A sound bit of friendly adv ice...

[BentleyJD]

Unless you're willing to croak there, do not go to an emergency room in this country.
So my doctor tells me to go to the e.r. because I still have headaches from when I tripped and hit my head on the desk.
So my sister takes me to e.r. #1. Waiting three hours, getting nowhere. This preganant women was waiting six hours, and they told the parents of a child who needed stitches to expect a six hour wait.
So we go to e.r.#2. They take my vitals. BP 167!!!! Then they told me to have a seat. This poor women was sitting in the hallway bleeding to death. Wouldn't call that a triage emergency would you?
So we give up and I go home with my headache.
Is the medical system this fucked up in the whole country . or does Florida have its own rank rating there too?
take care tony and dietrich

[RagingInMiami]

1. Our state is run by Jeb

So it ranks pretty low in health care

[BentleyJD]

5. But to have some poor women bleeding to death

in a frigging chair in the hallway was disgusting..But I know what you mean. Jethro Jeb, is a disgrace, indeed.
take care
tony and dietrich

[miss_kitty]

2. I find crying uncontrollably works you through the line

but as a person who was told to go to an ER to get the dressing on my newly installed PICC line checked (Thanks for insisting you do that on a Friday, Asshats) I'm telling you if one more GD helicopter had landed (I think it was 5 that Saturday), I be typing this from prison.

[yellowdogintexas]

3. I would go to minor emergency center for that type of situation

like the walkin clinics

we call 'em doc in the box

you don't have to wait as long
cheaper
more comfortable
quieter
much more personal attention.

[liberalhistorian]

4. That seems to be the typical

experience in my local ER's, I'm in Ohio. And if you don't have insurance/money, you're REALLY screwed because then they pay even less attention to you. Then they'll charge you up the wazoo and send their ruthlessly aggressive debt collectrolls after you to relentlessly try to get blood from a stone.

[BentleyJD]

7. I have two insurances

and I still get stuck with alot of the bill. Which promplty goes in the trash, since medicare says I owe no more
Fucking bush, seventy fucking dollars a month for lousy medicare coverage.
tnanks all the seniors who voted for the jackass
take care
tony and dietrich

[Blue Diadem]

6. You'll get the flu if

you go to one around here. I had to sit forever with all of those hacking people..(who I don't blame because they have no other place to go) I was having a reaction to a medication I guess..they never really figured it out...but I seriously thought I was going to die. My advice:
Next time call an ambulance...you get right in then. You'd be surprised what people call the ambulance for.

[Droopy]

8. I've never had a problem with them where I live

I've been to the emergency room twice in the last couple of years and I always got right in. But I live in a small city with several hospitals. I've been treated well during my stays in the hospital. The only thing I don't like is getting the bill. I have an 85/15 insurance plan, which is pretty good, but when you add up the dollars for an extended stay it still can get up there pretty high. I've paid about $2000 dollars each stay in the hospital.

[sendero]

9. Here in Dallas...

... its only a bit better than that - and only if you don't go to the "county" hospital.

My oldest son has been to the emergency room five times over the years. You are usually looking at 2-3 hours as a bare minimum just to get "in". Then another hour or two.

God forbid anyone really need immediate care :)

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

10. If the pregnant woman was in labor, I'm not sure

what she was doing in the ER. I think most hospitals have a separate maternity unit. I remember being told not to show up at the ER (for labor) when I was pregnant.

I didn't have to wait very long at all to get into see a doctor when I went to the maternity ward. This was in Orlando, FL too.

[barb162]

11. I think our much vaulted medical system in this country is falling

apart.

[shesemsmom]

12. Where I live

we have a top rate ER. Could it be that they were treating critically injured that you had no idea of. That is the way it is to work, then again they may be horribly understaffed and you can thank insurance companies and the Federal government for that. I had my Dad to the local ER Christmas day and they were nearly full and he was teated RIGHT NOW for chest pain. They were fast and efficient and They were AWESOME. Not all hospitals or Er's are the same. Some are top rate some aren't

[havocmom]

13. Spent 8 hours in the ER waiting room one night. Saw a naked woman on PCP

escape THREE TIMES from her friends, three cops, two hospital security people and one concerned citizen. On the third race through the unit, a clerical worker, taking info from some man who came in with vague complaints, was distracted when the naked woman and party ran OVER her desk. After they passed, the man with the vague symptoms stood up, grabbed his chair and whacked the clerical worker over the head with it, nearly killing her.

That was just in the Center Ring. Much was going on in the other rings too. After his third visit with backups to settle things down at the ER, a grizzled old police sergeant pulled the hospital security chief aside and told him, "Look, if you can't keep things under control around here, I'm gonna have to pull your liquor license!"

I was there for a smashed thumb so I got to be seen last. Hey, it was better than cable! The doctor who treated me (using the term VERY loosely here) missed the blood clot completely when he drilled through my nail, thereby not only failing to relieve the pressure, but assuring it would get MUCH worse.

I walked home through road construction and a hellish 'hood in Tucson just before dawn, figuring if I had survived the night in ER, nothing could harm me. I was flanked and escorted the two and a half miles home by a kindly she-coyote and her clan.

After drilling through the nail in the right place myself, I decided on vodka and the nozzle from a pastry tube on my sore digit to get me through the weekend. My doctor was amazed on Monday.

Only way I would go to a big city ER now would be unconscious on a stretcher carried by somebody who didn't know me well.