Best health care in the world they say, Just go to the ER they say....

[JeffHead]

Man found dead in ER after waiting 8 hours for a doctor.

He walked into Saint Barnabas Hospital asking to be treated for a rash — but more than eight hours later, John Verrier was found dead in his chair in the crowded ER waiting room, hospital officials concede.
The 30-year-old amateur artist may have been dead for hours, according to a mortified employee who was there in the Bronx emergency room Monday morning when the corpse was ­finally discovered.


http://nypost.com/2014/01/25/man-found-dead-after-waiting-8-hours-in-er/

[TeeYiYi]

1. New York has a history of ER deaths...

Here's one from 2008:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/emergency-room-death-sparks-outrage/

TYY

[TeeYiYi]

2. Another; this one from Los Angeles in 2007...

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ignored-by-911-woman-dies-in-hospital/

TYY

[Curmudgeoness]

3. Yep, best health care in the world.

Patients who check into Saint Barnabas’ ER are usually in for a long haul — the average ER wait times at the hospital are twice the New York state and national averages, The Post has learned.

It takes patients at The Bronx hospital a glacial average of 306 minutes to be treated and released — compared to the average 155-minute wait statewide and the average 137-minute wait nationally, according to the Medicare statistics.

Even the most sick patients are waiting hours to be treated in ER's. National average is over 2 hours. This is NOT health care.

[Cleita]

4. I sat in he ER in a Los Angeles hospital with a friend who was having complications from her

pregnancy. This was about thirty years ago. It was take a number. A man near us was non-stop bleeding for what seemed like an hour while his family tried to stop the bleeding with compresses. Another came in with a broken ankle, his foot dangling for his leg. My friend and I waited three hours in turn. One thing they were really quick about was getting insurance and other information.

[El_Johns]

5. That's what's galling: they don't have enough people to treat but they make sure they get the

$$ info.

[loyalsister]

6. I always correct that statement

Best technology one of the very worst delivery.

[tblue]

11. They have great technology elsewhere

Japan, Germany. Which is best is debatable. But as for delivery, man, we are decades behind.

[loyalsister]

12. I agree

Maintaining a piece of superiority makes the point gently.

[MineralMan]

7. Always come to the ER in an ambulance.

Seriously. If you don't need an ambulance, go to a suburban hospital ER, if you can. They're less crowded, usually.

[Arkansas Granny]

8. I had to visit the ER a few years ago for a broken bone.

After a 5 hour wait, I was finally treated. As I was leaving, I noticed an older man who had come in shortly after me, complaining of chest pains, was still in the waiting room.

It took them less than 10 minutes after my arrival to ask $$.

[Yo_Mama]

9. Winnipeg has the worst story. Over 30 hours.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/10/17/brian-sinclair-winnipeg-er_n_4115973.html

Winnipeg is in Canada. It's not as if overcrowded hospitals don't have this problem everywhere.

Here's an article which looks at the problem in the US:
http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/01/13/emergency.room.ep/

There are some links in it to various reports. It's very possible to die in an ER waiting room anywhere.

I took my husband with triple pneumonia to the only hospital available (it's a regional medical center, so supposedly "good&quot in GA more than a decade ago. He was grey and had a fever of over 104, and was intermittently delirious.

I had to threaten them with a malpractice suit to get them to take him in quickly. It was their fault, because they had seen him and discharged him two days before when he only had single or double pneumonia, but he also had severe diarrhea from food poisoning which had caused the pneumonia, and you can't treat a patient with oral antibiotics and pneumonia and diarrhea. When he first went to the ER on Sunday all they did was give him two prescriptions and discharge him the first time. I had been a thousand miles away in an ICU with my mother when he got ill.

Part of it's the insurance companies - sometimes they won't give permission to admit or treat.

[gaspee]

10. How do you get

Triple pneumonia when you only have two lungs?

I thought double pneumonia was pneumonia in both lungs.

[Yo_Mama]

13. It goes by lung lobe - you have five lung lobes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_lung

[quakerboy]

14. internet sez:

"If you have double pneumonia, both of your lungs are infected. It you have been cured of double pneumonia and then are attacked again by a lung infection, it is called triple pneumonia."

[gaspee]

19. Learn something

New on DU every day.

[busterbrown]

16. Then you’ll probably disagree with this?

http://www.aarp.org/politics-society/government-elections/info-03-2012/myths-canada-health-care.html

[Yo_Mama]

18. My understanding is that Canada's system is pretty good as a whole, but there are regional

issues with access.

The point I was trying to make is that wait times at ERs are sometimes a function of brief overcrowding, and sometimes a function of chronic undercapacity, so it's difficult to go from an anecdote to an overall assumption about health care.

But in general in the US, it does seem like ER wait times are not going in the right direction:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/16/obamacare-er-wait-times_n_4611230.html

We'll have to wait and see how things shake out under ACA, and my bet is that it will go area by area - some will get much worse, while some will pretty much stay as is. But in MA the existing healthcare system did get overstressed after their universal coverage went into effect.

[busterbrown]

20. I heard that there is a shortage of MDs in Rural areas..

Most of them have packed their bags and landed here.. Great wealth to acquire here!!

[Swede Atlanta]

17. The ER is not where you get "health care".....

it is where you go when you find yourself in a dire emergency. Luckily the nation has embraced the concept of "urgent care" that can deal with the flu and other acute but minimally manageable illnesses.

I read a recent study...wish I could find the reference...that said that between 60 and 65% of the people in the ER had conditions that would or could have been treated by a PCP had the patient had regular health care.

This is the other side of Obamacare. If you can get people to the doctor and can either prevent or detect conditions, it alleviates stress on the emergency system.

[ConcernedCanuk]

21. Not quite true.

.
.
.

At least not for Canada.

The town I now live in, as well as others use the ER as a clinic. I've gone in for digestive problems, minor wounds, blood tests, physicals and so on.

Triage is quick - people are treated in order of arrival depending on the severity of their complaints.

Obvious stress like chest pains, difficulty breathing, extreme pain, fresh wounds etc., will have a patient moved ahead of others in for minor issues or physicals.

I go into triage, they record my complaint and some info, then I go to admitting where I am "tagged" after I present my health card - looks the same as a credit card - EVERY Canadian gets one - no charge.

Longest I ever waited (I'm 63 so I've been in a few times) to be seen by a doctor was just under two hours - most times 20 - 30 minutes.

There are no $$ issues here - you get treated, you go home.

Dis be Canada.

I'm stayin'.



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