North York General Hospital

The work here is very poorly organized, probably one of the worst in the world! It takes about half a year to wait for an MRI here, but when I had an MRI here on February 7, 20 days had already passed and there were no results, no information on the MRI. It's horrible!!! Anatoly Motrich

NOT the place to have a baby. One nurse was wretched, sullen & just plain miserable to be around. After my baby was born, they refused to allow me to feed her or change her. When I asked, my baby was quickly zapped away from me saying «we will do that». There were four of us in one room. One of the other mothers was allowed to feed hers except they brought her the wrong baby on one occasion. After it fed for several minutes, the mother suddenly screamed realizing it was not her baby and that is exactly what she screamed. A nurse came running, checked the tag on the baby’s arm and quickly took it away and shortly after, brought her own baby for feeding. So, I expect her child was fed by another woman. Hard to imagine — I could identify mine instantly and across the room but, she was not paying so much attention for some time. The food was good but my experience turned me off going to any hospital to have a baby. The personal care was far below standard — no smiles, no friendliness, not a happy place to be. When one delivers a baby, one would think the nurses would come in smiling and saying what a lovely baby you have. I heard none of that, nothing but the job and sub-​zero personality nurses. Those nurses may or may not still be there now. It has been a while.

I was talking care of my dad on the 3^rd floor oncology and pallative care unit. I stayed with him at night and yelling could hear the nursrs from 2am to 6am running down the hallways and lalouldly and cheering so loud when the blue jays won. You couldn;t sleep in this kind of hospital. I don’t know why I didn’t experience that on the 7^th floor when he was in the cardiac unit? I think they drug them up at night for pallative and cancer and do as they wish.

This covers what I would call all things baby related from classes to the post-​partum care and the Peds ward.
I was initially a bit apprehensive delivering here; since I had heard mixed things about the care here.
The prenatal classes were ok here; I though the labour and delivery class was pretty good as it was informative and provided enough information for you to understand the pain management options before you deliver. I like the fact that you can pay and register for the classes online and it is pretty easy and straight forward to do so. They, also, do contact you to confirm your registration — if for some reason your class got cancelled and provide you with alternative dates for make-​up classes.
Parking is plentiful here, minus the fact that the rates are pretty much highway robbery; if you are planning on being a visitor for more that 3 times — you may want to consider buying a 5 time single use pass and it does work out to be much cheaper per visit in the long run.
The delivery and pediatrics wards here are excellent and I found that they do offer really good to excellent care. The nurse I had during my delivery was amazing — and I liked the fact that it was a one-​to-​one ratio for the delivery portion.
The labour assessment area is pretty good and they usually have at least a few people on staff to do the assessments before they admit you to the delivery section of the ward.
Post-​Partum section was ok; but the care isn’t as attentive — mostly because the nurses are looking after more than one room and patient. I find that you do get interrupted more as NYGH is also a teaching hospital — so the medical staff is in and out of your room quite a bit; which isn’t exactly conductive to rest and recovery.
Visitors to the maternity ward — well let’s just say that you are better off doing it during the delivery portion rather than post-​partum area as the quarters are tight once you have had your baby. I do find some of the nurses to be a bit more brusque than others; but overall they are all right.
Overall — my stay here was pretty good; the pediatric and delivery wards offer excellent patient care; post-​partum care is ok — due to cramped quarters and nurses being assigned to several rooms at once.
The bad is the lack of food options and limited cafeteria hours and parking is literally highway robbery.

North York General Hospital is a very busy one, especially ER room. Most nurses and doctors are wonderful and trying their best. We had a very good experience,
It saved my mom’s life. First from pneumonia then from Guillain-​Barré Syndrome. She was in ICU for 10 days, on a breathing machine and her whole body was about to shut down. I was very worry, sad and lost. The nurses saw that I had not eaten for a while. They even gave me some food to eat ! then with neurologist Dr. Daniel Wong’s amazing diagnosis, my mom is revived !!!
The nurses and doctors on 4^th floor are also very helpful and doing their best. The most important thing is they do save lives.

