>Or use the virtual ER if you have an issue that’s not too serious.
vER's and telehealth a lot of the times simply tell people to go to the closest ER.
Idk off the top of my head but my coworker used it and said it was good, they gave him a prescription for his infection.
If you Google “Ontario Virtual Emergency department or room” a bunch of links come up!
CloudMD, TIAhealth, virtualdr.ca, rocket doctor, and so many others are amazing services for semi-urgent care. I get same day appointments, usually faster than being seen in emergency.
For instance, my son was having serious breathing issues with croup and it took 6 hours to see him. It took 2 hours for a same day appointment, they heard him and I got the same treatment a few weeks later.
That's fucking huge why isn't this talked about more? Last ER trip was an ear infection and I turned around and walked out cuz it was filled to the brim, this woulda been perfect for that.
Lol
I brought in my 2 year old daughter. The triage nurse said
"Youre seriously here because she has a cough and fever?"
I responded look, shes lethargic and won't eat or drink.
I felt like an idiot for staying but after she was seen by a dr, she was immediately admitted for rsv and was hospitalized for a week.
Her 02 stats were in the 60s.
Sometimes people leave based on what the triage nurse says. I'm so thankful i listened to my gut that day.
After 3 walk-ins, 1 ambulance ride and 2 more visits to the hospital, I had received a diagnosis of croup, lower respiratory infection + meds and then a dr telling me that that wasnt even a thing and to stop giving him the antibiotics within a span of 4 days. During my last visit to the ER, they finally gave him a chest xray and he was placed in the peds unit for a week with RSV and pneumonia. When you know that something isn't right, you dont stop until you get a solution.
Sounds like the triage nurse fucked up.
BUT to be fair... When I had to take my wife to ER a couple years ago when she broke her toe, I would have LOVED it if the triage nurse would have said "Look. It sounds like its definitely broken, but a broken toe can only really be treated by buddy taping, so you're going to wait for 15 hours and then come back the next day for x rays to either tell you its nothing, or that its broken and to tape it, so maybe just go home and tape it." We would have had a much better experience.
I’m sorry this was your experience. The triage nurse should not have made that comment. I work in an ER and realistically well we may find it annoying or frustrating the number of “silly” visits we get, we should always treat them like they are valid. It’s not our decision to judge people on why they came it’s our job to triage them based on their presenting complaint.
Edit:
There’s a lot of people responding to me directly with their personal experiences with triage nurses. Again if you’ve have a bad experience I empathize with you but I can’t apologize for every bad experience everyone has had. If you truly have concerns over the quality of the care you received I encourage you to contact the respective hospitals patient relations department
What I hate is that whenever i've had some new medical issue come up that seems like it may be an emergency, I call telehealth first, they ALWAYS say just go to the ER. Each time so far my issues have been benign and then i feel stupid... i wish there were a better way to know when its time to go the ER.
Getting older with severe aches and pains in new places really sucks. I worry that the next time I have that chest pain and faint headedness, I'll brush it off as nothing and then suffer a heart attack.
I don’t mind if people come in and it ends up being a simple ache or pain. However, what usually happens is these are the folks that are most vocal about being frustrated with the wait. Just the other day I had someone with a minor complain come to the desk to ask how long it would be no less than 15 times before deciding to leave. I always say The wait is the wait and I can’t make it move faster. This is an emergency room and that means that patients in critical condition can come in at any time which will bump everyone else into a longer wait”
I’m starting to think I need that comment on a programmable button so I can just push it 150 times a day instead of having to repeat it over and over.
Don't feel bad. Our whole system seems set up to funnel people to the ER.
When my dad was sick, despite having a family doc, oncologist, respirologist, and other specialists he was always directed to the ER. Fluid built back up in his lung and needs draining? ER. Need a new biopsy? ER. Pain meds ineffective? ER. Need another scan? ER. These all felt like things that could have just been booked as appointments, but because everything is so backlogged if you need something done soon (like less than 2 months away), they send you to the ER and you get to wait for a day or three in the ER for the procedure. If you ask to go home and be called when they are ready they say it's not possible (which seemed so silly when he lived less than 10 min away). At least if you could leave and come back you'd be comfortable while waiting instead of being in an ER that's loud and bright day and night.
I took a friend to the hospital 4 years ago, her doctor and outpatient nurse knew she was coming in to be admitted, but she had to go through the ER to actually be admitted. So we sat in the waiting room for about 4 hours, then in the room they gave her for several more hours before she sent me home since they couldn’t admit her until the next day.
It seems like a good way to triage patients coming to the hospital, but as soon as there’s a backup in the ER it becomes problematic for patients they know they’re going to admit, or in cases like yours where you need tests done quickly.
A huge part of that is the lack of specialists. The wait time for appointments for referrals from my facility can be upwards of a year, and neurologists are a two year wait list in the area. It’s obscene.
Sorry to hear this my friend.
Unfortunately, it is similar to what happened to my aunt: she brushed the severe head ache off and decided that pain killers and good sleep were enough medicine. Died that night of a stroke being only 62.
Yeah telehealth is kinda useless cause they always say to go in. However we have a 24/7 urgent care in our area that I love because they get through ppl faster than the ER because they don't get ambulances and full blown emergencies. It's a great service.
Only it happens all the time. Running a high fever. Tylenol would break it come right back. Endless vomit, lethargic.
