2 hour wait in ER, should I be pissedoff?
 

So....as some of you know, I had a recent appendicitis. My 10PM visit found the place packed. I was greeted, blood taken and insurance scanned.....and told to wait....I guess at 50 years old, I was not a prime candidate for rupture....

I passed out twice, had no pain meds offered despite repeated requests and was sent to the end of the line while, sniffles, flu, booboos were taken ahead of me. I was cut on after diganosis via an MRI and blood work showed an elevated white count.

I called and spoke with the ER Supervisor who could really give a schitski...said she would "review the issue". It's been a week and no call back.

I got a standard "how did we do" survey in the mail and spewed venom all over it....I'm contemplating a "you suck letter" to the editor......

The place was full of wandering homeless, bulletproof glass and bored teenagers fresh out of nursing school with a limited English speaking volunteer up front that got people to fill out a questionaire prior to stepping up to the "portal of truth". This isn't downtown crack hell, it's Santa Barbara for chrisakes.....

I pay 5K a year out of pocket to cover myself and family. I get less service than someone who lives in a box at the freeway underpass.....

wow... isn't that sort of experience reserved for publicly funded healthcare?

it depends, did they amputate the wrong part? or sew your ass closed?
either way it sucks..I once sat in an er with a 9" gash on my thigh from a grinder(it cut to bone..and then halfway thru that) I had to waid 25 minutes till they saw all the kids with coughs and ear aches...good thing it did not cut an artery...when i got up to go in i was lightheaded and left a 3 foot pool behind...followed by bloody foot prints to the er room...where in the physician promptly shat that i had to wait....the girls that waited on me at the desk were not there the next time I went..

I will never forger, the fat on the top of your thigh looks like chicken fat and the muscle is like corned beef....

Yup!

My little guy was sick as could be and we were worried he may be dehydrated. He had a doctors office visit scheduled for Monday morning. We called our docs office and got the service, a doctor called back and told us to go to the ER.

We got in there, the waiting room was empty, good sign, and just like you were processed pretty fast, insurance info taken, blood pressure, temp..... blah blah blah.


Then they took us into the back......

I cannot begin to describe how many people were in "the back". Every room was filled, the hallway was full of bads with people everywhere. I turned to the nurse at this point and asked very directly, "How long are we going to be here?" She gave me a non answer. I asked again, she would not answer. I turned around and walked out. With the nurse following telling me I should think about my sons best interests....

I turned back around to her and told her I was, its in his best interest not to be stuck in this hellhole all night when he could be in the comfort of his own home.

MY wife took him to the doctors office the next day after a some what decent nights sleep and he was treated there.

I will avoid all ER's as much as possible from here on.

A friend of mine recently broke his...***** while having sex with an aggressive girl. This was at 2am. He waited from 3am until 7am to be looked at. Ouch. So, maybe 2 hours ain't so bad!

Long story short....I had half a toothpick lodged in my voice box. Ambulance takes me to ER. I couldn't swallow because of the pain and I was petrified that I'd vomit and choke to death (seriously).

Triage nurses couldn't give a $hit. I did my best to complain and they looked at me as if I flashed them.

After waiting for half hour a woman walks in who couldn't speak one word of english. She complained that she vomited earlier and may be pregnant........low and behold 3 nurses and a doc rush out and escort her directly to an examination room. NICE!

Turns out I was there for over twelve hours, enduring one fukc up after another.

So, I can feel your pain.

Having worked in several ER's , Mike imo you were not triaged properly.
Mind you alot stuff can come thru the backdoor, and if bad ....will go ahead of those in the lobby.
ER triage is serious , you got an idiot.
Rika

Wow, thats a long time since you were in so much pain, and I know what its like, I had the same thing and so have my kids. I was just in a month ago with kidney stones again and they had me hooked up with pain meds in less than 10 min. Yours could have been real serious and died, you will never die from kidney stones, I hope?

ER rooms have turned into the poor's doctors office-They should be limited to EMERGENCY only
cases.and PRINT what is not an EMERGENCY In BOLD Signage posted in several languages.
Then throw the damn people out who do not need to be there.

What do you think the ER is? Why is it so expensive for the paying customers.


First of all, 2 hours is not long to be chillin' in an ER bed. You go by who looks like they will die the soonest if you don't do anything and take them first. I always tell my diabetics to call me before they go to the hospital. It can take a long time to die from a foot infection, generally if someone is fixin' to croak on you, they start looking worse and you can wheel them over to an OR real quick, if that looks like the thing to do.

If they were even thinking appy, they would not let you eat or drink anything, pain pills included. As far as parenteral meds, appendix is pretty much surgical, acute type of deal. Perhaps anesthesia at that facility gets their panties in a wad if some body comes up all full of opiates when they need to induce general anesthesia, I have heard them complain about that in the past while I was at the other end of the bed swinging the knife around.

