Letter: Our positive experience at Mission ER

Graphic by Lori Deaton

Mission Health doesn’t have the greatest reputation these days, so I wanted to share a positive experience my family and I had there last month.

My daughter had an adverse reaction to some medication, which landed us in the emergency room. As if that situation isn’t stressful enough, my husband and I didn’t know if we’d be able to be seen or what quality of care our child would receive. We were lucky to be first in line and were taken back promptly. The doctors and nurses were caring and competent, admitting our child for a long observation.

Thankfully, she was fine after the medicine worked its way out of her system. We left in the middle of the night, tired but with a healthy child!

We’re grateful to the Mission medical professionals who took such great care of our girl. As is often the case, there are good people working for awful corporations. I appreciate the people giving their best despite being in difficult work environments. They made a difference for us that night.

— Cameron Walker
Woodfin

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11 thoughts on “Letter: Our positive experience at Mission ER

  1. Crooked Nose Stalagtite

    And I’m curious, was your letter in response to a solicitation by the hospital? I, too, received appropriate care in the recent past by the mission ER only to then be asked for a “good review” in the public realm. What have we become? HCA is evil incarnate, pure and simple.

    • C. Walker

      No, there was no solicitation from Mission. I mostly wrote the letter to praise the staff doing good work for a horrible company.

  2. Bright

    Ok, heads up! If you want decent care at Mission “Hospital” ER, be the first in line! Otherwise, you’re on death row.

  3. Jonny d

    Sure, read the watchdog report on what they did to Kathryn Griffin. You’re lucky your child is okay, I wouldn’t risk her life again. Asheville leaders who sold our hospital should be in jail.
    Jonny D

    • Michael Hopping

      Fortunately for this family they were “first in line”, indicating that the ER wasn’t slammed, and the staff wasn’t under high pressure.

      As a retired local physician myself, I have a mixture of sympathy and admiration for the medical professionals still managing to do the best they can under the abominable circumstances of HCA ownership. Sharks will be sharks. Like Jonny D., I fault the local and state officials who allowed what? tax dollars? to outweigh HCA’s longstanding, well-known reputation and didn’t do all they could to block the sale. They made a choice that our community will continue to pay for indefinitely.

    • North Asheville

      These are the people responsible. Their names should be kept before the public.
      Mission directors during the time of sale:
      John Robert Ball, MD, JD (chairman)
      Janice W. Brumit (past chair)
      Daniel A Casse, joined board 1/1/2018
      Suzanne S. DeFerie, joined board 1/1/2018
      Bridget A. Eckerd
      Kristy Elliott, joined board 1/1/2018
      Winston Leon Elliston, MD
      Paul “Chris” Christopher Flanders, MD
      John William Garrett, MD (vice-chairman)
      William S Hickman
      Lynn Kieffer
      Thomas A. Maher
      Robert M. Moore Jr., left board 12/31/17
      Thomas Allen Oreck
      Peggy (Margaret E.) O’Kane, left board 12/31/2017
      Anne Ponder
      Kenneth G Racht
      Jeffrey “Jed” E. Rankin
      Robert C. Roberts, left board 12/31/2017
      Robby Russell
      Lavoy Spooner Jr., joined board 1/1/2018
      Wyatt S. Stevens
      Senior leadership
      Ronald A. Paulus, President and CEO. (Paulus is now President and CEO of Maribel Health in Santa Monica, Calif.)
      Charles F. Ayscue, SVP and CFO, departed Jan 2018
      Ann Y. Young, General Counsel

  4. NFB

    I am glad the letter writer had a good experience.

    However, anecdotes do not equal data, and the data on the disaster of HCA’s destruction of a once reputable hospital is in, so much so that Mission’s Medicare and Medicaid funding are in jeopardy of being pulled. The fact that those responsible for this catastrophe can’t be held criminally responsible just goes to prove Bob Dylan correct:

    “Steal a little and they throw you in jail, steal a lot and they make you king.”

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