…We all know the term Emergency Department or Emergency Room does not necessarily mean an emergency.
…Sure, some patients enter in the back from a screaming ambulance, but most patients walk in the waiting room door, sent by their physicians who can’t see them that day, or because they do not have a family doctor.
…ER patients are not, as some like to depict them, illegals trying to scam the great American health care system into saving their lives or curing their colds.
…Often, after hours, when other walk-in medical venues (like store clinics or urgent care centers) are closed, the ER is it. And it is not free—despite a comment made by our current president that anyone can get health care. "Just go to the ER," he quipped.
…You can get some treatment, but it is often interim, incomplete (often specialists who have agreed to consult to the ER won’t come over), and you will be billed many bucks, believe HA on that one!
…But here in AZ, the huge obstacle is overcrowding. Waits of up to 12-13 hours are not unknown. Sometimes even if you get in, you stay there overnight or longer because there are no beds available in the main hospital (this is called boarding).
…One new wrinkle on the scene is that you can check wait times on the computer. Here, Scottsdale Healthcare has three hospitals and you can log onto www.shc.org and see how crowded the ER is.
…I just looked—two hospitals predicted an hour wait, one had no wait.
…Average waits are 4 hours nationally, five in AZ. As HA said, she has waited 12 hours several times.
…If this method of checking catches on, it will be great.
…Unfortunately, HA and her family members have perfected the technique of going at 6:30 am—around shift change. Usually no one there and the doctors are perky. Sort of.
4 comments:
Star,
Please be aware that Scottsdale Healthcare has a documented record of several sex assaults on patients in their beds by hospital staff recently. It has been in the papers and on TV news. The hospital does not report these to the local police,even though these attacks are felonies.The police will only investigate if the victim asks them to. Local media is about to blow the cover off of this disturbing relationship between hospital and police. Should be interesting.
Wow--breaking news. Thanks. Maybe they can list the safety level on their website...I am a rape survivor and always feel vulnerable in the hospital myself,. You are tethered by tubes, no locks on the door, people slipping in your room in the night, and you are too pooped out to fight or run. Very creepy.
Hit the paper:
Hospital violated law in sex-assault case
by Carol Sowers - Apr. 23, 2008 05:22 PM
The Arizona Republic
SCOTTSDALE - Scottsdale Healthcare Osborn violated Arizona law when officials waited a month before telling police about a stroke patient's complaint that she had been sexually molested by an employee, according to a report by the Arizona Department of Health Services obtained Wednesday.
The DHS Licensing Division said hospital officials ignored policy when they failed to write a report documenting the severely disabled woman's allegations.
State law requires medical personnel in charge of "vulnerable adults" to immediately report suspected abuse to police, and provide them with a written report within 48 hours.
State health officials said that although hospital officials learned of the woman's allegations in December, they did not report it to Scottsdale police until Jan. 15, a month later.
Michael Murphy, ADHS spokesman, said Scottsdale Healthcare Osborn is writing a plan of correction, but if it is not accepted, the hospital could be fined.
Keith Jones, a spokesman for Scottsdale Healthcare, said a correction plan has already been submitted.
The licensing division investigated the hospital's handling of the case, Murphy said, because of the intense media coverage of the 23-year-old stroke victim's allegations that she had been molested by a possible male nurse or certified nurse assistant.
In a March 20 interview with state health officials, an unnamed hospital associate vice president called the woman's complaint a "bizarre allegation" and admitted that no report was written, according to the new DHS report.
During the DHS investigation, Scottsdale police showed the woman more than 70 photos of male employees who had access to the stroke victim's intensive care unit, but she could not identify any of them.
Police closed the case.
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