Woman dies in hopital waiting room

[RICHARD]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19251478/


One of the city councilmembers, Zev Yaroslavsky made an observation about the CC tape of the waiting room.

He said that the housekeepers came out and cleaned up the vomit off the floor before the woman died....

Nice, you can get the mess cleaned up before treatment..

[Laura's Babies]

Can you believe that? I wondered if they thought she was faking and how in the world you could fake throwing up blood? This is AMERICA people, you don't ignore someone that sick! That hospital should be held accountable and have the books thrown at them. 2 people called 911 and there was nothing they could do? Send a ambulance to get her and take her to another hospital where she could get HELP!

This whole story is WRONG! Things like this should not happen in AMERICA!

[lizbud]

Richard, I understand that this hospital had the worst record ever and
other incidents of gross errors were also made against them. (King/Drew)
Why were they even operating at all? They said mostly poor, no insurance
patients are treated (or not) there. Is that true?

[Edwina's Secretary]

Why were they even operating at all? They said mostly poor, no insurance
patients are treated (or not) there. Is that true?

Yes, it is a hospital...like County General or Cook County Hospital...that serves mostly poor, uninsured people. But for them...it is better than no medical care at all I suppose.

Because our medical delivery system is focused on those with insurance...this is where the uninsured go. What number of Americans are uninsured? 47 million or so? Scary? And none of us really know if we will be one of the 47 million tomorrow.

Is there a healthcare crisis?

[ratdogg]

i read about this story on some local news website and they had the 911 tapes to listen to. It was really astounding to listen to the dispatcher say it isn't an emergency.

[RICHARD]

Richard, I understand that this hospital had the worst record ever and
other incidents of gross errors were also made against them. (King/Drew)
Why were they even operating at all? They said mostly poor, no insurance
patients are treated (or not) there. Is that true?

True.


There have been numerous problems at this 'hospital' in the last few years.

Mostly in the way it's run.....There was the head of radiology who was 'working' more than 24 hours in a day!

I don't remember the exact details, but he would put down that he worked something like 28 hours in a day, then get paid overtime for them,

[Freedom]

That poor woman had been in THAT EMERGENCY room before; this was her THIRD trip for the same illness!

Has anyone heard WHAT she had? I hope it wasn't contagious; there were lots of folks in the waiting area.

[dukedogsmom]

That also happened to one of our employees here. He was having a heart attack and had been in the ER 30 minutes and no one had seen to him. The wife had to get help and by then it was too late. Very sad state of affairs. And this is a totally different subject but a lot of the ER overcrowding is from the immigrants. This told to me by an ER employee. They don't have to pay for anything. We foot the bill

[cassiesmom]

I think the problem is that inner city hospitals that serve uninsured and underinsured patients are just overwhelmed. I don't know if this is scientifically accurate, but anecdotally, it seems to me that people without insurance wait until they are desperately ill before they seek health care, because of the financial issues. Cook County Hospital here in Chicago (a brand spanking new, state of the art facility) just had an unannounced Joint Commission inspection and received 22 errors. Plus, I don't know if King/Drew is a level 1 trauma center but I know Cook County is - so on top of a huge crowd of uninsured patients waiting for care, they are getting major emergency situations as well. Just an aside - even though the patient's family called 911, I'm not sure that an ambulance and especially not a taxpayer-funded one could have transported her to another care without her first being evaluated by King/Drew - that could be construed as patient dumping under emergency medical treatment laws (EMTALA). In my mind, this is yet another example of the problems with health care in America.

[Edwina's Secretary]

And this is a totally different subject but a lot of the ER overcrowding is from the immigrants. This told to me by an ER employee. They don't have to pay for anything. We foot the bill

Unisured people go to the emergency room for two reasons...
- because they do not have insurance and cannot afford medical care...if they get sick they go without treatment until it is an emergency
- Medical providers do not like to treat people without insurance...emergency rooms have no choice.

There are 12 million illegal immigrants (I assume you are referring to those who are illegal...) some of those have insurance through their employer...but there are 47 million people in this country without medical insurance....

Do the math...even assuming NO illegal immigrants have insurance...there are still at least 35 million RED-BLOODED AMERICANS who do not have insurance and have cause to use the emergency room as the first line of medical care.

If your ER employee is referring to all immigrants...legal and otherwise...

And it is not they do not have to pay...it is that they cannot pay.

And those of us who are insured...those of us who pay taxes...indirectly pay for the uninsured -- native born...legal immigrant...or illegal immigrant.

[wombat2u2004]

True.


There have been numerous problems at this 'hospital' in the last few years.

Mostly in the way it's run.....There was the head of radiology who was 'working' more than 24 hours in a day!

