Friday, January 18, 2008

Medical Care Reform Now! 

According to this CNN article, one in four heart attack patients has to wait for fifty minutes or more in the ER to see a doctor.  This is unacceptable.  If we adopt a more modern and progressive system, we can get our numbers up in no time. ( Plus it would cut down on the number of Canadians who come down to use our hospitals, eh?) 

8 comments:

I find these statistics-finding articles funny, because both times now I've ended up in the ER with chest pain, even when the second I tried to patiently explain that this has happened before and it's probably not an MI, the staff gets a concerned look and I'm hooked to a multi-ten-thousand dollar piece of equipment with an IV in my arm in the blonk of an eye. 

Speaking as the spouse of a former ER doctor: the QUICKEST way to get care in an ER is to tell the first person you meet that you are having trouble breathing and/or are having chest pains.  You will be beeping away on a heart monitor, prone on a bed, before your feet know they have left the floor.  If it takes a doctor some time to get to you, well, the nurses are the ones who will do all the work before he gets there to keep you alive, anyway, so no harm done. 

My wife's an ER nurse.  She says one of the biggest problems that leads to long lines is people using the ER instead of having a primary care physician.  Of course your going to have to wait to see someone if your not injured or sick and just want more vicadin (what a douche!).  Ive met ER docs who will throw you out on your ass if you pull that shiat on them. 

The point of an ER is emergency care so they can ship you off to another part of the hospital for more regular care.  People think that means its a walk in clinic...which its not.  If they want that kind of care they need to go to a clinic. 

Yeh, if we had the NHS like in Britain we'd be killin' a whole lot more folks!  According to the Guardian(HT Traction Control) More than 17,000 people receiving treatment in the UK have died unnecessarily because of the inadequacies of the NHS, it is claimed today. 

Agree, Taylor.  I run an OB ER.  8 of 10 patients I see come in for 1) normal pregnancy discomforts, 2) drug seeking or 3) things that could easily be handled in their prenatal clinic for $50 instead of $2000 if only they could be bothered to go to their prenatal clinic.  We are so clogged up with people who don't need emergency services, it sometimes interferes with our ability to care for people who do. 

I've had people call 911 from the waiting room after they've been triaged, thinking that an ambulance in will get them a bed ahead of the crowd. 

Most ER's are swamped with non-ER patients.  And hospitals bend over backwards to make folks happy and keep 'em happy, so rooms that should be used for sick people get full of snot nosed kids, lonely Grandma's, bumps and bruises that ice could heal and drug seeking Zombies.  Oh yeah, and Medicaid Zombies who aren't really sick, but refuse to go their Doctors office because Jerry Springer was on when they were supposed to be at their appointment. 

And they ALL either can't tell you shit about their medical history, (Medicines I take?  A couple of little white pills and a blue one.)  or lie to you to try and scam Narcs.  The Medicaid Zombies get rude and begin swearing, demanding that they get moved through in a hurry because, "I've got groceries in the car".  I shit you not, I heard that just last weekend.  G-d forbid if I be an insensitive prick and mention that they may have a planning and or priority issue.