Mercy Hospital

Has anyone here had surgery at Mercy Hospital in Springfield? I have a friend that had surgery there two months ago and died Sunday night from a bowel obstruction. She was doing fine and this was sudden and unexpected. I had been told by a nurse that Mercy's complication and infection rate from WLS was higher than most so I'm wondering if anyone had heard anything like that. Thanks Dianna

Dianna, my son had two separate shoulder surgeries at Mercy hospital. As a parent I was thrilled with the caring, focused, pre and post op attention he received. I am not a stranger to surgery myself. My last two surgeries were at Baystate and I was not pleased with the post-op care I received after my 5 hour hernia repair. I had to come back into the hospital after release due to an infection. This was over a weekend and 2 days into the regular week. The nursing care I had was non existant. I was so disapointed that there were so few nurses on during the weekend and that I would have to wait for long periods of time to have my needs attended too. And I am a GOOD PATIENT. I have been in the medical profession for 35 years and have many, many hospital stays. I can say that the care I received was substandard. I have chosen to go to Mercy for my WLS because I have seen both places in action. The surigical teams at Baystate are really on track with super staff, doctors and care. The care breaks down when you arrive on a surgical care and the staff is not sufficient, overworked, and stretched thin. That is why I choose Mercy.

Diana, I am so sorry to hear about your friend. I have not heard anything about Mercy at all, but then again...I don't live near there.

I had my wls at Mercy Hosp. I haven't heard nothing about the complications you said. My wls eas in March 8 ,2004. Recently i had a pain and i was admitted to the hospital and I felt better later on. But my surgeon was there checking me at once.

Hi Dianna I am so sorry for the loss of your friend. I had my surgery at Mercy the week before Christmas and did have some compliants about the staff but had NO complaints about my surgery or my surgeon. My surgeon was Dr. Kasper and one of the things I asked was about his infection rate. His is VERY low - at least it was at the time. I did meet a woman who had Dr. Fiallo as her surgeon and she had a bowel obstruction a few months after surgery. Thankfully, she got to the hospital in time and Dr. Fiallo happened to be in the hospital and she is now fine. She credits Dr. Fiallo for saving her life (which he did) but only after she had this terrible complication. So that makes me wonder. I have a friend who is having the surgery in December and actually has not made up her mind as to whether to have Dr. Fiallo or Dr. Kasper (both are available). I really didn't think it made a lot of difference but now I am beginning to wonder. Who was your friend's surgeon? Again, my sympathy and prayers are with you. Joanne 12/18/03 307/210/150

Hi Dianna - Sorry to hear about the loss of your friend. I have found that about half the people have a "bad" story about Baystate, and the other half a "bad" story about Mercy. Some help I am, huh? . I think it all boils down to the HUMAN factor......sometimes it can take just one staff person to guarantee a wonderful OR a horrible hospital experience. I had a miserable reaction to morphine post-op at Baystate which could have been solved quickly had it not been for 2 negligent boobhead nurses who let the situation continue for hours . (See my profile if you want all the gory details ). However, everyone else on staff was wonderful . I have not heard specifics about Mercy's complication and/or infection rate. The only problem IMHO is that Baystate does make a lot of paperwork errors and seems to have a lot of confusion about things. Maybe that's true with any large hospital. Good Luck, Mea

Dianna: Mercy Medical Center is GREAT in my book. In short, I had a hysterectomy at Baystate in June, 2003, then the WLS in September of 2003. My WLS went great. However, on October 18, 2003 per order of Dr. Fiallo's office, my husband returned me to Mercy as I was not eating, feeling tired and to be honest - wasn't doing really great at all on a physical level. Dr. Fiallo came to the emergency room at Mercy and found that my intestine had adhered to my scar tissue from my hysterectomy back in June and if I had arrived 6 hours later, I wouldn't be here today. Dr. Fiallo operated on my that weekend twice (on 10/18 and again on 10/19) to make sure a didn't need to have a colostomy bag. Due to the many surgeries I had in 2003 (including abdominal hernia and gallblatter when WLS was done), my body was classified as nutritionally deficient. I was at Mercy and then to the Mercy Rehab facility recovering until I was released on November 5th. The staff at both the hospital and the rehab were very great. I was very pleased with the service and with Dr. Fiallo and would recommend Mercy to anyone. In fact, my husband always refers to Dr. Fiallo as the angel who saved me. Have a nice day. Kathy Ware, MA