I don’t get the point of the emergency departments in hospitals if the patient is going to have to wait for 6, 7, 8 or more hours to be attended!
Someone has a bleeding ear and they make em wait for hours, mum breaks her wrist and had to wait for hours before she decided to just come back home and get dad to put a bandage on her, my classmate burns her hand with sulphuric acid in the lab and she’s made to wait for hours, I mean what’s the deal with that?!
Do you guys see this happening in other countries too or is it just limited to Ireland?
What could be the reason behind this? Shortage of staff? What else?
ya i get ur point, but somtimes docs r kinda busy with emergency patients u aint the only 1 who is in emergency, in som hosp u hav to fill the form first even incase of emergency, r u getting free medical facilities frm ur state or u pay somthg ?
GP visits are free if u have a medical card. Most meds are covered by the medical card but some aren't. As far as I know, hospital visits aren't free but what does that have to do with the question?
its like that everywhere barbie ...
ER are seeing tremendous overcrowding. multiple reasons ... main ones are lack of health insurance and lack of understanding of what an emergency is.
vast number of folks use the ER as their primary care office ... "i'm a diabetic x 15 yrs, i dont eat well and OMG my sugar is high today!" ... guess i better go to ER"
again this could be cuz they have no doc/health insurance or cuz they are simply dumb.
finally ... ER's really are for life threatening conditions and patients are triaged as such ... so just for sake of an example ...
Conditions that can/will kill you quickly/within hours (a person with ectopic pregnancy, chest pain/MI, difficulty breathing, suspected bleeding in head, emergent surgical conditions) are going to be seen before conditions that maybe painful (no denying that) but not likely to kill you in next few hours.
of course other factors ... like inefficient staff/facility also add to the delays
GP visits are free if u have a medical card. Most meds are covered by the medical card but some aren't. As far as I know, hospital visits aren't free but what does that have to do with the question?
Barbie, this is a big problem. So many have complained about NHS here too, but I suppose it varies from place to place. The A&E is very crowded in some places and people have to be on LONG waiting lists for opreations too, I guess under-staffing or resources being too stretched can be the cause
its like that everywhere barbie ...
ER are seeing tremendous overcrowding. multiple reasons ... main ones are lack of health insurance and lack of understanding of what an emergency is.
vast number of folks use the ER as their primary care office ... "i'm a diabetic x 15 yrs, i dont eat well and OMG my sugar is high today!" ... guess i better go to ER"
again this could be cuz they have no doc/health insurance or cuz they are simply dumb.
finally ... ER's really are for life threatening conditions and patients are triaged as such ... so just for sake of an example ...
Conditions that can/will kill you quickly/within hours (a person with ectopic pregnancy, chest pain/MI, difficulty breathing, suspected bleeding in head, emergent surgical conditions) are going to be seen before conditions that maybe painful (no denying that) but not likely to kill you in next few hours.
of course other factors ... like inefficient staff/facility also add to the delays
excellent response ehli.
None of the examples I listed of my friends' and family's experiences were life-threatening so perhaps that explains the delay a little bit... my friend who burned her hand passed out after a few hours (she was just very anxious) and they took care of her immediately... so yeah it does depend on the severity of the condition.
Its same everywhere but NHS has gone worse for last 7-8 years, Been to emergency couple of time with mum for severe heart palpitation where she was made to wait for 4-5 hours each time and by the time It was her turn she already had gone back to normal lol
Yep happens here too! I think the biggest reason is everyone runs to ER for little silly issues and in Canada we don't have enough docs they all run down south where they get paid more.
I don't get the point of the emergency departments in hospitals if the patient is going to have to wait for 6, 7, 8 or more hours to be attended!
its changing in USA. A local hospital in our area have glass walls and you can see the waiting room of their emergency from the freeway when you are driving by. What they are advertising is almost empty emergency room all the times.
My wife and I had 2 individual experiences in last 6 months and in both case we were attended within first 30 mins and out of the hospital within 3 hours.
I have the same experience with the Emergency Wards of hospitals in USA as BBQ.
I had to go there two times for passing kidney stone. I was made to sit there with that pain for many hours before they gave me a morphine shot to fight the pain. Unfortunately It happened after hours so I could not go to Urgent Care where you do not have to sit that long and they are for the people who do not have life threatening situation but need to be seen by doctor on immediate basis. Urgent Care also closes at 8 P. M so you have no choice but to go to Emergency in case you need to be seen by a doctor immediately.
***ER 's in most countries have a Triage system where patients are categorized according to their complaints into e.g Immediate , delayed ,Non emergency and accordingly seen. Most Emergency Rooms do suffer from a shortage of staff which adds to the delay as well .........
However one of the most common reasons is actually the pateints themselves not understanding what comprises a true emergency and seeking madical care at an ER rather than their primary health centres. I think if people tried to understand that , ER's would work more smoothly.***
We have Urgent Care clinics amongst ER within our local hospital system. UC clinics takes a huge amount of load off ER as people with stomach pain and flu go to the UC instead of ER
We have Urgent Care clinics amongst ER within our local hospital system. UC clinics takes a huge amount of load off ER as people with stomach pain and flu go to the UC instead of ER
UC as I said above are not open on 24x7 basis. So outside UC hours you have no choice but to go to emergency if you need to be seen by a doctor for a non life threating emergency.
