I'd like to add:
EVERY person presenting to the ER should be triaged by Immigration and Border Enforcement. Our citizens are denied service, or recieve a lesser level of service, because of all the illegal Mexicans gumming up the system. Get rid of them and you remove a big part of the problem.
While I tend to agree overall, FRiend, in my area illegals are no longer a problem, and never were the major issue anyway. Two years ago, the area was flooded with hispanics - construction mostly. Now, with the economy the way it is, there are no jobs at all for them now. Mostly, they relied on home remedies and pay-for-play Urgent Cares; many were afraid that the LEO’s on guard in our ER would catch them and have them deported.
What we are seeing in my ER are the chronic medicaid visitors that do not have a primary care physician; chain smokers continuing to smoke after being diagnosed w/ COPD; and the Fri/Sat night drunks that have learned they can come into the ER intoxicated, claim “chest pain” and get a few shots of morphine, get admitted to sleep it off, then disappear from their room come daylight. And do it all again the next weekend!
These are the abuses that need to be stopped. By all means, catch the illegals and send them home, but I don’t think that they are the bulk of the problem in our ER’s.