Lachine Hospital?
It's good. comfy beds, easy cheap parking, and the surgery room seemed really high tech. It's primarily a french speaking hospital, but you can get by fine if your french is poor. Dr court is great. The anesthesia doctor I had was superb. The doctor who assisted on my surgery was dr muller, she was great as well. I found the floor nurses/prepose staff to be mediocre. Far too much chatting in the hallways instead of working. Also, depending on what days of the week you are there and vacations, not everyone is going to take note that you are a bariatric patient and give you the right advice. Ignore anything the prepose tell you but do use them to help you get up and walk plus whatever other small thing you need. And press your nurse to make sure they are up on bariatric stuff when asking for advice . They give you a lot of food (like 5-10 times what you'll eat) (none of it corresponds to the plan the nutritionist gives you). I was really unsure of how much and how fast i could eat it (particularly with the pain meds making it a little hazy) . or even if i should be eating some of it. (75% of the prepose and one nurse lead me wrong in this). just take it slow, half teaspoons at a time, few mins apart. While in the hosptial, apple juice, sauce, and purred veg soups is ok. when you get home, follow your plan, skip the juice, and stick to broth.
I asked for extra pillows, one to hold on my belly. coughing or sneezing hurt .. but a lot less if i held a pillow to my belly when it happened. Also, try to 'stay ahead of the pain' like if what they give you lasts 6 or 8 hours ... be sure to ask you nurse to redose you as your time runs out. really helps with the getting up and sleeping. you are in a supervised environment, might as well take full advantage of it!
ice chips are your friend in day one! overall the experience was about 1/20th as bad as i thought it would be. I'm sure it will go perfectly there for you as well.
Lachine is a GREAT hospital for bariatric surgery. Beds were Super comfy. The staff is GREAT and parking is cheap 6$ compared to 20$ at the RVH.
I will mention that you dont eat anything for the first 2 days or so after surgery. Day 2 you will be allowed 2TBS of juice or water at a time to take tiny sips of. You will be allowed to go home if you can keep that down without vomiting and your up and walking.
My experience was a little different than pete's. They were always right there with the pain meds when I ask for them, and I never had pain.
Good Luck!!
Hi all. I'm new here (this is my first post, in fact). I'm applying to the RVH for bariatric surgery. When I spoke to the bariatric center at RVH I asked them about the Lachine Hospital as I grew up in Lachine and am familiar with that hospital, plus, getting to and from there from Pierrefonds, where I live now, would be much easier than going downtown. I was told over the phone that only certain types of bariatric surgery were performed at Lachine. Can anybody tell me which types, and which are reserved for the Royal Vic?
Hi HaggisBoy -
I had a wonderful experience at Lachine hospital. Staff was super nice and mostly attentive. I never made it on the the post op floor because of lack of space, so I was in the ICU (as I said, becuase there was no room on the main floor, not due to complicaitons thankfully!) Very attentive, knew enough about the procedure and recovery. They would tell the food staff to just leave my food as I could only take little sips at a time, so breakfast ran into lunch and lunch into dinner. Lachine hospital, I later found out, specializes in 3 areas: one of them is bariatric. the beds are comfy as are the chairs. I had extra pillows and blankets available. staff was sweet and helpful. Overall very good experience. By the end of day 1, my IV was out and, other than encouraging me to walk and hydrate, they pretty much left me alone!
Best of luck - see you on the other side!
