Peter, I am not sure this is responsive to your statement, but as soon as a nonpaying patient was medically stable and medically suitable for transfer to the county hospital, that is where that patient was summarily dispatched.
Before our emergency room became a designated county trauma center, we did divert ambulances to the county hospital--largely because we might not have what that patient's reported condition might require for treatment.
In Los Angeles County (and probably other areas in our country), trauma centers have gone the way of the do-do bird. Operating a trauma center was largely a pain in the gluteus maximus and they were THE loss leaders on hospital balance sheets the country over.
In today's medical world as it has evolved, I can recite emergency room horror stories, but I won't.
To the thread at large: I would admonish that if you have sudden, severe headache or chest pain or any other potentially life-threatening symptoms, you go immediately to your nearest emergency room. Better yet, call 911. If you report to your friendly neighborhood urgent-care center with such symptoms, the personnel there will immediately call 911 and have you dispatched to the nearest full-service hospital. In the meantime, back at the ranch, while you are poking around the urgent-care, you will have lost crucial time if indeed you have a life-threatening medical condition. - Holly |
