Well, in that case the ideal solution would be to lighten the load on the hospital by opening an emergency clinic or two. Don’t know if that would be a feasible solution, though.
I heard about this yesterday, but I couldn’t find a valid link.
I can understand the first 911 operator…there was nothing she could do, they were already at the hospital. The second 911 operator needs an attitude adjustment.
I can only imagine the hospital staff is so jaded that they can no longer effectively recognize a true emergency vs a drug seeker/hypochondriac/scammer. I understand the administrator is on “ordered leave,” whatever the heck that means.
I don’t know what can be done to fix this…there’s so many screwups, from the police to the nurse to the janitor.
I know little about the specifics of this case, but I wish I had a dollar for everytime someone who said they were spitting/coughing/vomiting or shitting blood didn’t have much wrong with them. Not drug seekers per se, but just honestly confused. I’m having a hard time believing the police were wheeling her to jail while she produced significant vomit at all, let alone bloody.
That may be so, but I would want to know more about what the hospital workers saw or should have seen before making up my mind.
King-Drew is a death trap, and has been for years. This is nothing new in LA…
Apparently, all the LVNs at King-Drew took a skills test in the last month, and 50% of them failed it…
At the very least, I wish someone would have gotten her up off the floor.
I guess so, but what do you do with somebody who lies down on the floor in order to get attention/drugs?
I’m sure she’s off the floor by now. :rolleyes:
Unless you know for a fact that’s what they’re doing, you ought to err on the side of caution. If you don’t want to do that, don’t get a job in an ER.
speaking from experience are we?
I found the audio of the 911 call. I’d heard it on the radio this morning. I think it’s authentic. NBC Los Angeles – Los Angeles News, Local News, Weather, Traffic, Entertainment, Breaking News The dispatcher doesn’t sound very compassionate. I can understand pitting 911 for their actions but it is certainly health care situation thats is to blame.
You obviously don’t know jack diddly crap about emergency work. Yes you always try to do the best by every patient you come in contact with, problem is, your posts are suffering from one of the most dangerous mindsets possible.
Emotional tunnel vision is one of the first things you have to train out of yourself. If you get focused on one patient when you have several to care for others can and will die. Triage is all about allocating resources to those who are most likely to respond to the care available at the time People can and do die when patients are plentiful and staff is short. Notice I said, most likely to respond to the care available, not the worst ones first.
I have worked a major multi casualty incident and I have spent a time helping out with vitals and such in a swamped ER.
If an ER is swamped, people who are walking and talking are already heading for the back of the line or being pointed at the 9 to 9 clinic down the street.
You want everyone to get helped? No problem, vote in favor of the next tax increase being allocated to upgrade/improve county hospital equipment/staffing. If you don’t like paying for it…you get what you pay for…
Oh, bull diddly shit. What “dangerous mindset”? Because I said you ought to check someone out who is lying on the floor rather than assume they’re faking it to get drugs. Yeah, real dangerous thinking there. :rolleyes:
Fweeet! Time out. Nobody said ANYTHING about letting someone else die. My response was limited specifically to the question: “but what do you do with somebody who lies down on the floor in order to get attention/drugs?”
If you want to make OTHER hypothetical conditions, then I will have a different answer. If someone else has a more serious condition and may die, OF COURSE you treat them first. Duh. Again, my statement was specifically to the question: “but what do you do with somebody who lies down on the floor in order to get attention/drugs?”
They didn’t ask, “What do you do with the person lying on the floor when someone else is about to die?” My answer would have been entirely different.
It was NOT a comment on the news story itself. We don’t really have all the information from the news story.
All strawmen. I never said you shouldn’t treat the most important cases first, or made any comment whatsoever about the state of health care. Don’t worry, I understand exactly what you’re saying.
ALL I said was, all other things being equal, you should check someone out who’s lying on the floor rather than assume they’re a drug addict trying to con you. Err on the side of caution. SURELY you don’t disagree with that.
I dunno; I’m not that bothered by it. They’re there to respond to emergencies. They’re not there just to make people feel happy. There wasn’t anything he could do, and he told her so. I can’t imagine what else he could have said. Her request to pick up a sick person from a hospital and drive them to another hospital didn’t make any sense. He was curt, but not really rude. He offered to contact the [sounded like ‘fire department’], but it sounded like he had a pretty good idea they wouldn’t be willing to remove a person from a hospital to go to another hospital.
I’m curious: Let’s imagine you’re the best 911 operator in the country; what would you have said to the woman?
To me this is about arrogance which is fairly common in ER staff. Last year I was directed to go to the ER by my OB. I had what appeared to be conditions which threatened my pregnancy and my life if left untreated. I needed tests to confirm diagnosis so correct treatment could finally begin as well as tests to determine how severe the conditions were and whether I would need to be admitted to stabilize them or whether I could go home and manage the condition from there.
When I walked into the ER, I begun to have an asthma attack due to very heavy fumes, likely perfume from a patient. I told KellyM what was going on and backed out the door to catch my breath. The ER staff would not see me at all unless I waited in that room with what was a very intense asthma trigger. They were unwilling to let me wait outside the ER waiting room, or allow me to walk through the back entrance of the ER and even lied to say there was no back entrance. In their arrogance they decided that I had to submit to life threatening conditions in order to be seen. They were completely unwilling to find any compromise. This is the kind of arrogance that killed Edith Isabel Rodriguez. The staff had made up their mind about the seriousness of the situation and had decided that she was not getting treatment.
While KellyM was in there trying to negotiate me being seen without waiting in that miasma, I passed out and was attacked by security guards. She came out and was able to convince them to stop beating me and we left and called the OB again. He made some phone calls and fortunately my pregnancy was advanced enough I could go directly to the maternity ward. We went back to the hospital using another entrance. As I was checking into the maternity ward, security guards showed up to further intimidate me and only left when the lead nurse chased them off.
The doctors and nurses in the maternity ward performed the needed tests, and stabilized my condition and with the results of the tests, my doctor was able to prescribe appropriate treatment. Edith Isabel Rodriguez was not so lucky. No one figured out for her how she could be seen and treated once the ER staff had written her off as a complainer.
That seems like a reasonable approach, but the problem is that it means the ER will always give top priority to fakers / drug seekers. You might pick the person up off the floor, listen to their complaints of terrible pain, send them right to the doctor, have the doctor determine that the problem is minor, and send them on their way. Then 5 hours later the same patient might be back, lying on the floor of the ER waiting room.
If you continue to give the faker/drug seeker top priority, you will be making other people wait – people who have legitimate problems that may need prompt attention.
I think part of the problem is that ER staff constantly have to deal with crazy and unreasonable people causing problems and making unreasonable demands. I think that eventually ER staff lose patience and become very inflexible.
I’m not in the medical field but my job requires me to deal with the general public on a regular basis. After a few years of this, my attitude is “You WILL follow my procedures or you WILL NOT get service.”
If only that were so. My brother has to take a lot of vomitty and bloody drunks and other addicts to lock up all the time. The police are at the mercy of the hospital to diagnose the patient.
If someone can’t maintain patience and become inflexible to the point they care more for their convenience than the health and safety of patients, then that person should not be working in the ER. It is not for everyone.
Hampshire hit the nail on the head.