The definition of the term 'Emergency'


The US medical system is known for its ridiculously high-priced service. But atleast we were supposed to get our money's worth. Well, unfortunately as we found out first hand that is not the case. I dont know if every emergency medical facility is as bad as the one we went to on Friday to treat a friend of mine who went over his ankle(i pray they aren't) but this must have been one of the worst.

It was 11 in the night when we figured out where the place was after much confusion with the lady in the emergency helpline. Sheesh, we should have guessed then that this wasn't going to be pretty. Anyway, the place itself seemed to have all the facilities to treat emergency cases. But as soon as we entered the fact that the triage nurse made us wait more than 1/2 hr before attending to him was the sign of things to come. Finally she came back with an icepack, placed it on his foot and said "unless you have blood oozing out of your body you will have to wait" and that usually patients having heart attacks or open deep wounds would be given preference! was she kidding? i assure you she wasn't. After a bit of paperwork which was basically an personal information quiz which included questions like "would you like to state your religious preference?". What the hell........the guy is in a lot of pain and ur sitting here wondering which religion he believes in. I mean come on.......this is an emergency facility and clearly this was a medical emergency. Dont they know that?

He was finally ushered in only to be quizzed again this time by the triage nurse about questions on his medical history. This also included the most ridiculous question of all. " On a scale of 1 to 10 how would you rate your pain". was she trying to torture him. This was outrageous. and as if this wasn't enough he was given a chart with grades of pain ranging from mild to severe to unbearable. All this while we were wondering if all this trouble was worth it.

It wasn't for the lack of nurses or doctors but nobody seemed to care. The guy was dying of hunger now coz he had been told by the lady on the phone not to eat anything until he was checked up. Now that the doctored had OKed him to take some food we asked the nurse for some vegetarian food. She promptly brought a frozen banana, a few crackers and juice! Well, if the insurance didn't cover all this we would have sued for mental and emotional trauma in order to pay for this visit.

By the time we left it was 3:30 in the morning and we now realize how important it is to stay healthy and not get involved in any serious injury...............else our fate would be sealed........literally!!