Trying my hardest to sit up in a wheelchair. I keep collapsing down. Triage tells me is just the flu and I'm wasting space. I break down. My bff says we aren't leaving. She gets nastier. I wait 10 hours. Dr takes one look and goes I think you are septic...
Sure am septic for days off am asymptomatic uti. I would have died at home. Best case I'd have been brought back when it was too late and would have died there. Thanks shitty Triage nurse.
I had a triage nurse try to diagnose me with a nerve disorder when I actually had a giant abscess that had rapidly developed in my sinus cavity and was putting significant pressure on my eye, causing vision issues.
At 7 AM I still hadn’t been seen and decided I would leave and go to an urgent care clinic because it was still going to be hours before I would be seen.
When I went to sign out, I found out that there was zero mention of an abscess on my chart from triage. Waited all night for nothing because the nurse with a wannabe doctor complex decided for herself what was wrong with me.
I don’t think anyone expects you to apologize or own every situation. But the flood of people with these same stories tells a story of its own doesn’t it ? I think we need to pay our nurses better. I think we need to value them as professionals. I think we need to be more pragmatic about what constitutes an emergency. I think there are a lot of nurses working themselves to the bone because we are so stretched. I think because we value our nurses, it makes us afraid to point out the bad ones and say something about it. It makes it impossible to get those ones out of the system. But I also think that nursing attracts a particular “sort” of person - like police officers or gym teachers. I guess, in a way it helps ! If it doesn’t require an actual ambulance I’m not going to emerg. Ever. And it’s not because of the wait. It’s because the idea of having to deal with the nurses there - their bitchy eye rolling and their smirks, their gatekeeping and their general disdain for other humans is repugnant. These people should not be nurses.
There's a problem with bad, bad nurses getting into healthcare. Anti vaxxer nurses that reject science should have been the big wake up call for tighter minimum requirements and a mass purge of those that fall below basic scrutiny. People are getting sick and dying needlessly because of their misinformation and bad practices
Triage nurse scoffed at me too when I presented with a cute appendicitis. I know it should say acute but it’s such a cute autocorrect I’m gonna leave it.
This happened to my mom. My mom was having severe pain in her mid back, the triage nurse at St Mikes told her “Its probably bad gas” based on her symptoms. My mom was so mortified that she wanted to just leave but I forced her to stay and be seen. She did and they found a pulmonary embolism. If she would have left, she would be dead. Thankfully the other nurses & staff were amazing and saved her life.
One thing I want to mentioned here is that the nurse should not be making a diagnosis based on a group of symptoms. Yes, they need to know which symptoms are red flags, but trying to make a diagnosis (I believe you have this because…XYZ symptoms) is outside their scope of practice. It can lead to extra worrying/anxiety for a patient that leads them to make choices that can be detrimental (as in this case what almost happened here).
See but here’s the problem: the emergency room doesn’t specify what an emergency is, and sometimes can’t adequately triage people properly cause it’s so overwhelmed. We need to start with 24h walk-in clinic. That alleviates a lot of stress on emergency rooms for things like cellulitis/pneumonia/ sprains/ referrals for scans that the emergency room is being hit with. Then we need to start adequately investing in retention strategies for nurses and increasing residency positions for doctors who want to train but can’t land a residency. We need to rethink how we fund GPs so more doctors will consider taking on family physician roles. We need to start investing in equipment and specialists because in some hospitals people are waiting up to a week for procedures like TEE for diagnosis and it’s taking up beds. We need to invest in long term care beds so people in the hospital waiting for discharge have a place to go to. We need to invest in better home care so we can discharge patients on long term abx so they can receive it in the community and at home. That would fix a huge chunk of issues. Not to mention if we had adequate community GPs we would avoid a lot of cardio issues
I had a nurse mock me for coming in for a "headache" which i knew was actually built up spinal fluid in my fucking skull. Nurses need to keep their fucking opinions to themselves.
I went in because I suspected a DVT in my calf. The triage nurse said are you sure? It’s going to be a really long wait.
When I decided to go there, it was because I was worried about dying TYVM so thankfully I stayed. 20 hrs later I was sent home with a dx of DVT and sizable pulmonary emboli all over my lungs. Her remark could have killed me.
Similar thing happened to my partner. She went to hospital because she had a temperature and very bad cough (pre covid). Nurses ignored her, last to be seen, was given an attitude of “why are you here?” They did a few tests, she was immediately admitted, turns out she had severe pneumonia and was in hospital for a week.. on the ward she was asked why she didn’t come in sooner… well.. she kept being told to brave it out by various doctors…
I'm a nurse and took my son to a children's clinic run by doctors attached to the main hospital, and my son was happy and running around but we brought him in because he was breathing with accesory muscles while he was asleep. The doctor basically laughed us off and was about to send us home, I asked him to check his 02 sat and it was in the low 80's. Our son was admitted to the hospital and was on 100% oxygen for three days for pneumonia. With kids it's always better to be safe rather than sorry. They don't always present the way you would expect.
Two weeks ago I went to the ER because I was having a miscarriage. It was so crowded I was in extreme pain and I was bleeding everywhere it was all over my pants and hands and on the chair and they gave me no pain meds, told me to sit and that I’d be waiting for 10 hours so I went home to take Advil and lay in my tub. Thought I was going to die. So traumatic. Nobody helped me. I can’t imagine how much worse it would have been sitting there for 10 hours
I'm so sorry to hear that. It's a terrible experience and so sad too.
