It appears that this woman was not crying wolf, or she wouldn’t be dead.
My son was hospitalized several times for abdominal pains and told that it was food poisoning, combined with alcohol. They pumped his stomach and sent him home. He continued to have bouts of “food poisoning”, about 4 times a year. Then finally, at a time when he had no insurance, the pains returned and he went again to the emergency room. They tried to tell him that it was cirrhosis of the liver and that he should stop drinking. Then the blood work came back and the doctor freaked because he had such a bad gall bladder that it had caused pancreatatis which was so bad that he could have died. He didn’t want to talk about the fact that the hospital had admitted him for the same symptoms, two years before.
After going to a very good emergency room in a private hospital here, my sister was misdiagnosed as suffering a heart attack, even though the tests did not reveal one. Thousands of dollars later (paying for the “heart attack” treatment), she returned to the hospital after another attack, got a better doctor (an Indian, btw), and was diagnosed with gallstones. Her gallbladder had not been working for years and no physician had ever noticed this.
She’s had no problems since the removal of her gallbladder.
Personally, I think some of this woman’s problems did have to do with the fact that she was Hispanic. A family member who was a paramedic used to joke about HHS, Hispanic Hysterical Syndrome, because any ailment, no matter how minor, would bring out a grandmother who would throw herself on the street weeping and screaming. So the hospital probably wrote this woman off.
But they do that a lot. Once when my children were very young, I went to the doctor with severe backpains. He told me it was nerves. When I couldn’t stand it any more, I went to the emergency room, and they found a severe urinary tract infection that was begining to affect the kidneys.
So sometimes preconceptions - while they may have a basis in fact and experience - can interfere with medical treatment. And not only at the local state hospital, but at any level.
I just went through the same illness. My blood enzyme level was over 8000. I had to wait in the hospital for 3 days before the level was low enough for the operation.
I had seen my doctor about 2 hours before I went to the emergency room. I saw my doctor a week after the surgery and he asked he why I didn’t tell him I was in so much pain when he pressed on my stomach. I told him, “I wasn’t in that much pain when I saw him. I had a lot of pain when I scheduled the appointment that morning and when I went to the emergency room about 2 hours later.
When a person comes in with gastroenteritis, "pumping the stomach" is not a treatment. It isn't even considered as a treatment for gastroenteritis under any circumstances.
Furthermore, a simple noninvasive abdominal ultrasound would have found a bum gallbladder and stones. Did the ER hold him until the lab results came back? Holding for lab values is standard practice.