I have a question , if some average joe with possible stroke symptoms

[UndertheOcean]

presented to the Emergency room , would he be airlifted to the best teaching hospital in the state , or simply treated were he is .


The poor lady that died on the ER waiting room a few months ago , after being discharged , comes to mind.

The richer and more powerful you are , the more attention they pay to saving your life ? thats just the way it is ? or is it ?

[Genevieve]

1. Of course not. Average Joe might just die. eom

[jkshaw]

2. It depends upon the area, perhaps,

and if the average joe has health insurance. Our valley has excellent hospitals and, if either I or my husband showed symptoms of a stroke, I know we'd be treated for that immediately and be air-lifted if necessary to Salt Lake City for specialized care. I also know, however, that we are very, very lucky to have good insurance to cover such things, and live where we live.

[babylonsister]

3. My m-i-l had a stroke yesterday.

No airlifting, but the ambulance crew carried her down 3 flights of stairs and rushed her to the nearest hospital. She's getting all kinds of tests as I type, so she is being cared for. Perhaps not like Teddy, but I'm glad he's being so well cared for.

And Mom is still in the hospital, so they didn't shove her out the door.

[fight4my3sons]

15. hope m-i-l is ok

:hug:

[babylonsister]

18. Thanks.

We're hearing it was a small stroke; slurring, limited movement in one leg. Don't know much more yet.

[JDPriestly]

4. Depends on your luck and how complicated your case is.

If the ER is not way too busy, and you happen to get a really conscientious doctor in the ER (who isn't exhausted), and you don't have a super complicated case, you will get great care in the hospital without needing to go to a special teaching hospital.

I am not in the medical profession, but stroke symptoms are very common. Most doctors in the ER (and nurses) know the symptoms exactly what tests to give and what to do. Don't fool around. If you have stroke symptoms, you only have a certain amount of time to get the care you need.

I hope someone who is in the medical field will respond to this post.

[squawk7700]

11. The town near where I live is small (7000 or so) and has a fine hospital

where emergency and ongoing care is excellent...better than what might be found at the big (and horribly busy) facilities 40 miles away in the "real" city. So yes, luck is a bit of a factor...like what is reachable and I guess convenient.

[Alameda]

5. I know two people in PA

who had heart attacks and were air lifted to get help. Both did not have insurance. They can not own much of anything now though and any inheritance they may get is forfit....but they are alive and getting medical treatment.

In many ways though, I wonder if they are Guiana pigs being tested for treatments to refine for the rich.

[LawSchoolLiberal]

6. To be fair...

It depends on the hospital. I had a seizure at college a few years back, and was taken to the hospital unconscious. They weren't sure what had happened, (and I wasn't awake to tell them,) so they transported me to another hospital with a bigger neurology department.

It was a suburban hospital that I started at, and I doubt the same thing would have happened if I had started out in a busy downtown hospital, but at least part of that is a question of volume, rather than the class of patients. (Those two factors may be related, but that's outside a hospital's control; at least here in NY, we can thank the state government for working to consolidate and centralize hospitals in urban areas.)

[Warpy]

7. People who arrive at the hospital get good care

but no, they're generally not airlifted to a premium hospital in a big city.

Kennedy was as much for security reasons as for care reasons. CCH is perfectly capable of dealing with seizures and a medical workup to determine their possible origin. However, they're unable to provide the kind of security the VIP wing of MGH can.

However, if it makes you feel any better, the food at MGH is much worse.

[UndertheOcean]

10. lol!

[Stinky The Clown]

14. Now now .... don't knock the food

They're the hardest workers in the hostpital and take more shit than the housekeeping staff.

But yeah .... aT MGH ...... it does, indeed, suck!

[Warpy]

19. It had two strikes against it

First, it was New England cooking. Bland.

Second, MGH is enormous, covering a couple of city blocks and going way up in the air. Food has to travel a long distance to get to all the buildings and the VIP building is especially out of the way.

So it's not only blah, it's cold.

