Kristin, I'm so glad your daughter was OK. That sounds frightening and incredibly frustrating. I cannot imagine that 7 hours for your family -- it must have felt like 70. I am so surprised that a possibly serious concussion -- in a child, no less -- was made to wait for care for that long.
In reading about ER wait times on the web, I came across this from an NBC report:
"Between 1993-2003, the number of U.S. emergency departments fell by about 425, or about 12 percent, while the number of patients seeking ER care jumped 26 percent to 114 million. They include uninsured or underinsured patients and those who seek emergency care for non-emergencies because they have no regular doctor."
Emergency rooms for the last decade or two have taken the brunt of America's dwindling health care. People without insurance must use minor emergency centers or ERs for all their health care, so a place that used to be confined to immediate needs now also deals with colds, flu and earaches on the one hand, and chronic illness on the other hand, both of which are probably handled by a family doctor when a family has insurance. That overrun of sick folks clogs an emergency room so badly that some cases like yours sit and wait forever.
Here's the whole NBC story, which discusses the newer trend of ERs assigning triage nurses to meet incoming patients and make decisions as to their urgency:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15487676/
One site also said that if you do have a regular doctor, call that doctor when you're on the way to the ER. They can call before you get there (and even meet you if it's needed).
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Kristin, I'm so glad your daughter was OK. That sounds frightening and incredibly frustrating. I cannot imagine that 7 hours for your family -- it must have felt like 70. I am so surprised that a possibly serious concussion -- in a child, no less -- was made to wait for care for that long.
In reading about ER wait times on the web, I came across this from an NBC report:
"Between 1993-2003, the number of U.S. emergency departments fell by about 425, or about 12 percent, while the number of patients seeking ER care jumped 26 percent to 114 million. They include uninsured or underinsured patients and those who seek emergency care for non-emergencies because they have no regular doctor."
Emergency rooms for the last decade or two have taken the brunt of America's dwindling health care. People without insurance must use minor emergency centers or ERs for all their health care, so a place that used to be confined to immediate needs now also deals with colds, flu and earaches on the one hand, and chronic illness on the other hand, both of which are probably handled by a family doctor when a family has insurance. That overrun of sick folks clogs an emergency room so badly that some cases like yours sit and wait forever.
Here's the whole NBC story, which discusses the newer trend of ERs assigning triage nurses to meet incoming patients and make decisions as to their urgency:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15487676/
One site also said that if you do have a regular doctor, call that doctor when you're on the way to the ER. They can call before you get there (and even meet you if it's needed).
January 5, 2009 - 10:04amThis Comment
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