Toronto East General Hospital

A hospital that treats patients and their families like garbage. The treatment of my elderly relative and the other elderly patients in the ward was unacceptable. Unacceptable. They left them to starve. Refused to feed them. Left them in soiled clothing and when changing them finally, they did not have any regard for their dignity and did not close the curtains. I came in every day at different times and caught them doing deplorable things and when called on it, they gave excuses and their patient advcate system was a joke. DO NOT GO THERE. Take a longer trip to another hospital in the area. It is worth avoiding this inadequate hospital.

Endoscopy is not the most glamorous of medical examinations, not that anything of that nature is sexy to begin with, but I’m happy to say my experience having a gastroscopy at Toronto East General was a pleasantly bearable one. This was my first endoscopic test ever and being that I’ve only been to a hospital for two other very minor reasons, I was terrified as the procedure is quite intrusive in the sense that you basically have to swallow a fibre optic cable and have it passed through the esophagus, all the way past the stomach to the duodenum… WHAT FUN!
The wait for my procedure was agonizingly long (which is my only grievance) and being that I’m a paranoid freak, visions of parasitic alien chest burstings and also references to the Junior Mint episode of Seinfeld played endlessly in my mind like self torture as I waited infinitum. Thankfully my antsy-​ness was calmed by the kindness of the (MUCH) older and wiser patients who were seated along with me in the waiting area as they kept comforting me that I had nothing to worry about. When my name was finally called the butterflies in my stomach welled-​up inside me and I kept thinking I still have a chance to make some kind of great escape, but the nurse was so sweet as she led me to my self-​hypothesized doom and prepped me for my IV sedation. The procedure was a multi physician effort as an anaesthesiologist and another doctor were on hand to administer the sedative (oh gimme, gimme!) and to also spray a numbing agent that tasted like Buckley’s gone really bad down my throat. By the time the Gastroenterologist came in and said hi to me, I totally zonked out and after what seemed like 30 minutes of THE BEST NAP I EVER HAD I awoke peacefully in the recovery room. When the recovery area nurse had seen I woke up she carefully had me unhooked from the various apparatus and had me seated on the ugliest orange vinyl upholstered armchair to recover some more along with an apple juice and a digestive cookie. Since I was on a sedative I was not allowed to leave the hospital to drive or take myself home so the nurse ensured hubby was there to pick me up and ever the optimistic tyrant he is, hubby had me walk down a couple flights of stairs to help sober me up before we got to our car.
In closing I hope this review helps anyone who will be undergoing a gastroscopy procedure as I know it sounds pretty terrifying, but so long as you have great professionals like the ones at the Toronto East General Endoscopy Unit looking after you, you won’t have to worry… now if I can only find an excuse to get me some more of that sedative zzzzzzzzzzz