INFO IM BEING HELD BACK AS PPL GO AHEd of me. I feel numb. Can't think straight. Dizzy throwing up. And STILL NO ONE SEEN ME. I MEAN I DO NOT HAVE THE WORDS

I was 3 hours in their hallway with terrible pain before nurse saw me. Then another two hours before doctor came. All that time in pain with very high BP. Nobody gave me anything, after being there 5 hours they brought me Mylanta. When I started asking questions and complained doctor said I can leave. And I did.

I am livid right now! My dad was brought to the ER today by ambulance for possible concussion/head injury. That was at about 4: 30. He is STILL there even though the doctor was releasing him 90 mins ago! No concussion… he has a bad case of Covid. Suddenly the nurse comes in after the doctor said that he could go home and took another blood test that the doctor said nothing about. She said the results would take at least an hour to be read! My husband is with my exhausted and very sick 85 year old Dad after HOURS AND HOURS OF BASICALLY JUST WAITING FOR TEST results. The ER wasn’t even that busy! How can any medical facility be comfortable in slow service to that extreme!? ! People are sick there! Do your best to make them comfortable and get them in and out and home to rest ASAP! My Dad got none of that! And I shouldn’t be surprised… Sarasota has the worst health care for the elderly that I have seen ANYWHERE!

Spent 3hrs waiting. Then a nurse call us put our information and said to go back to sit and wait again. I ask why we have to wait? He replied that there are people who is waiting for 5 hrs So I should appreciate them for waiting? ! I left them and go to Fruitvale ER and spent 25 minutes and done with help

I give a two star rating because the ER is short staffed. If you have to visit a hospital, please consider an urgent care or stand alone ER nearby (if you aren't having a true emergency). The wait times to be triaged are two plus hours, and two plus hours to be seen by a doctor.

I came in with my two-year-old with a GI bleed as requested by her pediatrician. We waited two hours before I told the front desk I was leaving to take her to the children's hospital nearby. They told me I should wait and we would be seen next to make sure she didn't need an emergency surgery. We were triaged 45 minutes later, and waited another hour after that before I decided to leave. Children that came in after us were being seen and sent back to a room before us. Her wrist bands had to be corrected three times due to wrong information put in by the front desk person'l. The bathrooms were filthy and the pediatric waiting room wasn't exactly clean either. My daughter walked over to a full open trashcan and picked up a vomit bag full of puke & ended up getting an awful illness with fever, vomiting and pain on top of her GI bleed.

This hospital is extremely short staffed and it is absolutely not the nurses fault. They are working as hard as they can. I cannot stress it enough to go to an urgent care or stand alone ER if you aren't having a true emergency.

Thanks to all the team at SMH ER especially the pediatric unit on floor 6, We have to be send there because my son was not feeling well and We thank God for all the staff, They we're very professional, compassionate and attentive to all of our needs the Nurses, Respiratory and Doctors Team all very caring, thanks again We deeply appreciate your care an attention to our son and all other patients.

God Bless you all.

Ochoa Family

I want to give the BIGGEST shoutout to the team working last night when my partner and I came in with a dog bite. We were seen immediately in the ER. All of the staff were so kind to us. Specifically, the APRN John S, Sean the EMT, and Angela P, RN. I am so impressed with the teamwork and compassion everyone showed us. I have never seen an emergency room run so efficiently. This is my first time coming to the ER since moving to Florida and I can see why everyone says SMH is the #1 hospital.
Thank you! I would give 10 stars if I could but 5 will have to do

I went here after going to a different hospital that didn’t help me at all, this hospital was able to find out that I have a damaged esophagus and need help from a gastroenterologist asap. They made the experience a lot better than the last hospital visit I had because they seemed to actually care about their patients and work towards finding the issue instead of just ruling out broken bones and sending you home with Tylenol. Nurse Jeff helped me and he was very nice, he listened very carefully to anyone that needed his help and treated them with care. The only reason I’m leaving 4 stars instead of 5 is because there was one nurse that seemed focused on getting me out instead of helping me, she caused me a lot of anxiety because I thought they were going to just send me home without figuring out why I’m in pain.

I took my wife to your ER at the referral of our oncologist. After waiting for over 2 hours and still no triage my Wife tried to lay over in a better position because of excruciatingly cancer pain. One of the staff members hustled over and told us that was not allowed. I immediately went to the reception area and told them that I had never seen such lack of compassion with one expletive included. The rather obese security woman thought she was going to intimidate me but We immediately left, went to Doctors Hospital and was seen within minutes and taken to a room where my Wife could lay down. The ER had plenty of empty seats and this situation didn't have to happen. I'm a retired Paramedic and this was totally unacceptable.

If you are going here to be helped, with anything, stop and turn around. The staff is unbelievably rude and act as if there job is not to help people. Full of doctors who are in it for the money and not helping people. One of the worst hospital experiences I have ever heard of. A family member went there with bruising on the stomach, a fever and uncontrollably vomiting bile. She sat in the waiting room for upwards of 6 hours and when asked if someone could get her a pillow so she could at least lay down, (in an attempt to ease her throbbing headache from the103 degree fever) we were told “they had no extra pillows available and that she would be more comfortable when she got back to see a doctor. ” Absolutely absurd.