Best system in the world!

[minx]

Just got home from spending the night at MWH's ER.

Friend was sick and her son had to leave to go home to his newborn, so I came and sat with her.

She was brought back to triage around 7pm.  Saw a PA around 9pm and the PA ordered lab work, and EKG and chest x-ray (she was running a 103 degree temp, had abdominal pain and shortness of breath)
Sat in the triage area (they have little recliners) until midnight when they said a regular ER room was available.  At that point she actually saw the doctor.  He ordered a CT scan.
2:30am they take her for the scan
4:00am the doctor comes back in, says it looks like she has a uterine infection and will have to be admitted.  She also has a hernia and some other uterine issues, and sees a GYN at VCU.  So he says they need to transfer her to VCU, because her GYN is there.
5:30am - ask one of the EMTs (who came to help my friend get to a commode) what the status was - they were waiting to see if VCU had a bed
7:15am - nurse comes in - we ask the status.  Oh, they're waiting on transport - should be there at 9am to take her to VCU.

So when I left, she had been there 12 hours.
She saw a medical person (Nurse, EMT, PA or doctor) a grand total of 10 times - three of which were EMTs coming to help her get out of bed to pee, so that really doesn't count.
5 nurses checked on her
Doctor came in twice

Most of them had little or no information to give her.  Even the doctor wasn't fully sure if she had a uterine infection or not - he said she definitely had an infection, and he thought it might be a uterine one, but he wasn't 100% positive.  Yet he was pretty adamant that she had to go to VCU and couldn't be treated here.

And they were busy when she first got there, but not packed to the gills busy.  It was pretty clear that a lot of the waiting around was because there weren't enough people to get things done.  We asked one of the nurses how many doctors worked in the ER and the answer was two to three.

But we have the best health care system in the world, right??  Right???

[Dave's Not Here Man]

Was it Michael Moore's tagline from that movie something like "getting healthcare in America will make you sick"?


I honestly don't have any answers. There's no guarantee a nationalized system will make things any better in that regard and has the potential to make it worse. These for profit facilities are becoming like general contractors, subbing out all the trades, and lowest bidders are getting first consideration. The individual contractors make top tier wages in their trades, but are expected to do the work of two or three other people, and it goes all the way down the chain. Even in facilities where everyone works for the company, they always hire at least one less person to do a job than it takes. Or they hire fewer tradesmen and more laborers.

[bobathon]

They should have chosen to be born wealthy.

[minx]

It wasn't the wealth factor - she has insurance. It was the time suck factor. And I really feel it was because of staffing, or lack thereof. You can only take care of so many patients at one time after all.

And even the non-profit hospitals are cutting corners in terms of workers - lots of places have temp staff rather than hiring a FT employee. The temps may cost a dollar or two more per hour, but the hospital doesn't have to pay them any benefits, and can dump them whenever. So if it's really busy in January, call in 10 temps, and when flu season ends, tell them to leave. Saves money, but at the cost of the regular staff's morale, and a lack of any cohesiveness to work together as a team.