I always say, "Pain is a gift from God." It lets you know when something is wrong, or trying to go more wrong. That said, I would have probably hit you with some dilaudid or something if you were making the Mr Ick face too much.

nope, they got you in pretty damn quick, actually. plus, taking your blood right away was pretty good on their part and that test probably took over an hour to get back anyway, so they weren't sure yet what was going on. plus, they can't give you anything by mouth as that can interfere if you need surgery.

i work in the medical field with 4.5 years in the ER. they did a good job.

as for kicking those persons out that just have colds, believe me, they'd love to do so. but, there are laws. and then there are cases where they DO kick those folks out and they die. its a quagmire.

ER BED? I was in the ******* doorway sitting in a ******* wheelchair, freezing my ass off....screaming kids in three different languages saying they wanted to go home.

this whole thing here just totally slays me, I literally fell out of my chair
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/support/smileys/pray.gif

chair in the cold breezy hallway, bed, room, gurney against the wall, whatever, 2 hours is pretty damn fast, considering. I would have given you a found you a gurney and got you a blanket to go with your dilaudid if I had been there, but I am just over flowing with the milk of human kindness.

Eh, sick white guy.
Who cares....

this is the typical rant from folks at the ER. sorry you had appendicitis and sorry you were in pain. i guess everyone wants satisfaction five minutes ago.

rick, what hospital? Morristown?

Are you sure they did an MRI- would be an unusual test through the ER for appendicitis.
Two hours sounds bad, but not that bad and we really don't know what else was going on. You were stable- although uncomfortable- and it sounds like you went to surgery quickly. We all think that if we show up in the ER we will be seen within minutes. It depends on your condition and what else if going on. It only takes one REALLY critically ill patient to tie the ER up for hours. I'll bet you if you walked in with crushing chest pain- or some other unstable situation you would have been seen quicker than 2 hours. To the triage people you probably didn't look a whole lot sicker than the other pain/cold/headache patients that were sitting around. Until you were diagnosed they would not likely give you pain meds- as they could mask other symptoms. Our ER's are being overrun and used like a walk in clinic. Until that is changed stable patients will likely wait. I live in central Florida- and 2 hour wait here is nothing. Next time call your private doctor- they can usually move you though the system faster.
Gary

Sounds like SOP to me. Last week my 90 year old dad was set to the ER by a nurse at his independent living facility for pneumonia. I met him there and we waited about 2 hours as well. Same set of surrounding circumstances.

Rikao4 suggests you weren't triaged properly. I agree. This was my dad's 3rd visit to the same facility in 4 months for pneumonia and he had been sent there by another health professional. They could give a $hit less. And now 5 days later, x-rays show he still has pneumonia in his lungs and they are going to send him home!!!

GOOD GRIEF!!!:mad:

Yes Nick. Happened about two years ago.

Went there a few weeks ago for stitches and it was a much better experience.

I don't know NickG, a grinder thru the thigh and halfway thru the bone? Who was helping you, Johnco?

EXACTLY!!

That is why we walked out. They did not want us to leave, we had insurance they could hammer at, I was a paying customer in a sea of non insured patients and they let the hook get out of my mouth.

I did not even want to go to begin with, it was my wife that insisted, when I saw the huge crowd in the back, my wife saw the rage in my eyes and cooperated with my decision to get the hell out of there.

Its not only the poor's doctors office its every doctors office when they are closed. Rarely do they spend any time on the phone with you to decide if you can wait until morning.

They just blurt out, take it to the emergency room.

Next time close your eyes and pretend you are dead. If they manage to wake you up, speak spanish.

I'm guessing they are using some kind of triage system and you didn't "promote" your case enough.

The ER is not every doctor's office when the office is closed. It is not mine. I won't practice like that for two reasons.

1. I don't want my patients going to the hospital and waiting aroung the ER all day and night.

2. I don't want to have to drag my fat ass down to any hospitals to see my patients if I can avoid it, and I can avoid it.

I like Kaiser. They don't do any sort of routine care on their medicare HMO diabetic patients(which is sort of medicare fraud on a large, even vast scale, okay it is not sort of it is) As a taxpayer, I am sort of peeved by this, but can't complain too much because they come and pay me cash to do something that Uncle Sucker already paid Kaiser to do. Had a couple of fixed income ladies that I ended up taking care of for free every other time because otherwise they would not come in often enough. They eventually passed away, but there will be others, no doubt.

Pretty much SOP I'm afraid to say.....A few years ago, I fell off a ladder, tore my ankle away from my leg and broke the leg in 2 places.....I used a piece of lumber for a crutch to get to my truck and drove 90 miles to get to a hosp. near home; using the parking brake to stop as I couldn't bare the pain of using the pedal.

They looked at me after 4 hrs, did X-rays and a splint....After 6 hrs, they send me home and told me my doc. was expecting me in his office the next day.....I got no treatment at all, a splint and a few pain meds....(Couldn't done that on the job site myself with some lumber, towels and Whiskey!!!!!)

Next time, I'll go to the small town hosp, I drove right past.......

..and just TRY to get medical help if you don't have your insurance card with you. The last two times my wife had to go to the ER for a dislocated shoulder she did not even get a "how are you feeling" before they asked for the insurance card. I felt like being a smart a$$ and asking "Que?" just to see if they would waive me through....