Best hospital food in town is at New England Baptist.

[Rosemary2205]

8. medicine can't fix everything.

A neighbor's mom 2 years ago felt ill and was taken to the emergency room. She was in a medicare HMO - one not particularly noted for top notch care. The hospital spent about $16,000 on tests and kept her overnight. They did everything they could to determine what the source of the symptoms were but couldn't find anything. By the next morning she felt a little better and wanted to go home and since they couldn't really find anything sent her home.

Less than 10 minutes after signing the discharge papers - just long enough to take the wheelchair ride to the car and being driven 1 mile to the IHOP, my neighbor's mom was laying dead in the parking lot of IHOP. She was feeling just fine, half in and half out of the car and POW. She literally was dead before she it the ground.

There was a really good investigation to see if the hospital should have caught something. 3 different doctors on staff for a big legal firm couldn't find any mistake in the hospital's actions or results to give my neighbor a reason to sue -- and this is a hospital that's had some life taking mistakes in the past.

Medicine, unfortunately, is an inexact science.

[pinto]

9. In my locale, patients are *routinely* airlifted to more experienced medical centers.

Burn patients, trauma cases, people with brain injuries...

I live a few blocks from a hospital with a helipad in its parking lot. Medivac copters fly over a few times a month. And I live in a fairly small, fairly rural county. I don't know who pays for the service, yet it happens and lives are saved.

In Senator Kennedy's situation I assume his federally funded health care plan picked up part of the tab (talking point for universal health care inserted here) - thankfully.

I see the gist of your point, I think, yet the analogy is misspent. I'm fine with federal employees having comprehensive health care. I'm fine with the wealthy affording comprehensive health care. And, I want a larger slice of our national wealth invested in universal health care. I don't see it as an *us or them* equation.

[Raven]

12. I can tell you for a fact: if you have those stmptoms and you are taken

to Cape Cod Hospital, you are going to be airlifted...no doubt about it. And, if guess if you are an average Joe you would not have the MSM practically pronouncing you dead and giving your obit because it's an otherwise slow news day, would you.

[RedCappedBandit]

13. Royalty has simply been replaced with wealth. nt

[pinto]

16. Oh come on. In this situation, that dog doesn't run, imho.

He was airlifted to a local (flight time) major hospital. It's done everyday, across the US.

[RedCappedBandit]

22. I don't think there is anything wrong with how Kennedy was treated.. was more of a general statement

[Stinky The Clown]

17. That's an unfair oversimplification with respect to Kennedy's situation.

I myself have been medevaced. I had a heart attack. I was fortunate in not needing to be unzipped, but I did need a catheterization. My local (nearest) hospital, where I went on first symptoms) could do them in an emergency. Another hospital, some 15 miles or so away, had a proper cath lab and did them routinely, with a staff that did them routinely.

I was medevaced (by ground, since I was not so critical as to need a helicopter, but they **did** discuss that) to that hospital and had the work done.

I think this is more a matter of what's best and not how rich one is.

To be sure there are stories of the poor being denied solely because they're poor.

To be sure, our health care *system* (not the quality of the care received or of the caregivers) is broken. But this was not an example of it ...... in my view.

[RedCappedBandit]

23. It was more of a general statement.

That said, I definitely think Kennedy would receive better treatment than the majority.. :shrug:

[blondeatlast]

20. As a TIA survivor myself, I'm just glad that there is such good care available and hope the same

level of care will sometime be available for all of us.

Lord knows I'm nobody and a half, but I'm here--and you are reading my reply... :evilgrin:

[cornermouse]

21. Around here they would be treated

and since the best hospital in what is a very large area is here there would be no point in airlifting them elsewhere for a stroke. Note: People don't usually die in the ER room waiting to be seen around here either. Around these parts, they are treated.

Nobody gets airlifted to the best teaching hospital in the state unless they are a VIP.

[w8liftinglady]

24. there are stroke centers of excellence.

I realy do believe my ER would try to transport a viable candidate.