Berkeley Parents Network: Children's Hospital

Berkeley Parents Network

Children's Hospital

Berkeley Parents Network > Reviews > Health & Medical > Pediatricians > Children's Hospital

Asthma Treatment at Children's Hospital

The Pulmo clinic at Children's Hospital is top notch. I can't say enough good things about them. They helped my kids come to terms with Asthma and caring for themselves as they have grown. It took me many years to locate a physician for myself whom I trusted and liked as much as the doctors at Children's Pulmo. There are support groups available for parents and kids too; even an asthma camp (though I don't have any experience with this.) Good luck to anyone who is a parent of a child with respiratory illness! You have every reason to be very optimistic, IMHO.

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

Surgery at Children's Hospital

May 2003

Re: Tonsilectomy & Other Surgeries at Children's Hospital:
Many parents are not aware that Children's Hospital (both the outpatient surgery center and the regular hospital) has a wonderful group of highly trained social workers called ''Child Life'' counselors who will meet with you and your child to show your child the masks and other potentially scary things they will see when they come for surgery. This brief visit will help prepare them and empower them, and take much of the fear out of the surgery. Many doctor's offices do not understand the value of this (free) service and do not mention it to parents. ASK your doctor's office or call the hospital to schedule a Child Life meeting a few days before the surgery (call to schedule as soon as you know your date to be sure to get an appointment). It's too stressful to do the same day as surgery, but you can combine it with the pre-op appointment if that's on a different day. (Also, we read a great book called ''Goodbye Tonsils'') Suzanne

August 1998

My 8-year-old daughter has recently been diagnosed with tethered cord. She will be entering Children's Hospital in Oakland in a week or two to have surgery to correct this defect in her spinal cord. Her neurosurgeon is Dr. Nagle. If anyone has any experience with this condition, or with surgery at Children's, or any advice on how to make this as untraumatic as possible for her, me, and her 3-year-old sister I would be most grateful. You may email me directly. I am a single parent with no family in the area, and have recently used up all my sick leave and most of my vacation leave because I have been out with pneumonia, and I'm feeling a little overwhelmed by it all ... Melinda

Children's Hospital: Our daughter was in Children's (though not for surgery) about 11 years ago, and I would rate the hospital pretty highly; the nurses and residents were competent and caring. John

Our younger daughter also spent a night at Children's Hospital the winter before last. She had pneumonia, and had to have an iv and oxygen - which is nothing compared to surgery, but which seemed very awful at the time. Anyway -- she actually had a wonderful time. The nurse who put the IV in was absolutely wonderful. She really enjoyed all the gizmos in her room (the tv in bed! the small oxygen canister to wheel around! the fuzzy yellow slippers!). I think she also enjoyed having some time alone with me, since I stayed with her the whole time. She also enjoyed having complete control of the television. She was almost 5 at the time -- she has a sister two years older. Christina

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