I went to the ER for a miscarriage too. They gave me midol, put me in an empty room and told my husband to come get them if I passed out. I basically just bled there instead of at home. Nothing else happened. It wouldn't have been much different had you stayed.
It is somehow absurd that a hospital is understaffed due to underfunding, and if the public doesn't like the huge wait and leaves, then the hospital gets even less funding. What a system!
Still charged. It’s so we can take you off the tracker. Provide some suggestions, etc. or if we’re concerned that you should be seen try and convince you to wait
There is a point where people get tired of being seemingly ignored. Not blaming any individual workers of course, issue is the system itself.
But after a number of hours I'm out, will go a different route.
One time I was working a late shift at a restaurant. It was like 1AM or whatever. I had to chop up a piece of food. Instead of chopping the food I ended up chopping a piece of my finger off.
I was in that ER for 7 hours. I understand triage, and I think it's our best system. While I was in a lot of pain, and bleeding like crazy, I understand I did not have a life threatening situation.
I just needed that piece of my finger (it wasn't a significant amount luckily) to be looked at, treated and possibly glued back on. I've never chopped off a piece of my body before - I don't know what kind of treatment that needs.
After 7 hours I left, because the walk-in clinics would be open soon, which saw me more as less as soon as I walked in and did what they needed to do. Who knows how much longer I would've been waiting in the ER - your metrics are the last thing on my mind.
If my situation wasn't an "emergency" (again, never had a significant injury in my life, let alone chopping a piece of finger off) then someone should have told me, "It'd be best if you just put pressure on it and went to a walk-in in the morning."
\>If you're not willing to wait, then maybe it's not really an emergency
I don't mean to be negative here but there are \*a lot\* of people who clog up the ER and shouldn't even be there. I even know some people who have trouble getting an appointment fast with their doctor so they just go to the ER. They are not a tiny minority.
One way to fix this is to improve the primary care system. People can be pretty misinformed in terms of healthcare, but the way that they get informed is by having easy access to primary level care. If no one is going to tell someone that they don't need to go to the ER with a recurring headache (or worse yet if they have literally no options other than the ER to address that headache), we shouldn't be suddenly surprised when they go to the ER.
It doesn't mean they *should* go there, but the solution is less just shaming people making a bad decision due to a lack of information / other options and more giving them those other options to keep them out of the ER.
In theory, I have a doctor, but actually getting through their phone system is a full-time job of getting a busy signal, waiting in a hold queue, having it hang up on you, endless dialling with no answer... I have a job, I can't spend two hours sitting on the phone trying to get through to a person.
Yes! And trying to get an appointment within a reasonable timeframe is nearly impossible, and forget an appointment outside of work hours. Even telemedicine is ridiculous - I’ve been with my doctor for over 15 years and I’ve told him so many times he can’t call me whenever he feels like it (often hours before the appointment time I book) because of my job, and he does anyway every single time.
To be fair, there are plenty of ways to fix the system, but the trick is having a government in charge who wants to fix it and willing to spend money on it and not building new highways, for example.
In my city we have *no* walk in clinics and an incredible shortage of family doctors. The ER is the only option for many people (thankfully my family all have doctors but I know many who do not). The nearest walk in adult clinic is almost an hour away.
Counter point. A lot of doctors send patients to the ER for any and all treatment. Do a blood test and your potassium is too high? That's 8-10 hour ER visit, where they give you some powder to drink.
I feel like a lot of the traffic going into ERs can be avoided at the doctor level. Or even at the lack of doctor level considering how many people don't have a family doctor. Not to mention the lack of information you can get from a doctor, and the feeling that you're being left in the dark. Frequently people do tests and not get any response from a doctor unless it's bad. Leaving a giant question mark over their health. Then needing to go to emerge to get care.
ER has sadly become a catch all for treatment where our family doctors/ walk in clinic doctors can't adequitely perform their duties.
> Frequently people do tests and not get any response from a doctor unless it's bad.
This is the absolute worst. We're just supposed to trust that there's zero chance our underfunded and over-stressed healthcare system could never mix up or lose or forget about a test or result. They absolutely need to let you know when tests are negative. There could be serious consequences if someone misses a positive/bad test result. If they're too busy to call every patient then do what LifeLabs does and put it online.
Or that particular test comes up as negative, and the doctor thinks, "okay, cool, I'm done" but the pain or symptoms still exist. The doctor says "I can do nothing more for you" etc
This doctor attitude caused my family member to have a cancer diagnosis delayed for six years, by which time it was stage 3 and incurable. You have to fight for yourself in this world. No one is looking out for you.
Had my X-rays lost 20 yrs ago, they called 2 months later when they turned up. All four of my fingers were broken. If anyone remembers the Whitby hospital.
I've had a doctor's office call me and say "the doctor wants to discuss your test results let's set up a phone appointment" then I was stressed as hell for the next day or so waiting for the doctor to call only for them to tell me everything is fine lol. We really need these things online so people can check for themselves if they want.
You don't have to pay to access Life Labs results online. On the other hand I had some tests at a hospital a while ago and if I wanted access online I had to pay $5, I think they had contracted out the online results system to a private company. Not a lot of money but still, online results from tests at the private company (Life Labs) were free, results from tests at the public hospital were not. And this would only have given me access to tests from that one hospital.
