« Gah gah gah | Main | Told you so »
May 27, 2005
For shame
This isn't a surprise to me at all:
rowding in US emergency departments is being fueled by rising numbers of patients even as some departments shut their doors, according to a report from the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention.
ADVERTISEMENT
Dr. Catharine W. Burt and Linda F. McCraig, at the CDC's Division of Health Care Statistics, report the annual number of emergency department (ED) visits increased from 90.3 million to 113.9 million visits between 1993 and 2003
The reason for this is simple: people come to the emergency room for things that aren't emergencies. They do so because they know they don't have to make an appointment.
I once had a job at the hospital (the one where I had to shave balls), and we'd have people in the ER all the time who decided to come in with maladies that had been bothering them for weeks. It's unacceptable to jam up the ER like this, but it's also equally unacceptable to refuse treatment. If you want to hear something funny, ask my dad what he thinks about people who come to the ER for non-emergencies. I won't, because it's scary.
Nevertheless, I think people need to screw their heads on straight and realize they can't treat the ER like the health center.
Posted by oz115 at May 27, 2005 02:29 PM