So my boy appears to have gotten a nasty ear infection. We were planning to wait until the next day to see a primary care doctor, but he said it hurt a lot, so we went to the emergency room at Long Island Jewish Forest Hills.

I’ve been to this emergency room before and the process was fairly smooth. I’ve also been to ERs in the Bronx and those were rough. By contrast, my experiences at this place have been okay. So I figured, it’s a Monday night, late, we should be in and out of there. Well, I couldn’t have been more wrong.

We arrived at the hospital around midnight, and there was no one around where we were. It was quiet, and I was thinking, “Oh yeah, we are good.” Then they sent us in, and though there were a few people ahead of us already seated, it wasn’t enough to make me nervous, so again I thought, “Oh yeah, we are good.”

Then one hour passed, two hours passed, three hours passed and nothing. Not a single person was called or seen. Seriously? What’s going on here? Surely they can’t be that overwhelmed with patients and have such little movement in the waiting room.

After what felt like an eternity, a doctor finally came by and saw a kid. She said he probably had an infection and prescribed antibiotics. An hour later she came and saw another kid and said the same thing. No pneumonia, just an infection, here are some antibiotics.

We noticed officers arrive to speak with a young man who reported being involved in an altercation. Additional officers came in and spoke with the young man and his family. The exchange was direct and firm in tone, as is often the case when officers are trying to piece together what actually happened.

Hours later we were the only ones left, and that’s when I thought, “Oh yeah, this is not good.” This was getting beyond ridiculous, so I decided to channel my inner mom and went to inquire. By inner mom, I mean the kind of mom who wouldn’t take this kind of nonsense and would have let loose on people for wasting our time and patience.

So I went over to what appeared to be the nurse’s station. The nurse looked surprised that someone had the nerve to interrupt what felt like a slow night shift.

First, she looked shocked, then she smiled and tried to be polite. “Can I help you, sir?” I said, “Yes ma’am, we’ve been here since midnight and it’s now 8am. Do you guys have my son on the list or queue and is anyone planning to see him today? I want to make sure he hasn’t been forgotten. I know you’re very busy, but he’s in a lot of pain and we’ve been here for a full day’s work shift. Do you have him in the queue or something?”

She smiled, checked the system, and said, “Yes, I see him here. A doctor has been assigned to his case and will be there soon.” I asked, “Is the doctor here or not yet?” She replied, “She’s here, she’ll be here soon.” I said, “I see, but it’s been over 8 hours and no one has checked on us.” She apologized again and said the doctor would be there soon. Okay, thanks.

Eventually, after them searching for someone who was obviously no longer around, to the point where I said, “That person is gone, move on to the next one already, we are wasting time,” a doctor came over. She spent less than 3 minutes with my son and gave us antibiotics for his ear infection. Seriously, we spent over 8 hours there for a 3 minute visit which, so far, hasn’t helped my son much. Before we left, a nurse rushed over to take his vitals. That probably should have happened before leaving.

Then, out of nowhere, a woman appeared to collect the $100 copay for the ER visit. I thought it was somewhat ironic how quickly and efficiently they handled collecting payment, compared to the pace of everything else that evening.

The woman went over to my son and said, “Hi, you have a $100 copay, we take cash, credit, or check. How would you like to pay?” My son pointed to me, so she came over and repeated the same thing. No greeting, nothing. Another strike for this place. After 8 or 9 hours, the least she could do is be polite.

So I said, credit card. “Okay, I’ll take your card. You guys sit here and I’ll come right back.” I said, “No, that’s fine, I’ll walk with you. Your company here doesn’t seem very reliable in terms of getting things done in a timely fashion, so I want to stay close so we can get out of here.” I could see she didn’t like that, but I’m not going to sit there for another 10 hours waiting for her to bring back my credit card. If you want payment, I’m coming with you.

We’re not trying to be all fake and nice here, right? We just want to get things done. So let’s set aside the formalities and get it done.

Honestly, I was really surprised at how poor the service was here. It wasn’t like this before, and I wonder if it’s due to new management or something. Are they understaffed? Is there a process issue? I don’t know. However, as far as hospital visits go, this was one of the more frustrating ones I’ve experienced in a long time.