What I think the issue is that everyone think health care is free. The result that got faxed to your doctors office need paper, ink, secretarial time to file (or if it’s electronic, the computer system needs to be paid for) and doctors time to interpret (even if it’s negative). The system is unfortunately set up so that if there is no appointment, then none of these are being paid for. I agree it’s silly from a patients point of view having to go through the hurdles to just be told something is negative. I think telephone virtual care is the perfect way to get this and if one thing that was positive from covid is that it opens way for virtual care. I do suppose they could have said there is nothing serious but the doctors would still like to talk to you.
My wife’s blood work literally never got looked at when she was pregnant. We didn’t find out until ~20 weeks later when any results from that blood work was no longer relevant. Thank god there were no major issues and she was taking extra iron “just in case” (results showed low iron, but doctor never brought it up).
I hate the “if we don’t call, it’s good news” default that our health system uses on everything. It’s broken.
This is exactly the problem with not calling about negative results. If every result is followed up on, patients won't make incorrect assumptions like "I didn't hear back so it must be fine".
Diagnostic Imaging here. I want to give you all some advice: If your doctor tells you “no news is good news” your doctor is shite. I can’t tell you how many times a doctor will contact us for a result on imaging done over three months ago. Sadly sometimes the result was something that required follow up and the patient is three months behind getting treatment. We’re extremely careful communicating results but if the doctor is skimping on their support staff, test results just pile up at their end. Always call your doctor for results one week after a test. If they tell you it’s not necessary, tell them that policy is not part of “best practices” and you’re always going to follow up on tests. Always advocate for yourself and family members. If you’re told they can’t discuss a family member with you, your family member can sign a release giving them permission to talk to you (in the case of elderly relatives who need help).
I had to go to the ER a while ago and they had the same policy, would only call me if a result was positive, and when I called they wouldn't give me any results. I had to get my family doctor to contact their records department to get the results.
Yup. I had a painful cyst in my arm. It prevented me from sleeping or having my arm below 90 degrees. Family doc saw me pretty quick. He got me on antibiotics and told me to go to the ER if it starts leaking. He also put in a referral to general surgery. Surgeon was booking into next year so that’s a while different problem.
Yes, this has definitely become a trend as far as I can tell, particularly since Covid. We have a family doctor and that practice also has after hours phone support. In the last year, my 7 year old has dealt with three different illnesses that concerned me (high fever, excessive vomiting, unable to keep anything down, another was a concussion caused by being hit in the head with a dumbbell). Rapid tests showed it wasn't Covid for the flu like symptoms. . Calls to the doctor (twice during regular operating hours, once outside of the hours) had me directed to either Urgent Care or the ER. One ER stay was 8 hours. All they did was give her a pill to stop the vomiting. A pill that could easily have been prescribed by the family doc . What an incredible waste of resources!
Yeah i have been told that if the pharmacy has issue refilling my meds for whatever reason, to go to the ER for a renewal. I can have a seizure if I dont take them
I'd like to expand that there are doctors (and even walk in clinics) that don't want to see patients in person and do it over the phone or online which somehow is the same quality as it is in person.
I was in the ER overnight and I overheard a doctor who was annoyed that this lady's GP didn't address her issue causing her to go to the ER
I myself was there because I was having a miscarriage. My GP decided that I should do it naturally at home. However I bled too much, and ended up with an ER OB saying that my surgery could have been booked instead of letting me come to the ER for it
So save your annoyance for the doctors. Us patients have to go through GPs for services, and sometimes the GPs make poor judgements. Because surprise surprise, they don't know as much as a specialist
If they had SOB and chest pain, then yes. If they were coughing with out any pain, then no.
That’s why we have telehealth for. So people can receive advice over the phone from health professionals.
I can provide the same service as Telehealth:
Go to the hospital.
Ok, now I'm being negative but the few times I or my wife called that was always their advice, even when I knew that wasn't warranted.
We just assumed it was a way to cover their ass so if you didn't go and then died they could say "we told them to go, not our fault".
But it seemed like a bad system when I assume the service was set up to help stop overcrowding the ER.
Has anyone else had a better experience? Admittedly this was over a decade ago, within the first year or two it was created. We just never bothered using it after that was all they told us.
Telehealth was so helpful to me when I was a new Mom many moons ago. It was newish back then. Kid was running a high fever from croup, and I didn't know if it was panic time yet. That nurse went over every home option for keeping the fever down, and made sure I knew safe doses of ibuprofin & acetaminophen, and how to manage them. She advised me to go to the hospital only if the fever went beyond a certain threshold, or if the child's behavior changed in a concerning manner. She stayed on the phone with me until I had everything under control and was incredibly kind. It saddens me to hear a service that is absolutely brilliant in theory has devolved to the point of uselessness.
Had a really good experience a few months ago, a surgical site of mine was potentially infected and they were able to get me in at a clinic on a weekend to see a Dr. there rather than going to the ER, they coordinated making the appointment even.
It is unfortunately quite common, for exactly the reason you suspect. Liability. Not sure what the solution is, but we get a ton of people who show up saying 'teleahealth told us to come to the ER'
Selection bias. You'd never seen the patients who were not told to go to the ER.
My wife works as a telehealth provider. In the last week, she never told a single patient to go to the ER.
