Peter, this is not news. For as long as I can remember and even before, people have shown up at emergency rooms with runny noses and skinned knees and the like. They have shown up at emergency rooms, having noncritical ailments, because they did not want to wait for an appointment with their own physicians, or they did not want to take time off from work to keep an appointment with their own physicians. They have shown up at emergency rooms with their kid because their kid was crying and keeping them awake. Non-emergent nursing home patients have been shipped--via ambulance--to emergency rooms at change of shift at the nursing home, for all kinds of hummer (read hmmmmm) reasons. Some, and not a just few, have shown up at emergency rooms because there was nothing good on TV but they had police and fire scanners broadcasting to them, telling them that the emergency room was where the real action could be found. Of course, that was never their presenting complaint, but we knew. I could go on.
People of all flavors have shown up at emergency rooms in the dead of night, and all through the day and evening,for a variety of complaints--precious few of whom warrant emergent medical attention.
The article is excruciatingly correct in stating that anyone who shows up at an emergency room must be treated and stabilized, regardless of their complaints or their ability to pay for service. Bad law. Hopping to the other side for a moment, I was on the scene, long ago and far away, for two genuine emergency patients who, at the time, made this law necessary. - Holly |
