I have had two major surgical procedures performed at Highland Hospital, which saved my life. In both cases, I received excellent care, with very knowledgeable doctors and nurses providing useful information and good support. Highland isn't a fancy facility, and wait-times are frequently very long, for patients with non-life-threatening illness - this is a serious problem, but is entirely the fault of the County and State governments, which do not fund the hospital sufficiently.. The staff at highland work tremendously hard, and demonstrate a level of dedication which is very rare, today.

Bad service, inhuman doctors. Oakland city health department should be pay more attention to the service provide on this hospital.

I was transferred from another hospital to Highland for a heart procedure and they were wonderful to me. The staff was very nice, they got me in and out quickly. I have continued treatment for my condition with Doctors there. I had no insurance but I felt like a VIP. I felt they were very thorough. They got me approved for specialty medication that would be very expensive if I had to buy it. It's been over a year since then and I feel almost as good as I did before all this. I am very satisfied with my treatment and continued care.

The telephone operators, doctors, social workers, payroll representatives, and even the janitors are extremely unfriendly, impatient, rude, and incapable of performing their job successfully; or at least good enough to fake good service. The proof lies in the fact that on numerous occasions of visiting the different offices, 95% of the time resulted in sarcastic or apathetic responses to general and complex questions.

On one occasion I witnessed as a patient was released. This would be a great accomplishment for the staff and community had not the individual been obviously sedated on drugs or remained completely mentally disabled. Either way, the individual slowly exited the double doors and remained outside near the parking lot for approximately 45 minutes, IN THE POURING RAIN! The most any staff member did for this individual was open the door to let them out. While I was inside I waited to see a patient that ended up being discharged in the similar state of mind, obviously in need of sever medical attention.

All the time I was there, the staff laughed and joked about their personal lives, television shows they watch, and their problems. Anytime I asked a question the rolling of the eyes and the hissing sounds made it seem like they wanted to say, "Don't you see we're busy!" The same attitude was given to me when I spoke to one of the doctors. I assume he was so busy that he felt justified for speaking too fast and rushing me away without answering any of my questions. His response always included, "Just have her take the med.'s. Just have her take the med.'s" Absolutely irritating and unprofessional.

I would not have written this if I did not think things were terribly wrong with that staff.