Need to pick some brains

[Tiapet]

Here is the situation:

A hospital is so busy and has been for over 24 hours that people who have been there since 10p last night are STILL sitting in the waiting room. They seem to have triaged these same patients to a degree but there also isn't any rhyme or reason to who are being seen and released (like prioritizing heart vs breaks). There have been people that go in after others this afternoon and are discharged. The claim is they are waiting for ER beds, not beds in actual hospital rooms. We are talking things like a little boy with a feeding tube who was triaged but has now missed 2 feedings and they have not attended to it! A diabetic patient who finally asked to be tested as they thought there was a problem with sugar but now needs to eat and isn't getting food (or have access to any). A patient sitting with severe bruise that runs the length of a leg experiencing neurological issues who was just given medication and a CAT scan but no further testing who is sitting (extremely uncomfortably and in need of pain management medication change of her own) in the waiting room in a wheel chair.

Who, if anyone, could be called to get help to this hospital? Something is not right here. I get that hospitals are busy and can get overloaded but this sounds like there is something else going on. There isn't an abundance of ambulances that have come in either. I'm trying to assist and support the best I can and maybe what I'm asking about isn't even such a thing but this just seems very wrong considering some of the levels of what are sitting in the waiting room and the length they've been there.

So am I shooting a crooked arrow into the air?

 

[Hound dog]

From experience? You can't do much if anything.

Patients are triaged according to severity of illness/injury when they come in to the unit. Ambulance patients are always seen first priority, regardless. (at least is the usual procedure)

So say you have someone bleeding (not hemorrhaging) and in need of stitches whatever and yet you've got a stroke patient, a cardiac patient, and a severe trauma patient taking up ER beds......bleeding patient will get some triage done then sent to waiting area to wait for a bed to open.

If you feel you need to speak to someone, then ask to speak to the ER unit supervisor/manager. There has to be one for every shift. Don't be surprised though if they don't come right out and greet you because in most hospitals they're working with patients right along with the rest of their staff.

 

[Marcie Mac]

Here in Ca I seem to be constantly visiting the ER with either SO's mom or SO himself. They log you in and you are examined in about 15 to 20 minutes IF there are no breathing/heart problems, if so you are seen immediately, If they don't deem it an actual emergency, you then go sit down again and you are actually seen in the back ER depending on whats wrong with you. Waiting for an actual bed from the ER to the hospital itself can take up to 15 hours or more. It is jammed pretty much 24 hours a day and from what I observe, with way too many people who treat it as a doctors office to avoid paying money up front - the hospital has to treat you whether you can pay or not unlike the regular docs office. Our doctor always advises us to call for an ambulance and not do a walk in, especially with their health issues, and I call our doctor when we are on our way. I don't think we have gone in as a walk in where there wasn't standing room only.

Marcie

 

[Tiapet]

*sigh* thanks ladies. I was afraid that was going to be the case. Seems there has been a little movement in this situation. Just not in a good direction. Now it's gone to "let's focus on a problem we DIDN'T come into address and ignore the one we did" type situation. As in, we'll test A didn't reveal anything so we're not perusing it further, even though you are displaying a, b, c, and d but hey, look at this....(nothing to do with anything that's going on) let's now do this on that! It's almost like they are trying to appease the patient by swapping one type of care for another on a non problem situation! So frustrating as in the end the REAL problem isn't being addressed at all.

I've suggested another location but it would mean way too far of a distance to travel, beyond reasonable at this point. I can only hope nothing bad happens.

 

[DammitJanet]

You know what really irks me? In some major cities, they post ER waiting times on billboards so you know basically what you are in for before you go. Why cant every hospital do that? Actually not even major cities. Jamie's city isnt a large city and his local hospital does it and their wait time is never more than 30-45 minutes. The wait time in most of the hospitals in Richmond that post the wait times are around the same time frames. I am sure that if there were disasters they might be longer.

The hospitals down here? Make sure you pack a lunch and maybe a dinner...also take a good book. When Billy was in his car wreck we went to a hospital in Fayetteville because that was the closest one to where he was and we were there for over 14 hours and they didnt even take an xray. They looked at him, poked him in the shoulder a few times and wrote him a script for percocets and flexeril. Nothing more. Oh...and gave him an excuse to be out of work for the day of the accident and the next day but said he had to go in to work on that Friday which was Black Friday. I protested and said wait...you just told him he would get to feeling worse over the next five days but yet you are telling him he should go back to work in two days? And right now it is after midnight when you are discharging us so in reality we are already into Thursday which would be your day 2! They informed us that they only gave excuses to be out of work for 2 days no matter what. I said really, so if I had a heart attack or stroke I would get a note to be off work for 2 days...interesting.