Dead in the ER (A&E)
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https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/mother-found-a-and-e-nottingham-brain-haemorrhage-waiting-times/
The 39-year-old had been waiting for at least seven hours at Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham before she was discovered unconscious under a coat.
'Shocked' staff at A&E have said they believe the long waiting times at the department may have contributed to her death.
The woman first attended A&E in the late hours of January 19 complaining of a severe headache.
She was triaged and observed three times by nurses and while her case was escalated, she was not seen by a doctor before being discovered.
When the mother was eventually called to see a doctor, she failed to respond multiple times, so it was assumed that she had left due to the duration of her wait.
She died on January 22, a few days after she had been transferred to intensive care.
She probably popped an aneurysm. There was a multimillion dollar lawsuit against a Chicago hospital where a young woman presented to the ER complaining of the "worst headache of her life." They treated symptoms and sent her home with no workup.
Died at home of a ruptured intracerebral aneurysm.
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The future of American Medicine.
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I'm going to drop by and visit with my 91 year-old uncle this morning. For the last year or so, he's been in steady decline. Last weekend, he needed to go to the ER. His children made the decision to bypass the local hospitals (because of a bad experience with their mother) and drove 90 miles to bring him to a different facility.
90 miles. Bypassing two 300-bed hospitals, one which used to have a Level 2 trauma center, that now doesn't have a trauma surgeon on staff. We used to have four thoracic surgeons (one top notch), now we have two. We've lost oncologists, endocrinologists, gyns. We used to have seven GI docs, now we have three. We've lost two interventional cardiologists in the last two months. There are even losses in family practice and pediatrics.
Those 300-bed hospitals (and one really should be considered a 400-bedder)? Neither can operate that many beds. Not enough staff, not enough money. I bet they aren't running 300 beds between them. It's not unusual to have to board a patient a day or two in the ED, before they can be transferred to the floor.
It's an absolute shit show. And it's my understanding the same scenario is playing out in many small and mid-level medical markets.
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@Jolly what do you think is a long term solution to this? We have the technology, the doctors get paid extremely well... If the government were competent, I'd be fine if the government paid for health care, which includes high pay for medical workers as well as high audit quality standards. But we see how the government runs most departments...
Side note, my wife was at the ER last year for an elevated level of something. Anyway, the point of the story is the expected 45 minute wait turned into 6 hours (since higher priority cases came in during that time), and again (sorry) the point of the story is absolutely people were sleeping on couches in the lobby waiting to be called and very easily someone could've been deceased under their coat for 6+ hours without ever being checked on.
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That is interesting. There have been a lot of US rural hospitals in the US closing. I think as Jolly says, lack of staff and lack of money.
I too am curious as to why there is that lack of staff and lack of money?
