It's sad, but we insured patients have to pay $500 for the ambulance ride, while the illegals ride for free.
BUMP
Is it true abotu the e-mail that says to cough hard?
Thanks for the post and especially the advice about 911 ... I would probably have insisted on being driven were I in that situation.
Have been to ER's more times than I care to remember with an asthmatic child .. only once did a triage nurse have us wait and by then I was so experienced, I ranted till we were seen. Immediately.
I work in 3 different emergency departments as a midlevel provider (P.A.) and am amazed at the number of people who get past the triage with symptoms that should SCREAM "Heart!!!!!!! and yet sit for a long time without the pretreatment that you apropriately detailed in your post. The youngest cardiac death (not congenital) I have seen was a 19 year old who came in with cocaine related angina and signed out against medical advice when we pointed out his ischemic changes on is ekg. He went out and did another line of coke and blew his myocardium out and DIED. And, Yes, I am sick to death of all the "FREE" CARE" WE ARE HANDING OUT TO ILLEGALS. I don't mind treating life threatening problems but recently saw a "Protocitizen" who waited in our ER for 3 hours so I could treat his ATHLETES FOOT!!!.
The man was a smoker, so they disregarded his shortness of breath, and made him wait. He died.
The wife sued, and won. But no charges were filed.
Heh...I remember getting to the hospital and tellin 'em I was having a heart attack. They gave me that "oh sure" look and made me walk to the wheelchair which would take me to the exam room. They hooked me up, checked me out and said, "Well - clinically, you're having a heart attack". I responded with my usual, "No shit!".
About 3 minutes later I flatlined. But they got me back. Man - did I give 'em a scare...heh heh...haven't smoked since...:-)
Unfortunately many doctors still don't take symptoms that could be indicative of a heart attack seriously.
There are several posts in this thread, that relate such experiences:
Early Symptoms Can Warn of Sudden Cardiac Death
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1698367/posts
I learned this the hard way--call 911 and be taken by ambulance to the hospital if you think you have a life-threatening condition.
It's happened too often. This woman had classic signs, but not all women do. I read of one lady who complained of sharp pains in her back and arm. It was enough to scare her into the E.R. They decided it was nothing serious, released her, and she dropped dead in the parking lot on her way out. The point is...women don't always have obvious symptoms.
E.R. is SUPPOSED to be a triage situation, not "take a number". Obviously, some E.R.'s are better than others. One very big problem NOW... is that too many people use the E.R. as a clinic. Legally, they can't turn anyone away. The "E" stands for "Emergency". We need to get back to that.
btt
I'm not placing blame on the victim or her daughter. The hospital staff is clearly at fault. I'm simply saying, had that been my loved one, I never would have allowed that much time to pass.
Think Shirley McClaine at the nursing station in 'Terms of Endearment'. I've been there, done that.
For what it's worth, in most states a coroner's finding of 'homicide' is not the same as a criminal charge of homicide. As used by a coroner's jury, it just means 'death at the hands of another'. Self-defense deaths, negligence caused deaths, etc. are all classed 'homicide'.
It's more likely this case'll be filed in civil court.
how many Illegal Mexicans were in front of her getting treated becasue they don't have insurance.
Sadly this won't be the last time.
A man died in a Mississippi ER in very similar circumstances several years ago, after which the hospital instituted practices exactly like you describe. I personally showed up with chest pains and was whisked to the back and put through the cardiac assumption.
I'm sorry to say that aside from that one category of symptom, the ER staff remained the coldest, most indifferent group of human beings I've ever had the misfortune to encounter. A little over a year ago, I went to the ER with a kidney stone. Fellow Freepers who've been "stoned" will understand the level of pain that comes with the process. The place wasn't even busy and I was curtly told that "pain isn't a critical emergency, no matter how bad it is." (That's a paraphrase but the meaning is dead on.)
MM
I absolutely agree with your philosophy. In my ambulance days I had a 'chest pains' patient who was ambulatory when we arrived. He refused a gurney, but agreed to take a ride to the ER with us, so the attendant got in back and the guy rode in the passenger seat, complaining about having to do to the hospital the whole way.
At the hospital, we persuaded him to get in a wheel chair, took him to an examining room, he insisted on getting on the examining table himself, got out of the chair, and went nose down. Resuscitation attempts failed. That was forty years back. These days, our local paramedics do c-spine precautions on anyone who could even remotely possibly have sustained damage. They take a similar approach with cardiac patients.
Health ping. Great thread.
Having worked in a Level 1 trauma center for 10 years, I can agree with some of the points made by the other posters here. However, some of the other comments have served to remind me why I no longer work in public healthcare and why the average service life for an ER nurse is 8.5 years in my part of the country.
Sure: Chest pain + SOB (shortness of breath)+ nausea = Cardiac until ruled out, but not every patient will present with these symptoms or even admit to them in as many words even when fully assessed at triage. Remember that another factor to add to the classic cardiac presentation is denial:
"Ma'am/Sir, are you having any chest pain?"
"No, I just have a little twinge... but I've had that for years. Its not a problem"
"What about shortness of breath or any difficulty breathing?"
"Not really.. I mean I'm a smoker and have been for years and I've got good days and bad days."
Now, lets continue this hypothetical: You are the triage nurse in one of the busiest ERs in town. Its a Friday night at 11pm. The next largest ER across town just when on ambulance diversion which closes thier doors to ambulance traffic (usually due to being already overwhelmed) and as a result there are 5 EMS units en route to your facility from all over town. Your high acuity section is already full with gunshot wounds, screaming suicidal drug overdoses, cardiac cases and acute surgical cases which take up the lion's share of the availale staff. Your routine treatment section is full of 'non-specific abdominal pains' and 'Migrane Headache x3 weeks' patients which will take hours to diagnose and clear, and your minor emergency section is full and they should have closed 3 hours ago. There is about a 6 hour wait for a patient that is triaged with a 'routine' complaint.
So here you sit with a patient who isn't very clear with you about why exactly they have come in tonight, you're having to chase them all over triage just to nail them down to a chief complaint of: 'My chest is kinda sore' and you've got a line of eight other people waiting for you to triage and the line isn't getting any shorter. Your 'Sore Chest' patient's vital signs are good and they have no significant personal, family history or even a good history of present illness so you classify them 'Urgent' and sit them down in the waiting room.
Now you try to get the other eight people triaged, and for every one you see, two walk in. One of the people walking in pretends to faint so they can go to the top of the list; this ties you up for 15 minutes. Other patient's family member starts screaming at anyone wearing a hospital badge that he knows the CEO of the hospital and we'd better take is wife with her earache that she's had for 30 minutes to see a doctor NOW, dammit.
You've dealt with all of this, and you aren't even one hour into your shift yet.
Think about dealing with this 12 hours a day. Consider this before coming to the emergency room in the middle of the night on a weekend for a problem that you've had for weeks. And take all this into account before you start talking about how the nursing staff and doctors 'should be charged with depraved indifference to human life.'
what you typed, is it the article or are you using your own words?