I had surgery 10 days ago, and today the largest of my five incisions opened (I don’t know about all this gluing of wounds) and I called the surgeon's office to speak with a nurse. I told her my primary care doc would fix it and she said, no, I should go to the ER in my town. Which began a four hour, hurry up and wait at the ER. They fixed my problem with ease, but the doctor apologized for the wait and explained they were packed. I said, “How is it you’re packed at 3pm?” “We are loaded with people who ought to be in doctor's offices”
I said, ‘Hey, my surgeon told me to come here!” He laughed, “No, not you. But we have a lot of people here for problems usually seen in clinics.”
When we got there, there the only other person waiting was a young woman brought in a wheelchair by a taxi driver who then went back to his car and brought what looked like every possession the poor woman had. She looked at me and said, “Third knee replacement is rejecting. I have a fourth one scheduled”. I asked her if she had anyone to watch her stuff while she's being seen? She said no, so I started to think about how that might be handled.
About that time, the bag behind the counter calls her over to the window to fill out paperwork. I Loudly complained, “could you not bring her a clipboard?” That woman made her walk over there to fill out paperwork.
Anyway, when we left the waiting room was almost full. I think that was 5pm. This is a brand new ER from the ground up and I think they have maybe 9-10 treatment rooms and is the better of our two choices (the other is twice as big and busy).
There is no one to take care of these Medicaid patients. Instead of aloocating money to pay for Care, states need to build Medicaid clinics open 24/7 where necessary which see only Medicaid patients. They could do it on what they waste on Medicaid transportation. |
