2 hour wait in ER, should I be pissedoff?

[Joe Bob]

Well...that's what I'm asking.....

[tcar]

ER is strictly for non-english speakers. Your fault.

[jyl]

So far, we've had okay experiences in ERs.

But this is one reason why I'd like to see fewer uninsured in the US. No matter how great your private insurance, an accident or sudden illness still means you go to the ER along with everyone else. Too many families without insurance mean overcrowded ERs and, ultimately, closed ERs.

[mikester]

We've had fairly good results with the ER here but of course we try to avoid it. A while back we had to take my Son in when he was between 18 months and 2 years - don't remember exactly what for but it was probably a high fever (what else is there). We sat there for at least an hour in the crowded ER when our Dr. who happened to be in there seeing another patient and had been notified of our visit (and was aware of our son's condition from a previous call in the day) came out to see us in the waiting room. Ah, I remember what it was now...he was so congested he seemed to be laboring to breath and my wife was quite worried (as was I). Well, it was nice and warm in our house but very cool outside (being somewhat wintery since in Socal we don't really have winter) and by the time the Dr. came out to us he was doing much better. So much so we were considering going home. She explained it to us though - the cold night air had done the trick so next time - just go for a walk in the cold night air. Which we did the following night and it worked like a charm. Still we were there probably 2 hours for nothing...

Another time, same ER (Little Company of Mary in Torrance which I do recommend) my wife had a miscarriage. We were prepared for it since we had an ultra sound that showed an empty egg sack and rather than a DNC she opted to simply let nature take its course. We were instructed to go to the ER when things started happening. She was in some pain and eventually seen but it didn't seem like it was a terribly long time.

I don't think 2 hours is a long time but in the kind of pain you were probably in I am sure it felt like longer.

My step brother who is 10 just had his appendix rupture. His mother did not take him to the ER right away, he had been sick for days...it is a sad story but luckily he made it through. He spent nearly 2 weeks in the hospital and at least 8 days in the ICU.

She still has custody.

Personally I try to leverage the urgent care facilities for very minor things and that has worked out well.

The bottom line is socialized medicine is already here. You already pay for the other people's medical care but currently it the market is expected to absorb it. The only way to do that is to raise the price for the paying customers. It's a great system - really.

We have three real options the way I see it:

1) Reform of some kind which will likely require some sort of single payer/socialization.

2) Do nothing and let the system fail completely - which it likely will.

3) Let folks who don't have insurance go untreated.

Just my thoughts...

[johnco]

walked into ER with broken wrist, a chunk of my nose missing, a hole in my lip I could stick my tongue thru and a broken tooth. nurse I know says she glad I walked in because everyone was bored. Er doc passes by and says the same thing. an hour later a doc tells me to apply a little pressure and my lip would quit bleeding. like I didn't know that with all the scars I carry. this poor person of color walked in with a sick child and was rushed in. a brother of a different color came strutting in, said he didn't feel so good and was walked right in. I sat there bleeding, watching my wrist doubling in size from the swelling in the empty waitng room. after over 2 hours sitting there watching the nurses bebop around and the doctors chatting on their cells phones, I went to the rest room, stuffed some tissue on my nose and in my lip and walked out. the 2 ER docs that had walked outside for a break smoke from all that er action of sitting around, bull****ting and talking on the phonje I watched them do for 2 hours were nice enough to ask me if I was okay and was I coming back because it was slowing down now and they could take me in soon.. hole healed up, skin grew back on my nose in a few weeks, and now about 8 years later, my wrist doesn't hurt nearly as much any more and I almost have full motion back. Just think of alll that money I saved that high quality service and personal attention would have cost if I would have stuck around for a few more hours until they could see me.

[Jeff Alton]

Lets see.......

You are still alive right? And they fixed you up right? And you waited two hours? Sounds like a good deal to me.

Your 5K insurance just gets the bill paid, same as my 80K in income tax last year up here in publicly funded land.

I went to the hospital to get stiches in my hand about a year ago. Got there at 10pm, left at 7:00am with some nice sewing work. NO complaints. It is what it is........ Granted, a hand wound is by no means in the same category as what you went through.

