ER Thoughts
Mom is still very weak and having severe diarrhea, but the anti-nausea drugs seem to have worked. She's home resting. We're continuing to pray for her recovery.
Mom's doctor called ahead to the emergency room last night, so she didn't have to wait a long time in the waiting room before being seen.
Dad said they saw a woman in the waiting area with possible stroke symptoms (difficulty using one side of her body, etc). She was complaining that she'd been waiting for 2 hours and hadn't been seen yet.
Dr. Flea was complaining recently about patients who abuse the emergency room. Maybe it's just that we usually have an extremely long wait here even for fairly urgent situations, but I haven't seen a lot of that when I've been to our ER. Most of what I see are cases that really do belong in the emergency room.
Obviously I'm not the best judge, but in sitting there watching and talking to the other people waiting, most of the cases I've seen were things that I would think were appropriate for an emergency room . . . an older man with heart attack symptoms, a 12-year-old who had imbibed an entire bottle of Vodka, infants with high fevers, people with broken limbs or open wounds, kids with dehydration from long-lasting severe diarrhea and vomiting, a guy brought in by an ambulance after getting drunk and breaking his neck in a stolen car (he had to wait for hours since he was already stabilized--head screwed to a metal halo), and that sort of thing.
I can't imagine that many people opt to spend hours in the ER waiting room if it's clearly not necessary. Anyone going in with something really minor is going to end up waiting all day, because they triage the cases to take care of the most serious things first. When even a broken neck or a possible stroke victim has to wait for hours, people think pretty carefully about going to the ER. I know I do.
I try to avoid ever going to the ER unless it's absolutely necessary, and I have almost never gone without being told to go by a doctor. Most people I know are the same way.
It's very nice to have the advice/on-call number available with our clinic for help with making those judgment calls. It would be more difficult for those without that service available, and especially those without health insurance.
It's too bad there's usually such a long wait, but I'm glad there's some way to get 24-hour emergency medical care here.
Mom's doctor called ahead to the emergency room last night, so she didn't have to wait a long time in the waiting room before being seen.
Dad said they saw a woman in the waiting area with possible stroke symptoms (difficulty using one side of her body, etc). She was complaining that she'd been waiting for 2 hours and hadn't been seen yet.
Dr. Flea was complaining recently about patients who abuse the emergency room. Maybe it's just that we usually have an extremely long wait here even for fairly urgent situations, but I haven't seen a lot of that when I've been to our ER. Most of what I see are cases that really do belong in the emergency room.
Obviously I'm not the best judge, but in sitting there watching and talking to the other people waiting, most of the cases I've seen were things that I would think were appropriate for an emergency room . . . an older man with heart attack symptoms, a 12-year-old who had imbibed an entire bottle of Vodka, infants with high fevers, people with broken limbs or open wounds, kids with dehydration from long-lasting severe diarrhea and vomiting, a guy brought in by an ambulance after getting drunk and breaking his neck in a stolen car (he had to wait for hours since he was already stabilized--head screwed to a metal halo), and that sort of thing.
I can't imagine that many people opt to spend hours in the ER waiting room if it's clearly not necessary. Anyone going in with something really minor is going to end up waiting all day, because they triage the cases to take care of the most serious things first. When even a broken neck or a possible stroke victim has to wait for hours, people think pretty carefully about going to the ER. I know I do.
I try to avoid ever going to the ER unless it's absolutely necessary, and I have almost never gone without being told to go by a doctor. Most people I know are the same way.
It's very nice to have the advice/on-call number available with our clinic for help with making those judgment calls. It would be more difficult for those without that service available, and especially those without health insurance.
It's too bad there's usually such a long wait, but I'm glad there's some way to get 24-hour emergency medical care here.
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Posted by purple_kangaroo at 1:44 PM[Permanent link]
9 Comments:
I sure hope that your mom is ok, it is so hard to not be able to stop a loved one's illness. I will pray for her.
Came from Moreena's tonight.
I'm praying for your mom.
According to an NPR story I heard last week, hospitals have closed ERs at an alarming rate over the last 5 years. They're overloaded now under normal circumstances, so disaster recovery specialists are terrified about what might happen if a disaster actually struck anywhere in the States right now. There just aren't enough emergency rooms or the personnel to staff them.
I'm so glad we were able to get in right away, too!
The lady I saw who was partially paralyzed had fallen, so I'm guessing she had a spinal injury. She got mad and left, even though she couldn't even walk and she had to drive herself. Security and nursed had to help her in the car, but they couldn't talk her into staying to wait for help. She can't have been waiting THAT long, because we had only been there a couple of hours and I don't think she was there when we came in.
I'm holding her--and all ofyou--in my thoughts.
There was a study done up here in Canada a few months ago, and they found that contrary to popular belief, it wasn't true that people with minor injuries were clogging up ERs.
We've got two good ERs here in town (population around 130,000), and we've never had to wait more than 15 minutes to see a doctor. Of course, we've never had to come in on one of the busy times (weekend nights/holidays). Or when we did come in at a busy time, Annika was bleeding at a good rate, which meant immediately being whisked in.
Still, our ERs here seem amazingly efficient. I wonder if it's that we have lots of urgent care facilities around town to take care of stuff that clogs up ERs elsewhere?
Anyway, I'm sorry to hear your mom is still having diarrhea. I hope this weekend finds improvement for her.
Thanks so much, everyone. Interesting comments about ERs.
Thanks for the link. What can I say? Every community is different. Mine is clearly different from yours. If you could describe what makes your community different from yours and put it in a bottle, I'd buy it.
best,
Flea
I think you're right, Dr. Flea. The cultural attitudes about emergency room use may vary a lot from region to region. Here, if anyone mentions that they went to the emergency room everyone immediately gets very concerned. It's just assumed that emergency room equals emergency.
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