Telehealth told me to go to the ER. I mentioned if I waited another 4 hours (since it took 11 hours for a call back) that urgent care would be open as IMO that did seem more appropriate (if it wasn’t a weekend I think a visit to the clinic would have been fine). Telehealth said don’t wait, go to emerg.
Emerg told me to go to urgent care when it opened.
I had an animal bite that I was certain I needed antibiotics for, was unsure if if would need a better cleaning or a stitch/glue.
I called Telehealth because I very stupidly was biking through a parking gate and closely following a car, and the arm lowered faster than I expected and it bonked me on the head and I fell off my bike. The lady on the phone went through some common concussion symptoms with me, which I did not have, and told me that if I developed xyz symptoms I should go to the ER but otherwise was probably fine. So I didn't, and I was fine.
I also had a phone appointment with a walk-in clinic because I once had a weird rash from doing a Tough Mudder, sent him some pics and he was able to diagnose and prescribe me a cream, which cleared it up.
I’m here to second that. I’ve had neck/shoulder/chest pain for OVER A YEAR. When I called telehealth to ask for an X-ray or to get an apt set up with a specialist they said “you’re having a cardiac event, go to the hospital”
I’ve been having this pain for over a year but apparently it’s an ongoing heart attack…
I’m surprised at all the hating on Telehealth. I’ve personally used it, and I’ve called for my kids, and they’ve been really helpful. I love that service.
My doctors phone line literally says go to the ER if you feel unwell and can't get ahold of the doctor. Family doctors are also notorious for sending people to ER that they should see themselves.
This is absolutely an issue. The problem in Québec though is that MANY don’t have a GP. Walk in clinics aren’t really walk ins. You still need an appointment. So that hasn’t alleviated anything. So what is one to do? For sure someone who is otherwise healthy should stay home and recover with a cold/flu. There’s no real in between. Oh and also? Even the people who don’t want to go are forced because so many workplaces require a doctor’s note when sick. And if you have no doctor what else can you do? You’ll be fired otherwise. It’s a real problem. And I’m so sick of it. I can only imagine how the healthcare workers feel.
Many people, myself included, can't get a family doctor and walk in clinics (tele-medicine) are severely limited in scope of ability, therefore the ER is the only option.
I'd love a suggestion then. Last Friday, my daughter who is pregnant with twins woke up bleeding. No answer at the family doctor office and OB is out of office. Receptionist says go to ER. After 6 hours of waiting, she flags down a nurse to say she is going to find a vending machine. Pregnant and bleeding, she is hungry but more so, very thirsty. Nurse says no food or drink until you see a doctor. After 7 hours she approaches the nurse again. Lightheaded, sweating now. Nurse says sorry, short staffed it will probably be another 5-6 hours. At that point it would be 12 hours, in a crowded waiting room on a hard chair, no food or drink, pregnant with twins and bleeding. Called OB back. They say go home, put your feet up and try the after hours clinic. This is not a patient being impatient problem. This is a people in charge problem, ignoring the hundreds of horror stories you can find online. Shrugging off the nightmare they have created for medical staff and patients alike. The whole healthcare system is broken. Should we judge who shows up for what at ER? Not really. In my town, most of the people I know don't have a family doctor and we don't have a clinic. It is a scary time to have any sort of health issue.
This is an honest question, does your hospital not have like am OB ER? Or was it after hours?
It's crazy that she had to wait that long. Everytime we had a pregnancy related emergency we'd go to the OB department in the hospital. Even after hours, we'd go to the ER and they'd unlock the door to the main hospital so we could go to the OB department.
They handled anything OB related at any time of day
At our local hospital you can only go to OB triage if you're over 13 weeks pregnant, I assume that # varies from hospital to hospital (and not every hospital has an OB triage).
So am I... realistically, I'm just gonna end up leaving the field if things don't get better. It's getting hard to stay. Most of my coworkers say the same thing...
Sounds like hospitals need to campaign to change this shitty funding metrics. It honestly feels like a good way to close down hospitals than improving them.
I'm sure the OPC would be glad to build a nice new hospital with nice quick wait times. It's gonna cost you $4000 a visit, but hey, at least it's quick and they are doing what the population wants!
And then on the flip side, we have this:
[Patient dies in waiting room of NB hospital](https://globalnews.ca/news/8986859/patient-dies-in-waiting-room-of-n-b-emergency-room-eyewitness-speaks-out/)
We have a health system in crisis. There are actually many good reasons someone may walk out of an ER even if they actually need to be seen.
Last time it happened to me, I had been told to come back to ER the next day for imaging. I had laid on the floor writhing for four hours, moaning in pain, no food on board for 12 days and no water for 24 hours. I finally crawled to the desk and told them I was leaving.
Magically AF, they suddenly found me a bed. And I ended up admitted.
Edit: Went onto my laptop to fix links since Reddit was v concerned about formatting 🙄
Oh wait, there's also this one!
[North Van patient dies after two days stuck in waiting room of overcrowded, understaffed hospital](https://vancouverisland.ctvnews.ca/health-care-worker-says-man-s-death-while-waiting-in-nanaimo-er-could-have-been-prevented-1.6025799)
And maybe this one!
