I Have Been In The Emergency Room
When was the last time you were in the emergency room?
A friend of mine almost cut his finger off in a table-saw accident. So I took him to the emergency room of a major hospital in our town. The triage nurse (I think he was a nurse) gave him some gauze, told him to put pressure on the wound and keep his hand higher than his heart. Eight hours later a dr. finally cleaned up the wound and sewed his hand back together. Eight hours!!!
Emergency room have become health care of first resort instead of last resort. When politicians say anyone in the U.S. can get health care, this is what they're talking about. I talked with several people during our visit. All of them had no health insurance and waited until they had no other choice.
Why is it that in the richest country in the world (and the U.S. is by far) so many people cannot get health care that takes care of them BEFORE it's too late?
A friend of mine almost cut his finger off in a table-saw accident. So I took him to the emergency room of a major hospital in our town. The triage nurse (I think he was a nurse) gave him some gauze, told him to put pressure on the wound and keep his hand higher than his heart. Eight hours later a dr. finally cleaned up the wound and sewed his hand back together. Eight hours!!!
Emergency room have become health care of first resort instead of last resort. When politicians say anyone in the U.S. can get health care, this is what they're talking about. I talked with several people during our visit. All of them had no health insurance and waited until they had no other choice.
Why is it that in the richest country in the world (and the U.S. is by far) so many people cannot get health care that takes care of them BEFORE it's too late?