O.k., Mike - This really works:

Nurse "Whassamatta you?"

Mike "Ohhh! I'm having an appendicitus attack".....then, "Arghh!"! (clutch left side of chest with left hand while pointing to appendix with right forefinger) "AND I'M HAVING THESE AWFUL CHEST PAINS!""

During the last 2 years of my 93 year old mom's life I took her to the emergency room at all hours of the day and night, more times than I can remember. I think on the second visit, after my suffering mom had sat for an hour and a half with me in the waiting room, a middle aged guy ambles in and casually says "I'm having chest pains." Wham bam, he's on a gurney and into the ER.

"Mom, you're having chest pains and they are going to go away as soon as they take you in, o.k."

"Nurse! My mom's having chest pains!" Wham bam.....she's wheeled right in.

From that point on, for whatever reason I had to rush over to her assisted living apartment to rush her to the ER, she feigned chest pains and was immediately admitted. Yeah, it always resulted in an electrocardiogram...but who's counting?

Not exactly honest, but I'll be DAMNED if I'd subject her to the torture of sitting in a wheelchair for hours (and it could be that long or longer).

Sorry some of you had bad events & care.
I loved working emergency med & trauma, but like so many things ..
you can get TRE service, or Motormeister.
Rika

knock on wood, I've had very good ER services at a variety of LA hospitals. When I was with Kaiser I got stitches in my head and the intern did an amazing job (attending said that I was better off having the intern do it as he does more stitches in a day than he'd do in a month). Twice went in with gastroenteritis needing IV and compazine and was fixed right up.

Post-Kaiser my son went in twice in Pasadena, once for a hot water burn, the other time for a corneal scratch. Fairly painless visits...a couple hours each. I got more stitches in my head and same story. For the motorcycle accident I got really good and quick care. I may have lucked out with timing and logistics, but we got wheeled in at 12:30am Saturday morning and left in a cab at 5am.

These places have issues, but I can't complain. I go in expecting it to be 8-12 hours. That is the reality of the ER. I've been happy when I get out in less than 4.

its against the law to take insurance information before the patient is triaged at the ER. $50,000 fine, EMTALA.

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.

Apparently there are some advantages to living in a small town. My visit to the ER which ended up in a 7 day stay in the hospital was done efficiently. Wasn't waiting more than 5 minutes or so. Other nice thing about a small town is there is a chance you might know someone in the hospital which means they may actually care about you. Turns out I knew the wife of the radiologist and my surgeon lived next door to one of my best friends.

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......

no Mr Makita...and a 12" cut off disc. I was cutting a shock bot off my gti and it jumped and went straight into my leg full blast..thank god it was relaxed and not being used (the muscle) it did not really hurt..it felt weird. almost like burning, but not painfull that bad..the blood did not spurt or anything..but it felt ****ed up to fell it run down my leg. I was calm and went in the house and asked my mom to take me to the hospital..she about fainted
it goes without saying i am very hesitant to use grinders and cutoff wheels now.:p

oh...i did not know it went into bone till they were cleaning it and i saw the cau

Do not go to a major ER facility. We found a nice new satellite ER facility 15 mins from our home operated by Seattle's Swedish Hospital.

I have been there 4 times in the last 6 months. 2x for my 7 yo boy who is a little bit clumsy, once for my wife who fell off a horse and once for a visiting exec that threw out his back. Served *immediately* every time, filling out paper work while the nurses and docs (yes, more than one at times) tended to the patient. Almost a spa like experience, they even had a stocked fridge for the hungry parents and impatient siblings.

Generally the truth. ER is a nasty place. It is a place most docs loath. The number of patients is impossible really plan for. Some days it is desolated, other days it is a waiting list 8-10 hours long. Those patients have to be prioritized according to how seriously ill they are. That is very difficult to grasp when as a patient one feel I am as sick as anybody else in the waiting room. Quite simply a very tricky business.

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.

Yes, MRI....it had that printed on the side of the machine. They injected dye into the IV......:eek:

Pain meds would have been nice and would have made the wait less traumatic....

Surgery was conducted at 8am, 10 hours after I showed up. The "team" couldn't even get the terminology right...one said, "perforated", the second "gangrenous", while the third used both terms.

BUT MY POINT IS......

I'm insured, I'm subsidizing the ER system and I still get the end of the line....

I went by my P-car wrench's shop today where I buy parts that I need NOW....he's Dutch and his wife is Irish.....their comments were that back home with socialized medecine, they are guaranteed crappy care but with a paid policy they get to the front of the line.... here ya just get crappy care.

i was wondering that too..i mean i laugh when i see the viagra commercials and it say that I should seek a dr if i have an erection for 4 hours...dude if i get that, i am heading to the city with a hundred bucks...:D or looking up a few of Byron's friends

Mikez,
When my appendix ruptured in 4/04, I went to the Er at 3:30pm, sat there for several hours until a Dr saw me, he ordered tests, etc... by the time the test results came back, it was 11:00pm and I went into surgery at midnight, no pain meds offered. i think this is considered "routine", but it sure doesn't feel "routine" when it's your appendix that's ruptured, does it?