I spent most of this weekend at the hospital staying with my grandfather who is having some health problems. I am the kind of guy who has a hard time staying in one place for extended periods of time so I tend to wander. It was about 3pm and I decided to go downstairs and outside to make some phone calls and get some air. I walk outside, turn around, and see a very old lady getting out of a van. The lady then proceeds to fall out of the van and hit her head on the ground. Blood was everywhere. I wasn’t about to touch her as I am no medical professional so I run inside to the main desk and say “Call a doctor or get a stretcher, an old lady fell out of her van, hit her head on the ground and she’s bleeding everywhere.” The receptionest replies “I’ll call security.” I insist to the receptionist “She Doesn’t Need Security She Needs A Doctor.” The receptionist didn’t really seem to care at all that there is a lady laying outside bleeding in the street outside the hospital.
I run back out to make sure she’s ok. I talk to the ladies daughter to see if there is anything I can do while the daughter sits in the street holding her mothers bleeding head. About 5 minutes later a rather portley and very lazy looking security guard mozies on over and the first thing he says is “We are going to need a doctor.” He calls the doctor and a bunch of nurses and doctors come out and tell the security guard to get a stretcher. The security guard mozies over to the emergency room (honestly seemed like he was going as slowly as he possibly could) to get a stretcher. Meanwhile all of these doctors and nurses just stand around talking. I felt like yelling out “THIS LADY IS LAYING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD WITH HER HEAD BLEEDING ALL OVER THE STREET. DO SOMETHING. HELP HER!” Another 7 or 8 minutes later you see the security guard walking back slowly with the stretcher. He even took his cell out to check the time while he was pushing it. The doctors and nurses pick the lady up, put her on the stretcher and take her off to the ER.
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There really is no ending to that story being that I don’t know the lady. I was just astounded at how little care was given to an elderly lady, laying in the street and bleeding AT A HOSPITAL. Myself and the ladies daughter seemed to be the only ones who cared. It really makes you think about the people that you leave in charge of your health in emergency situations. What is the incentive for them to care about you and make sure that YOUR best interest comes first?
Food For Thought.
Man that is pretty ridiculous…some people.
Hey bro,
My wife works in the med field and the apathy is more pervasive than most any know. She’s worked in just about every type of setting across about 1/2 the country and about 1 of 10 places are good and 1 of 10 of the emploeeys care – and she’s one of those people who sees the rosy side of everything.
Horribly ironic part is that many of them did care, but health care workers are worked like absolute dogs until they’re broken of any sympathy they once had. Flip side is there is so much pressure to make money at those places that hospitals hire the lowest-qualified help in the “first touch” areas of the hospital. Seriously, we’re talking barely over McDonalds wages and they have people’s lives in their hands. And people/the employer are surprised when they treat it like a job at Mickey D’s.
Not saying that to increase your cynicism of the medical profession but rather to back up that your story is not an isolated incident. Health care in the US is a big problem.
IMO, the main problem is it’s partially protected by government regulations and really isn’t that effected by the free market.
In that example, yeah, there are multiple hospitals in a city but what am I going to do if my daughter is bleeding out her ears and the closest hospital isn’t a a good one? I’m still taking her to the “bad” hospital and hopefully transferring her out once they’re sure she’s not going to die or anything. Even though there is a choice, there really isn’t unless one lives in a very urban setting.
Of course, if we make health care completely state-run we’d deal with worse apathy. Government employees are by far the least motivated employees in the universe because it’s practically impossible to fire people and there is no motivation to perform given. “Everyone” talks about how great health care is in socialized countries, but if anything goes seriously wrong, it’s interesting how moderately-wealthy euros come to the US for specialized work. Friend I have who needs serious eye surgery said the waiting list in the UK was over 1 yr, whereas you could have the same procedure done in the US by an (antecdotally speaking) more competent surgeon in under a week.
And covering the 3rd scenario, completely leaving the medical industry up to market forces just isn’t feasible for something as important as medicine because the drug companies are just too powerful – you’d be freaked out if I told you 1% of the stories I know about how our entire healthcare industry (not counting alternative stuff) is basically the hand puppet of those guys.
Any solution? I’d say to anyone seriously distressed about this would be to find God and start praying because that’s the only solution I can think of –
Sorry for the gargantuan rant, but I’m feeling you on this. Thanks for sharing.
@Matt – That was a great comment. I particularly agree with you McJob statement. Although I’m sure there are some fantastic nurses and aides out there, some of the aides I saw over this weekend barely looked like they could take care of themselves, let alone, someone suffering in a hospital.