Don't piss off the emergency nurse at King-Harbor Hospital, you may end up dying in the emergency room lobby:
Turning to Rodriguez, the nurse said, "You have already been seen, and there is nothing we can do," according to a report by the county office of public safety, which provides security at the hospital.
Parked in the emergency room lobby in a wheelchair after police left, she fell to the floor. She lay on the linoleum, writhing in pain, for 45 minutes, as staffers worked at their desks and numerous patients looked on.
Aside from one patient who briefly checked on her condition, no one helped her. A janitor cleaned the floor around her as if she were a piece of furniture. A closed-circuit camera captured everyone's apparent indifference.
LA Times has the full story: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-king20may20,0,1577522,full.story
Predictably, there was an increase in swearing and the like. I'd appreciate it if you guys would let me know if you see inappropriate comments on Neatorama.
At any rate, being a nurse in a city hospital the story, if it's told accurately, sounds shameful. But I suspect there's a lot more to it.
I am a copd patient with a very bad liver. Just recently I was made to wait 5 hours with a temp of 104.7. I was never seen and ended up leaving and having my pulmonary specialist treat me. My gall bladder had gone septic and another 4 hours i would have been dead.
This is not a "unique" problem in america. It is the standard.
At least 5 years ago there was an expose in The New Times (now defunct in LA) by Jill Stewart I believe - I think it was that article that mentioned an elderly black woman getting in a fist fight *in the ambulance* that was taking her to the King/Drew emergency room - she wanted them to take her to a different hopsital. Apparently everyone the hospital is supposed to serve knows it is a death trap.
After she got a bed it took another 2 hours to see a dr, and we were told there was a shortage of doctors... there were 5 doctors in a 10-15 bed A & E.
is that really necessary? To make a joke out of a terrible situation?
"We probably have different standards"
Another thing… I don’t know what you expect from this blog. This is my first visit but some seem to think that the presentation or even the story itself it was inappropriate. If you don’t mind another voice, I think we are all maybe only a few tiers removed from being in danger of the same thing. People don’t want to talk about things that are unpleasant or that make them uncomfortable. In fact, your blogger here let this hospital off easy. Had that been a relative of mine that was neglected and allowed to die, I would have already removed the attending’s thorax.
We’re on thin ice in the country when it comes to healthcare and it’s gonna take the voices of a great majority of Americans to make any real changes. Health care has become just another business… a bureaucracy that neglects the very people… the consumer, that keeps it afloat.
Thanks for letting me rant. Best to all.