My housemate had a good experience here with gall bladder removal surgery, but I can’t say the same for a recent emergency visit. After an invasive medical procedure at another hospital — see immediately preceding review — I developed a high fever with severe chills. I am diabetic which means a fever over a certain level is a cause for immediate concern and mine was above that point.
While the emergency room was very fast (probably because I went there around 3 AM and they weren’t busy) they were completely useless. After taking my history which mentioned the diabetes and recent invasive procedure, the young doctor who examined me said it was probably the flu and sent me home.
I took a copy of the bloodwork as I wanted to take it to my personal care doctor the next day. I looked at the various white cell counts and noticed the neutrophils were high and the remainder of white cell types were normal. After consulting Wikipedia, I learned this is a definite indicator of bacterial infection — the various other white blood cell types react to viruses or parasites, but neutrophils (the ones that create pus) are specifically there to fight bacteria. So obviously, this was not the flu, which is viral. My personal care doctor wisely gave me antibiotics — including an injection — the next morning. I strongly believe this was a case of sepsis so if I had not questioned his diagnosis and gone to see her I might have become very sick or possibly died.
The doctor who saw me was foreign, but one wold think that proper reading knowledge of blood work — especially something apparently as basic as knowing the difference between types of white cells — would necessary to become a doctor. Perhaps he slept through med school that day. I welcome comments from the instution or those in the medical profession.
This was especially obnoxious as the ER was totally not busy and they had plenty of time to examine things carefully. The extra start is due to the better care my housemate had with his surgery; otherwise I would not have given it.

Intake was fast — that was all. Two hours to see a doctor. For someone that rated their pain as 10 out of 10. Nobody came by to check. Nothing offered for pain. Doctor said nothing was wrong. After we waited almost eight hours.
Went to Sunnybrook two days later. Saw a real doctor. Got real help.

I had to come here for some medical check ups after some health issues. I wasn’t impressed with the doctor that I saw here. She basically was telling me that I was having these health issues because of my age. I’m not that old yet & don’t even feel my age because I take care of myself. I felt kind of insulted. Well some doctors just don’t have any bedside manners.

I had to go in for an operation on my sinuses. I was very nervous. The pre-​op. was handled in an informative, professional and courteous manner. My hospital experience was positive. My Surgeon is wonderful. The nursing staff and hospital staff are very hard working and they made my visit as comfortable as possible. Overall, I was treated with dignity and respect by everyone throughout the entire process. Thank you North York General for looking after me!

A recent trip to the ER restored my confidence in this hospital. The triage nurse and the doctors who treated me were quite caring and knowledgeable. Wait times weren’t too bad but my issue was fairly serious so that may have expedited things. Parking is very expensive though.

Here for a pre-​op appt. The earlier the better, alot less other patients to deal with ahead of you. From the time I arrived to when I was walking out the door, to later find out that parking was $ 19.00, HOLY CRAPPERS, was a duration of roughly 1hr.45mins. Very impressive!!! Considering I was told to expect a 2−4hr.total time, I was very pleased. But the $ 19.00 for that short amount of time is a TAD excessive, ya think! The hospital itself was very clean, no outbreaks that I know of, staff was more than helpful in assisting you on where to go and everybody had a smile on their face. Except the ones waiting in line at Tim Hortons. Overall to me very comfortable and relaxing atmosphere considering where you are and what you are there for. You will be in GOOD hands.

I have had some very scary experiences there.
I went to the ER because I had gall bladder attack. ER was great and took me out of the waiting room wreathing in pain, and put me right in an examination room. From there a nurse would come in every couple of hours and take my blood pressure, the cuff was too small and too old and kept popping undone. She could have cared less. God knows what she was recording for my blood pressure. I’m sure she made something up because it was impossible to take a reading.
I was finally taken for a CT scan and the technician was kind enough to tell me my gall bladder would have to come out. He stayed late on his shift to give me the scan. The porter wheeled me back to ER with the scan on my bed. Long story short they lost my CT. It ended up being at the nurses station the whole time in ER. They were using it as a coaster for their coffee or something, because not one of them picked it up to read it, show it to a Dr. just left it and me in excruciating pain waiting. They did keep coming in to take an inaccurate blood pressure reading and remind me I could not have anything for pain. I was ready to remove my gall bladder myself… I begged my husband the following evening (still waiting in ER) to go back gave him a description of the CT technician and find him and find my CT. Sure enough, the guy had gone home and was back at work for his next for shift. He ran down with my husband, not believing how incompetent the nurses were to find in on the counter of the nurses station.
The Dr.(Forest) that finally preformed the surgery was wonderful. The Anesthesiologist was a clown. The last thing I remember of him was him telling me that there was a chance I would not make it through surgery. Perhaps he was the molester guy they had there. His English was not very good.
I have several other stories to share of North York.
All in all there are some great Doctors there. If you have a friend, child or relative staying in the hospital make sure someone is with them at all times. Nursing staff is brutal. 1 in 10 are good and like their jobs. If you are waiting for someone to come out of post-​op chances are their name will drop off the screen, the system will go down, or nobody will care to look for a loved one waiting and wheel the person right by you and up to a room. Keep your heads up. My dogs Vet clinic is run better!

