Anonymous
Dec 7, 2021
I was assigned to Dr Almonacid in 2018 through the Quebec government service matching system for family physicians. At the time, he was working in Hudson. His receptionists and nurses were very professional and proactive. However, in 2019 I received my first negative experience when my blood test results were non-consensually released into the hands of another patient at the same clinic. I randomly received a phone call from an elderly woman who had a file at this clinic, but was not a patient of Dr Almonacid. She kept asking me questions about why I was undergoing blood tests. She was not an employee at the clinic and had no authority to possess or question my results. I felt violated by the lack of professionalism by Dr Almonacid and his staff.
Following this negative experience I continued to be seen by Dr Almonacid after he moved to his current location in Pincourt. After this move, the quality of services only continued to decline. When I was ill and requested a meeting with my family physician, I spent 45 minutes attempting to navigate the unbearably complex phone line where my doctors switchboard line during opening hours only to be hung up on multiple times. To my present knowledge there is no receptionist working for Dr Almonacid, as I have not successfully scheduled a doctors appointment through his receptionist but have navigated through other family physicians receptionists. This is profoundly unprofessional.
The final straw came in the passed 2 years where I have experience chronic health conditions. I was sent for blood tests but was never referred to any professional specialist. He would send me for tests and never follow up on results. I would spend precious time attempting to contact his office to organize for answers to my blood tests. He or his office never attempted to contact me for my results, but relied on the patient to initiate and contact the doctors to receive information from blood test results.
Once I finally secured a virtual appointment with the aforementioned physician, he insisted I stop doing blood tests and said "I could refer to a gastroenterologist but that would just prolong the problem, we need to start acting". This statement was uttered after I made all the effort to coordinate and communicate with him, while he could not provide the baseline amount of healthcare follow-up. I am profoundly upset by his inefficiency, inattention and believe his lack of quality of care to be potentially detrimental to my health.
The real hero to my story is my Gynaecologist who, even without being my actual family physician, sent me for bloodwork and would follow-up to discuss results. If not for her I would not know of my fatty liver, gallstones and positive diagnosis for celiacs disease. She was instrumental in referring me to a gastroenterologist and a general surgeon to confirm whether I would require to remove my gallbladder.
Dr Almonacid did nothing but dismiss my symptoms due to my age and I suspect my gender. He should for all intents and purposes find another profession as he does not take the healthcare of his patients seriously. He would rather minimize testing to avoid any legal responsibility that comes from possible complications. His staff is disorganized and incompetent and he is barely accessible.