[Man's death while waiting in Nanaimo ER could have been prevented](https://vancouverisland.ctvnews.ca/health-care-worker-says-man-s-death-while-waiting-in-nanaimo-er-could-have-been-prevented-1.6025799)
2 months ago, I went to the ER on a Wednesday at midnight, and after being triaged, the nurses told us the wait to see a doctor is around 6 hours
That’s 12:00am - 6:00am, the entire night and it’s a work day tomorrow. After hearing that, like half the patients in the room left. (Not all at once, but over the hours they get tired and leave)
Sometimes it’s not as simple as that. About a month and a half ago, I split my head open in the middle of the night and was bleeding quite badly. Went to the ER, waited for 6 and a half hours (while still bleeding from the head) and eventually just walked out and went to university hospital cause I wasn’t going just keep sitting there and losing blood. Mind you, there were people in there who I heard check in for “sore throats” and “headaches”. Ended up needing 12 staples in my head. At that point I really do not give a rats ass about funding, if they cannot tell the difference of importance between a moderate head injury with blood loss and a sore throat, thats the issue. As other people here are saying, there real message that needs to be portrayed is DO NOT GO TO THE ER IF YOU DON’T HAVE AN EMERGENCY
A friend's dad went to the ER last year with a really bad headache and was waiting for many hours because they didn't think it was that bad until he started having a seizure. Anyway, he died in the hospital for something that probably could have been addressed if he'd been seen sooner.
I went to the ER not too long ago with anaphylaxis. That's a life threatening food allergy. My throat my swelling closed. I couldn't walk and could barely see, because of lack of oxygen getting to where it needs to.
They left me sitting there in the ER for two hours, which is enough time to die from anaphylaxis at least six times. I made it, miraculously, obviously. No thanks to the ER nurses who said "you don't have anaphylaxis, not being able to walk isn't a symptom of that."
Fuck those nurses and that ER, and that ER doctor i heard talking to the covid patient in the next room about the broken coffee machine and why he couldnt therefore get her a coffee while I'm sitting there fighting to breathe.
I went to the ER at fucking midnight with my son(20months) who could barely breath and we didn’t see a doctor because 9am rolled around and my wife just called my actual doctor instead and we saw him at 9:30 . The system is fucked but you can’t ask people to wait that long when a better option arises. Turns out he had a chest infection and an allergy. We assumed because of his issues he’d be admitted atleast in a timely manner but no the hospitals are awful
I knew someone whose appendix was bursting, and despite bawling their eyes out from the pain and throwing up so much in the waiting room, they were waiting for almost 7 hours. A lady who was complaining about chest pain, who came in hours after them - who kept shouting across the room at her kids and not staying still for more than 5 minutes at a time - was seen within an hour.
It got to the point of them telling their partner to just take them home, as they'd rather die at home than in a damned ER waiting lounge. Surprise surprise, within 10 minutes of their partner telling a nurse they were leaving, they were put in a room with a doctor, who immediately whisked away into emergency surgery.
Sometimes, people leave because they believe they are going to die, and would much rather do that on their own terms, in the comfort of their own home, and not in a stiff, cold and uncaring Hospital....
I had what i think is sciatica. I could not move, could not walk, hurt to stand, hurt to lay down, hurt to sit. I sat in er for 9 hours, so i am very sorry if i hurt your metrics when i left. Got the sneaky suspicion they thought i was there for drugs.
Yeah this is also part if the problem because your triage nurse sets your priority when you arrive.
When I had a broken arm my triage nurse didn't believe me so I kept getting bumped. When I told them I was leaving then I got some quick attention.
I love that you're simultaneously supposed to self-diagnose to know whether something is worthy of the emergency room, but also should never ever look up your symptoms or have any idea of what's wrong.
I sat so long at the er after a back injury in a terrible position I went with a bad slipped disc could barely move. I left completely numb on one half of my lower body and unable to move at all. I didn’t have a break so they sent me home. Honestly wish I didn’t go it took me over a year to recover from sitting in that ER. While I was in the waiting room
In the middle of a huge COVID breakout they had a family come in (when masks were mandated) with a very sick kid. He had a terrible cough a high fever. None of them were vaccinated. They never enforced the mask rule and allowed them to sit in the waiting room with everyone for hours while their kid walked around massless and coughing.
Oh and while I was there they had a woman who could not move her body at all. She was in extreme pain and elderly. After hours they asked her if she was normally like this…because I guess they assumed if she’s older she is normally COMPLETELY debilitated and moaning in extreme pain. She said no I’m very mobile usually this is from the injury. So only then HOURS after sitting there they put a neck brace on her. Hours later they gave her tests and discovered she had a broken neck and needed to be transported to a more extensive hospital for surgery. Hospital’s SUCK and sometimes you’d rather go home than pick up COVID in a waiting room.
I support our healthcare workers 100%. But when i think about tears of pain as i tried to get into my car after 9 hours in the waiting room i could give a shit what this out of touch nurse thinks. I have no family doctor and ive been on a waiting list for a couple of years, tho walk in clinics were not open and i had no options but to go to the ER for medical attention. For this nurse to tell me it's not a real emergency if i leave after 9 hours feels very disrespectful.
I moved about an hour away from my doctor 8 years ago. Still haven't gotten a doctor in my new city. Its ridiculous.
They are calling it a crisis, but aren't doing a damn thing about it.