They triage in ER, so I am guessing that with they assesed your case and based on the manpower available you got served as quickly as they could.

The health care system and nurses and doctors take a pretty good a$$ kicking in the media up here. As far as I am concerned, anytime I walk into a ER/doctors office, and leave on the mend, it is all good.

Cheers

[Jeff Alton]

Lets see.......

You are still alive right? And they fixed you up right? And you waited two hours? Sounds like a good deal to me.

Your 5K insurance just gets the bill paid, same as my 80K in income tax last year up here in publicly funded land.

I went to the hospital to get stiches in my hand about a year ago. Got there at 10pm, left at 7:00am with some nice sewing work. NO complaints. It is what it is........ Granted, a hand wound is by no means in the same category as what you went through.

They triage in ER, so I am guessing that with they assesed your case and based on the manpower available you got served as quickly as they could.

The health care system and nurses and doctors take a pretty good a$$ kicking in the media up here. As far as I am concerned, anytime I walk into a ER/doctors office, and leave on the mend, it is all good.

Cheers

[Evans, Marv]

I suppose from what I read here, two hours is about the norm. That's what I experienced a couple of years ago when I went into the Kaiser ER with a kidney stone.
I woke up at around 2 in the morning wondering what was happening & kind of figured it was a kidney stone, although I'd never had one before. Drove 30 minutes to the ER, checked in, described my symptoms and was told to have a seat. Since the ER was almost deserted, I was optimistic. Two hours later - and the only one in the room for quite a long time - I was laying on some seats in a fetal position, when a doctor came out and asked what my name was. He commented 2 hours wasn't acceptable and left. It took another half hour of being the only one there waiting before I was finally admitted and treated.
I figure that's pretty standard service for anything now days.

[genrex]

Mike,

When something serious happens and you (or a loved one) have to go to the ER, call 911 and get an ambulance. The way it works up here, the ambulance crew wheels the patient into the ER on the ambulance gurney, the patient gets a hospital bed in their own private (curtained) room in the ER, and a nurse takes charge until the doc is available. It's a lot better than sitting in a waiting room, wondering if you'll die before they call your name.

[berettafan]

i REALLY want to say something smart like "you must be lying because there is no such thing as waiting in our for profit medical system".

but the truth is you can't expect ER's to be perfectly efficient at all levels of capacity. a busy night is a busy night.

[Joe Bob]

I'm guessing that some of you have never been in pain.....

Would YOU like to wait while some dipschit with a virus is ahead of you and wants an antibiotic and can't understand why it won't work?

[Rick Lee]

When I got gas sprayed in my eyes last year, I was alone and had no one to drive me anywhere, also couldn't see at all for a good 30 min. afterwards. That night, after all the PPOT docs insisted I go to the ER, my wife drove me there. It was a Sunday night at 9:00pm and the ER was filled to the gills. No way was I waiting through all that. I went home and called around the next morning until I found an eye doctor place that could take me in an hour. When I got that horrible conjunctivitis before my wedding, I went to an urgent care place on a Sunday. When it got worse, I just called around until I found a place that could take me asap. Seems to me, unless it's a life-threatening emergency or happens at off hours, your time is better spent calling all the places on your insur. company's website to see who can take you soonest. I know that cost me a lot less time than one wait in the ER would have.

[Rikao4]

Mike ,truly sorry you had such a bad exp., as I said before..bad triage.(paperplayers should never triage!
Having worked in many ER's, I have seen the other side as well.
It's 'my pain' is always worse than everyone else, and I want to be seen now!
There are ER's and there are Traumacenters , so while folks wait for hrs with serious issue's, 2 gunshots to the chest & a couple MVA's will tie up alot of staff quickly.
At Brook Army Med. Trauma center, we had 5 heart-attack beds (always full) 5 surgical beds,2 GYN rooms PLUS 3 trauma tables, and so if on Friday night you choose to have a bad cold , you can &will wait.
Rika