I don't remember the exact details, but he would put down that he worked something like 28 hours in a day, then get paid overtime for them,

28 hours in a day huh ??? And he got paid for that ???? Sounds like the pay clerk needs to go back to kindergarten.
Wom

[K9soul]

I think people should try not to be so quick to judge hospitals and ER staff. Especially ERs. Yes there are some cold and callous doctors and staff there, but ER and acute care centers are often the most overworked, understaffed, and bombarded areas of the medical field. I know, as I work two transcription jobs, one of which is almost purely ER work. They have had patients being seen in hallways and even out in their cars before because of they were so overfilled. And I'd say at LEAST 50% of ER visits, at least, and I'd probably guess closer to 60% or higher, are people feeling like they are having a heart attack. Most of them aren't, although there is no way to know that until they do cardiac enzymes, EKGs, so on and so forth. There's a full barrage of tests and protocol they must do for each patient who comes in with chest pain symptoms.

Add to all that, how often people abuse ERs, it is enough to make any doctor wary and a bit detached. So many people run in for every sniffle, from being drunk, from taking too many drugs. I even had one report where a mother rushed her perfectly well child to the ER because she found some mold in his room.. Then there are the pain drug seekers, dreaming up elaborate stories to get narcotics, forcing the doctors to have to research and call around to pharmacies and other doctors to get the real story. Belligerent and nasty patients who hurl all manner of abuse at the medical staff.

Finally, I think so many people do not realize the true purpose of the ER. They are not there to give a definitive diagnosis and cure you, to do surgery and long-term treatment. They are there to sew cuts closed, splint broken bones until the patient can get to the orthopedist, or admit to the hospital for more treatment where the case then passes from their hands. They are, in essence, a quick stop to look at the picture and do a few rudimentary lab tests to find out where the patient should go next. Half the time, the patient never follows up or ignores their advice. This particular woman may have had some end-stage cancer going on, or maybe something such as ulcerative disease from drinking, perhaps had been told before to stop drinking and get to a GI specialist and she wasn't able or never did. We really do not know the whole picture at all to make accusations against the hospital.

I don't know much about this particular hospital, but I listen and see people complaining about hospitals and ERs constantly, and they often just don't know the other side of things.

[Vela]

Have to agree with the above post. I also work in the same job field and we see a LOT of abuse of physicians by patients as well. There are two sides to everything, and while I don't know the particular circumstances of this case, there may have been a very good reason they weren't able to see her. We don't know that there weren't other people in the back who weren't in worse shape than this patient. Lots of people throw up blood, and often it's not life and death.

ER staff are always overworked and underpaid and I know that many of them do the best they can with what they are given. People can't perform miracles and when funding for these types of hospitals, for the under or uninsured, is continually cut, it affects patient care, unfortuatnely.

I do feel badly for that woman and her family, and I wish she had been seen and helped in time, but we don't know all of the circumstances behind it, and certainly she wasn't the only person there for treatment. It's a lose lose situation for both patients and staff when there isn't enough funding for hospitals for the uninsured.

[dukedogsmom]

Unisured people go to the emergency room for two reasons...
- because they do not have insurance and cannot afford medical care...if they get sick they go without treatment until it is an emergency
- Medical providers do not like to treat people without insurance...emergency rooms have no choice.

There are 12 million illegal immigrants (I assume you are referring to those who are illegal...) some of those have insurance through their employer...but there are 47 million people in this country without medical insurance....

Do the math...even assuming NO illegal immigrants have insurance...there are still at least 35 million RED-BLOODED AMERICANS who do not have insurance and have cause to use the emergency room as the first line of medical care.

If your ER employee is referring to all immigrants...legal and otherwise...

And it is not they do not have to pay...it is that they cannot pay.

And those of us who are insured...those of us who pay taxes...indirectly pay for the uninsured -- native born...legal immigrant...or illegal immigrant.

Actually, they come in for everything from simple colds to more. My point was to say that's one of the things bogging down the ERs.

[Marigold2]

Is is true. These people sneek across the boarder, take our benefits, jobs, want to vote and get free medical and social sercurity. I have no pity for them at all. Yes the hospital was wrong, very very wrong. But so is sneeking across the boarder.
Hospitals lose tons of money on these people The Drs and nurses are fed up with them and some don't care about them either. The ER is overrun and understaffed.

That also happened to one of our employees here. He was having a heart attack and had been in the ER 30 minutes and no one had seen to him. The wife had to get help and by then it was too late. Very sad state of affairs. And this is a totally different subject but a lot of the ER overcrowding is from the immigrants. This told to me by an ER employee. They don't have to pay for anything. We foot the bill