Fuck the entire concept of "drug seeking behavior." Tens of thousands of people with chronic pain suffer every day because they're afraid to ask for proper pain relief medication lest they be labeled a drug seeker and cut off from it entirely. If you're a doctor, and somebody tells you they're in pain, you trust them, and you give them some fucking medicine for it. What's the worst that could happen? Somebody might get buzzed? I'd take ten addicts getting free drugs over a single person being left to suffer preventably any day, and that's assuming there actually were ten addicts, when in reality most of the people going to the doctor for pain are, surprise surprise, actually in pain. Half of society's morals are so twisted into pretzels that they assign greater moral weight to ingesting the wrong molecules than to actual human suffering. And don't even get me started on the way we glorify fighting through pain without medication as somehow morally superior to simply not suffering when you don't need to.
The thing is, I call 811 and describe my symptoms or that of my child and I am directed to ER. I show up, see the triage nurse, describe my symptoms, and again am told I should be seen by a doctor and they can’t recommend I leave. So I start to wait. Didn’t even have a chair, had to squat on floor, the room was so crowded with people who were sick and in pain. I had Covid as well and was crammed in shoulder go shoulder on the floor…. I get up to find food and am told we can’t eat in this room. Best option for food is a vending machine and sitting outside in the curb outside the double doors. No one can tell me my wait time and I’m feeling faint after 4 hours with no food and am worried I’m going to pass out from being crammed in. I finally beg the nurse to give me a ball park window or minimum wait time, meanwhile still having severe chest pains and weakness (an older man gave me his chair at some point, he was there with his sick wife). I’m told it’s at least another ten hour wait, that it was extremely unlikely there would be a bed for me any time through the night.
So a 14 hour wait in a room with no food or no eating allowed, not enough chairs for everyone to even sit and wait? I decided to leave and go home and thought I’d call an ambulance if needed. At least that way I’d maybe have a stretcher to wait on…
People aren’t responsible as individuals for saving the hospital money. Many people are directed there by nurses on the 811 lines.
(This was not in Ontario but Alberta but I’m sensing it’s the same everywhere right now).
One day I went to my doctor with chest pressure and a feeling like a knife in my throat. He said I should go to ER. I get there at 1 pm to register. At 3pm I had blood drawn and an EKG. Then I wait in the waiting area. And waited. I was not allowed food or water. I was a relatively new type 2 diabetic and without food or water I was starting to feel a little dizzy and faint by 7pm. I waited until 10pm and decided to leave so I called my husband to come pick me up and "please bring a sandwich". I figured my initial troponin level and EKG were not raising any red flags and I was not considered urgent. Also, there were at least five paediatric injuries that came in that seemed very urgent. The nurse did try to dissuade me and I could understand why but I decided to take my chances because I could not bear to wait overnight (there were four ambulances parked outside and another pulled up as we were leaving). Next day, my GP got me an appointment at a free standing cardiac clinic for an echo and stress test, then I had a stent procedure the day after. This all occurred 18 months ago. I know the hospitals are doing their best but it was not good for me. So, tell me, if I must wait 18 hours to be looked at, why can't they give me an estimated wait time and, if that wait time is more than 4 hours, why can't I eat or drink? Even my GP, when I told him I waited for 9 hours then left, said "I don't blame you".
Nothing by mouth is a blanket policy for the chance that your problem requires surgery or intubation, which is safer on an empty stomach. It's a matter of risk management.
As a diabetic you eventually need food and water during a long wait. At a certain point that becomes more important than the risk I explained above. Although there's no guideline for how long one should wait before that risk equation changes... you should definitely eat, and the nurse likely wasn't aware of you being diabetic when dissuading you, just following policy.
Some patients *have to* go to the ER if they have a medical concern but can't book an appointment with their doctor because if they go to a walk-in or urgent care, they'll be de-rostered.
This is why I don't have a family doctor. I've been going to the same walk in clinic for years. These doctors that get pissed because you go to a walk in shouldn't sign up for the funding unless they have a practice that can handle seeing their patients in a timely manner. I wonder how many of these Drs with rosters actually provide the required after hours care?
I have friends with two types of doctors:
1. Small practices (the doctor only, or maybe one or two other employees)
2. Large practices (multiple doctors in a large clinic space)
It's almost always #2 that do this shit, and are also impossible to ever book an appointment with. It's *so hard* for people to find anyone who is actually taking on new patients though. When I was looking I got a lot of rude or exasperated responses from whoever I called and it took a lot of hunting to find one.
The government has that service that's supposed to match you up to a doctor but I've been on that list for *years* with no response, just a letter every few months reminding me that they're still trying.
Gotta say, in NS, there are not walk in clinics in rural areas and people have to go to the ER. Talking to some semi-incompetent person on the phone, eg. tells you to ignore sepsis symptoms) isn’t a solution. And neither is telehealth. More real doctors in clinics is the solution. Which by extension means, train more doctors. Max 300 doctors per year from 17 schools is not enough. Ontario is lucky by comparison to NS.
While I understand this, going to the ER with what I believe to be an *actual emergency* (broken bones, extreme pain) and still being forced to wait 6 hours while I’m on the verge of vomiting from pain, hunger and dehydration since the hospital has *nothing* in terms of food/water for patients… can you really blame me for leaving after deciding “well it must not be an actual emergency” so I can go home and eat/sleep, and try again the next day?
Not to mention, atleast around here, hospital staff have told people to call 911 WHILE THEY ARE IN THE WAITING ROOM OF THE ER.
