St. Michael's Hospital Emergency Room

Imagine the extent of my mixed feelings that I feel obligated to express my experience at the St. Michael’s Hospital ER on Saturday, March 12th from 4:15pm to 9:45pm. I strongly believe in feedback as it helps us to improve if we are lacking or stay on track if we are meeting the expectations.Worst ER in the GTA. What a horrible place it was. It can be any patient’s nightmare.Nurses were extremely rude, frustrated, depressing, bitter and impatient. Little did I know that around 8:30pm, I made a big mistake of asking a nurse named Sandra about the further approximate wait time? She was unexpectedly unsympathetic. Not sure who forced her to be a nurse. If she is that unhappy then she shouldn’t be in this profession. She was unpleasant and insensitive. Hard to tell which was making her more angry i.e. nursing profession or St Michael? Another regrettable character to reinforce the impression was Sofia. A very uncanny attitude was also observed by another nurse. What a strange culture she was promoting? She was an Asian descent nurse (knowing her name was beyond the approach as she was very unfriendly but she was the one who was told to remove IV later on). Bizarrely, she was watching patients grappling to pick up the stuff from the floor, looking up/around for help, struggling to get in and out of the washroom, etc but she didn’t bother to offer any help proactively. Not sure how she would have reacted if somebody dared to request. Family members of other patients were more helpful to others. If Sandra was the epic of callousness then these two nurses were the true flag bearer. All of these nurses were sharing the laughter and phone texting but they had cold faces and hostile attitudes for outside the realm of scrubs. I hope these nurses were getting paid for their clock in/out as I can’t imagine how angry they might be if they were there purely for empathy and philanthropy. What a tragedy and helplessness for the patients who have to rely on these people. Unfortunately the shortages of nurses have made these people even more autocratic and opportunist than ever. If St. Michael has no choice but to hire these nurses especially for the graveyard shifts over the weekend then St. Michael must know that they would be the Achilles heel. Hard to imagine how worse they can get at the end of their shifts when they began their day with so much abhorrence. I wish Google had allowed me to remove even one star but may be it is worth due to two exceptions - Triage nurse named Saleema who treated us with respect, care and diligence. Dr. Nolan who was thorough and caring.The competency of Saleema was awe inspiring, and we couldn't have been luckier that Saleema was the Triage nurse on duty. I know that Saleema probably saves a lot of lives in a given year, but I wanted to let her know that my whole family is forever grateful. She excelled at her work in every way possible, thank you, RN Saleema. Moreover, I can't thank Dr. Nolan enough for the care and attention. He was very busy so when he became available, he was prompt in consulting. His words, attitude and care were comforting and convalescing. We are in debt to his services and empathy. Thanks again, Dr. Nolan.I understand that St. Michael is a trauma hospital and delay is expected but St. Michael management must realize that these nurses were the actual trauma cases. What a bad rep few people can project to the entire organization. If it weren't for RN Saleema and Dr. Nolan then I might have considered St Michael for having the worst ER in the Canada. I guess St Michael is a good hospital, regrettably, got stuck with few bad apples to ruin it for everyone. This is so unfortunate that some of the health practitioners don’t realize that their words, attitude and even the body language can heal or worsen patient’s confidence and condition. I completely understand that not all of our days are equal but it is imperative to realize that the prerequisite of this line of work demands benevolence, requires patience and expects compassion beyond the horizon of personal mood swings.

Although there is room for improvement, all the staff at St Micheal’s and specifically the Emergency Department do an amazing job, they’re very thorough and compassionate, perhaps their thoroughness is what makes for the wait times to be long, however we need to consider that critically Ill patients are treated first, it’s not the same someone that looks like she may have a heart attack than someone that broke a bone, I know it hurts but and they will give you a pain killer and will treat you asap; I know that, when one feels sick the least one wants is to sit for a long time in a waiting room, but we have to take into account the size of the hospital serving a big city, if you factor all things in, I think they’re doing a good job,

What's with the non stop complaints about St Mike's? You do realize that the ER is going through a significant renovation that has been delayed because of fraud right? Was in the ER this week and received compassionate top notch care from all the doctors and nurses. Nothing but thank you.

The staff were nice BUT the ER registration and triage area and pretty much the rest of the hospital is so dismal and rundown looking that it makes the experience of having to go to emergency in the first place all that much worse. How about installing a proper floor, paint the space , and install new seating. Not a pleasant place to be. For a first world country the government should be ashamed of themselves for letting hospitals fall apart and became dilapidated.

If I could give negative stars I would. This place shud immediately change its administration and staff. No empathy for patients and they treat and experiment on patients like they are animals not human. I don’t want even my enemies to go through that awful experience.

well.. I went to ER at 3-4am because I got horrible pain from pneumothorax while sleeping. The hospital looks like the one in the 3rd world countries. Probably other hospitals in Toronto might look similar but this one is a bit worse. The ER was full of homeless people and there were some arguments between homeless guy and security guard from time to time. I waited in the waiting room for 3 hours without any check up or treatment. (I thought people who got a serious problem could just die sleeping in the waiting room.) and then I was moved to another room. It took 4 hours to meet up a doctor and I could finally go home in another 2 hours just because the symptom got better by itself OR I was too tired and exhausted to feel the pain anymore. It was a very interesting experience to think about public health care system in Canada.

Wait time was surprisingly quick given the increased emerg wait times across the GTA. Despite the wait time displaying 2 hours and 45 minutes, we got into a room after half an hour.However, Dr. Brian Steinhart should not be a doctor. Incredibly condescending and rude when asking questions about health history. I’m sorry you hate your job but that’s none of your patients fault.UPDATE: He checked my boyfriend’s x-rays, told us nothing was wrong, and were sent went home with nothing only to receive a phone call today to inform us it was, in fact, not nothing.

Wonderful treatment by doctors and nurses when I came in with a broken ankle. Polite, compassionate staff. Treated me kindly and with understanding when I became slightly hysterical due to overall exhaustion and long time I had to spend there. I don't understand people who complain about the aesthetics of the department, it's an ER.

I went yesterday night with a deep cut on my thumb, I may have cut a nerve so it was bleeding a lot. After waiting for 3 hours from 11 pm to 2 am I discharged myself without seeing a doctor.Why can't Canada invite more doctors instead of welcoming refugees from Ukraine and Afghanistan.