Hospital San Juan de Dios

"I had the most amazing doctor and intern take care of me at the ER. Thank you so much Dr. Lamas for helping me and making my traumatic experience a painless one. Be blessed always."

"For 2 weeks my father has been treated for a DVT. I am a cardiac nurse from the US. I became concerned when my father was readmitted to the hospital 4 days ago because his leg was worse after the initial treatment of Coumadin and lovenox. (My father is 80. He is very athletic and vegan. He has never been on any medications and recently had a perfect check-up) In the US when a patient fails typical treatment for DVT an IVC filter is placed which is a common surgery and can be done within 24 hrs of making that decision. So needless to say I grew concerned when my father was in this hospital for 4 days waiting for this filter. All the while his leg is becoming worse. When I arrived at the hospital I was surprised that his leg was not elevated, he was ambulatory, in spite of the pain and his foot pulses had NEVER been checked. I checked them and found him to have only a faint pulse in one area of the foot. The nursing staff completely ignored me and acted bothered. When I asked about his INR, the nurse would not tell me or him, THE PATIENT. This is insane, it's my fathers INR. They said we would have to wait and call a special number in the morning to get permission to receive that info. The INR is the lab value that tells whether your blood is to thin/thick enough for surgery. In the US this is checked daily in the hospital and a patient can be given Vitamin K to thicken the blood for surgery, which is also done routinely. This is done to expedite surgery in cases where a patient's status could deteriorate quickly, such as in my dad's case. There are so many more problems with his care in this hospital, too many to mention here. I understand now why socialized medicine is so bad. Wow, healthyy people die waiting for care. Trust me, if I could get him out of there I would. He has duel citizenship and in the states could have been treated a improved already. Unfortunately, because of his DVT it is too dangerous to fly. I am really afraid this hospital is going to kill my dad. Not sure what to do...."

"My 21 year old girlfriend died last week due to appendicitis. She had a ruptured appendix and was given pain medication and left in a hopistal bed with no immediate emergency surgery on day 3 which by then her ruptured appendix has leaked and caused a massive infection she died. Do not believe anything your hear about Costa Fraudica the whole country is a con. Total malpractice and shocking level of care in the 21st century. Disgusting that a young healthy individual died totally unnecessarily."

"Very attentive nurses, doctors. Food is good. Excellent experience. My ward was 8 beds. Some wards are very large. Staff in room constantly, I was in high care room."

"We were on vacation in Costa Rica after 8 years, my sister-in-law was hospitalized in San Juan de Dios, we did not know that with the card only one person could be visited per day, and if someone in a golden citizen could also pass, when the other person left, we thought that I could enter to visit my family member, to my surprise, the person who was at the entrance, a very ill-educated lady without any tact, discourtes and without any kindness, told me that i could not enter and explain that My Mom had stayed since the visit is 1h upstairs and she does not know how to read or see very well and if they allowed me or did me the favor of helping her to get off the 5th floor, the answer of this lady was that this was not her problem, that just as she went upstairs and stayed like that, she had to go down alone, that the disability not to see well or read was not their problem either, and that this was a family problem, and that if I did not live in Costa Rica, that before entering the country I should read all the normal and laws of the country. A poor service, where kindness is not known or compassion and attention to the public, inside the hospital they should educate the staff to be kinder and treat people as they should, since at times when family members are in pain and know that not even kindness they show is inhuman."