I’ve visited the ER twice and I’m currently taking my husband for chemo treatments here so I’ve had experiences with different departments throughout the hospital. The ER visits varied between 5 – 7 hours, both of which are actually UNDER the wait times you’ll experience at many hospitals throughout Ontario. That doesn’t make the wait any easier, but they seem to be doing better than some of the others. I constantly see cleaning staff working throughout the hospital and there are hand sanitizer pumps everywhere, which is a good sign that the NYGH has priorities in the right place.
The chemo unit is very busy and it’s important to ask as many questions to help prepare for treatment. That being said, staff here are very quick to follow up questions and they are thorough. Of course there are unexpected delays, but I think that they are providing a pretty high standard of care considering the circumstances. Everything is clean and there are large windows with plenty of natural light. There are volunteers who make regular rounds and offer patients juice, cookies, or a pillow to make their treatment a bit more bearable. This probably makes a difference for chemo patients, who have to sit there for 3 – 5 hours for most treatment.
I think it’s critical to point out that any discrepancies in service don’t reflect on the hospital. There are hundreds of people working here and they have very stressful jobs for the most part. Based on that consideration, I think they are very professional and provide quality care for the most part. There are anomalies — some personnel display an infuriating lack of any sense of urgency at times, but I think that’s common to most hospital environments in Ontario. I’d rather they were cautious than rushing through diagnostics and treatments. Overall, I’m glad I live in the area and that this is the hospital closest to me.
Bonus points for offering Starbucks, Tim Hortons, Thai Express, Jugo Juice, Subway, and Pizza Pizza in the food court, which is more than some hospitals nearby.

This place was a major disappointment during my last visit. Visited the ER and was told after an hour that it would take several hours to see a doctor, as they had only one doctor on duty. Am i in Africa? This is the response at 1am. It beats the whole purpose of an ER. You would think the hospital would be better able to predict the flow of patients. This is something basic, similar to going to a restaurant and getting served in a timely manner.

Hit the back of head in the tub and got a gash. Fearing long waits I opted to patch it with a band aid however the bleeding didn’t stop and my fiancé insisted I go to NY general to check it out. Registration was quick and efficient. Even seeing the doctor was quite quick to my surprise, a little rough on the laceration but got it cleaned and closed with skin staples. I was in and out in little less then a hour. Wow!

I have been to this hospital for a wide variety of blunders and births. I myself was born at this very hospital as was my sister. As I was there when my sister was born I can tell you the birthing units are wonderful and the staff are superb. None of this sharing a room business while another women gives birth next to you, EW.
My most recent reason for visiting this hospital was for my grandmother to have surgery. I took her into emerg one evening with severe stomach pain. We waited about 3 hours before seeing a doctor who proceeded to send her home with tylenol 3‘s. However, she was back 2 days later, and although the emergency doctors flubbed I will forgive them. She got admitted a couple hours later and was up in a pre-​surgery room.
After surgery the ICU nurses were really lovely, my grandmother had nothing but lovely things to say about them (especially a certain male nurse who was strong enough to move her very gently). However, the ICU unit is locked down like a maximum security prison, try sneaking in, I dare you. Overall we all had a relatively painless experience with all the staff and doctors there — my grandmother‘s surgeon talked with my mother on a daily basis about her progress which we all appreciated.
I did some volunteering here as well on the pediatric floor, the volunteer community is very extensive and the co-​ordinator Veronica is a great woman. They put a lot of effort into ensuring that patients especially children are well entertained while during their stay. If you must go to a hospital I‘d say this one is top notch.