[johnco]

one time I was passed over so this fat woman with a medicad card and a toothache would stop screaming loudly she was in pain and demanding to see a doctor. after they took me in I had to sit there while the doctor brought the rest of the staff in to show them what he claimed was the
3rd worst cut he had seen in his career. sitting there in pain and bleeding, holding my severed calf together so some unfortunate with a toothache and a medical card can be treated before me was the least I could do. yep, made me smile thru the pain knowing this victim of society would be treated and relieved of terrible toothache pain with just a liitle sacrifice of my time. couldn't feel anything below my knee anyway

[Tobra]

Originally Posted by lendaddy

When I had a nasty concussion(bad memory loss, etc)from an MX accident I was in the ER waiting. This kid came in having shot his hand into pulp with his dads shotgun. He had a beach towel around it and it was all blood red. The kid was howling and the father was trying to keep him calm. Shortly thereafter it was my turn and I asked if the kid could go before me and they let him. I couldn't believe I had to ask.

But to be fair I've had pretty good service.

that is because a kid with his hand shot off will take a week to die, kid with closed head injury could drop dead right now and you could prevent it by drilling a quick hole in his melon

Originally Posted by stomachmonkey

Tell them you think you are having a heart attack.

They take you right away.

Then, BTW, I also have this other thing going on......

The heart attack thing does not work in Canada. Friend was in Alberta, went to ER with severe chest pain and positive family history for cardiac disease. They told him it would be 4-5 hours before they could get to him. He flew to Minneapolis and had an angioplasty less than three hours after leaving the hospital in Canada, yeah we should use their system

Originally Posted by mikez

I'm guessing that some of you have never been in pain.....

Would YOU like to wait while some dipschit with a virus is ahead of you and wants an antibiotic and can't understand why it won't work?

No I would not. I understand why things work as they do, and after reading through this thread so should you.

[nynor]

Originally Posted by mikez

I'm guessing that some of you have never been in pain.....

Would YOU like to wait while some dipschit with a virus is ahead of you and wants an antibiotic and can't understand why it won't work?

let's see:

compound tib/fib fracture

testicular cancer and two surgeries to deal with it and a year of chemo

dislocated shoulder, several times

avulsed most of the muscle from my right forearm and lacerated the quad of my right leg all the way to the femur in a motorcycle accident, along with a contused brain

fractured cheek bone and a bolt in my shoulder (don't ask me how it got there) in a car accident

and those are the ones that stand out in my mind right now.

believe me, i understand pain. i also understand how the ER works.

[Jeff Alton]

Originally Posted by mikez

I'm guessing that some of you have never been in pain.....

Would YOU like to wait while some dipschit with a virus is ahead of you and wants an antibiotic and can't understand why it won't work?

I have been in my fair share over the years.

Perhaps they are not assesing cases correctly in triage? But, Before I fired a nasty letter off though, I would want to make sure I understood their protocol for treatment and the specifics of the ailments that were admitted before you.

Cheers

[David]

Originally Posted by speeder

I want to hear more about the guy who broke his dick; how did they fix it? A splint? Did he live to boink another day? That's some scary stuff.

This happened to a friend in a small city outside of Houston. He said his dick swelled up to the size of a 2-liter coke bottle and every doctor in the place came into his room to see it

The doc finally said he was going to have to drain it, so my buddy asked how many he'd done. When the doc said none, he said call an ambulance and get me to a Houston trauma center.

They gave him a low chance of it working again, but when I saw him again several months later he was all smiles and said it was working again


I've seen small emergency clinics around town and they seem to be the way to go if it's not too serious. I don't know how they work exactly, but you don't see to many low lifes in there.


I got to visit a Japanese emergency room a week ago when I feel down some stairs and had back pain. In about 15 minutes I was getting xrays and in another 15 minutes I was seeing the doctor. Total cost was about $130 including the xrays that I wanted to keep to show my doctor when I get home. I was pretty impressed although I'm in a somewhat rural area so it may not be the same in a big city. BTW, I broke one of those little riblets on the vertibrae below the rib cage!