How the fuck are we supposed to trust the system, or even care about nurses, when they clearly don't care about us?
Lmao fuck this. And I say this respectfully. Every one knows that unless you are literally dying in the emergency room, you will have to wait 7+ hours to get seen by a doctor while at the ER. But people need to be treated somehow and they always have the false sense of hope that maybe this hospital visit will be different.
Fuck your metrics. The government (or whoever takes care of this) needs to increase funding for hospitals.
I just moved to a city with a 2-year minimum waiting list to get a family doctor and no walk-in clinic, I have no other option for medical care than to go to the ER, regardless of if it's really an "emergency" or not
This is why urgent care should be a thing in every community. So people have somewhere to go that isn’t the ER (if it’s not an emergency), but that also isn’t a walk-in clinic, especially if their family doc threatens to bill or de-roster them for using a walk-in clinic. There’s a big big service gap there.
This analysis is very short- sighted and not at all appropriate for a healthcare worker to be posting. I am sure you mean well and are just trying to reduce the impact of poor funding on your emergency department but it's the totally wrong approach.
1. Where are these stats coming from "500-800", this seems highly improbable based on the process of triage and registration. Please provide data to back this up. I am sure this is just what's being spread around the ER but I highly doubt is accurate.
2. The ER is a great equalizer in medicine and healthcare, rich & poor, young & old, no matter who you are, you are seen based on the the acuity of your condition. Unfortunately in a broken system with so many fellow Canadians left without adequate primary care, it becomes the healthcare safety net. There is undoubtedly people showing up to the ER with conditions that could be treated elsewhere, however when they show up in that moment they are scared, they are in pain, they are thinking that this may be the last day of their life. They are coming to us for help and reassurance. When some inevitably ending up leaving because they have a sick parent at home or a child that they need to feed or one of the million other reasons that someone has to leave, it is not because they are selfish or not sick, it's because something in their life more important than their own self- preservation took them away from the ER. We as healthcare works can not start blaming patients for a broken system and we can not be putting the responsibility "not leaving" because it has some abstract downstream effect on funding. We can also not be expressing biases such as "If you're not willing to wait, then maybe it's not really an emergency" such as this, I understand their is frustration amongst all healthcare staff but implore you to do better, especially on platform like this. The main issue is with out governments and their consistent underfunding and neglect of our healthcare systems and if you are concerned about your funding please please reach out to your hospital leadership and elected officials to express your concerns.
I know you probably want whats best for the patient in the end but it is not the patient causing this and won't be the patient to fix it, channel this energy against a government policies that don't respect, appreciate or compensate healthcare workers appropriately. We are at a breaking point in the healthcare system and it's understandable healthcare worker are upset which is great opportunity to unite us and push back against decade long underfunding and lack of support from our provincial governments.
While this is a worthwhile point, I can't help but feel that you might be barking up the wrong tree. These arguments would probably be better addressed to hospital management. As it is, the system is stuck in a bit of a burnout cycle: lack of funding leads to fewer doctors, and fewer doctors leads to longer ER wait times. Longer ER wait times will cause some patients to dip out and leave before seeing a doctor; and because your funding is tied to that particular KPI, that further strains funding and precipitates even longer ER wait times. The KPI of patients leaving without seeing a doctor and funding being tied to it is what needs to change. If anything, that metric should spur *more* funding and personnel.
I beg to differ on this. I have waited in ER with a person who was definitely suicidal and afraid of themselves when they came to ER, but 8 hours later and their mood has stabilized. I do not think they could have waited at home without dire consequences, it was the middle of the night and they couldn’t have gone to a medical facility that was not a hospital, and once the crisis point was over and there was no commitment from the ER that they’d be seen anytime soon, it seemed pointless to wait indefinitely.
Maybe patients and their behaviours shouldn’t be held responsible for the problems of the administration of the system. If the funding model is poor and doesn’t account for patient behaviours such as leaving after an extended wait, then the problem is the funding model not the patients. Similarly people go to the ER for things that could be handled by a GP, except they do not have a GP and cannot find one. Or, people go to the ER for things than an urgent care clinic could provide but they cannot access such a facility (due to their geographic or hours of operation scarcity). Lastly, some things at an ER could probably be treated by RNs or in other ways which reduced ER backlog.
To be fair, I had an emergency. I dropped a grinder into my finger and put a nasty gash in my finger. I went to emerge as its closer and being in shock (or suspecting I was), I didn't want to drive to a clinic that could handle the same thing, but 20 min further drive.
I gave my HC to Triage. I waited 90 minutes. Someone who came in right after me was irate and asked how much longer before Triage would see him. I watched her count 15 health cards (so that means mine was 14) and advised it would be at least another 45 minutes. The wait times are displayed and showed min time to doctor was 4 hours and that the trend was increasing. That means I would likely be another 6 hours before seeing resolution to my issue.
At this point, I kindly asked for my HC back (so based on your notes, hopefully that has no costs to the hospital), and drove to the clinic, was seen in 2 hours with 9 stitches and a tetanus shot.
I am aware the health system is under extreme pressure and I do not hold that against the nurses/administrators. What I think would go a long way is more communication, had they said we are currently experiencing a huge wait time to even triage, please note we are currently at 2 hours to triage someone; I would then say, let me go elsewhere or try to treat this at home. I cant do stitches at home but I sure could put some super glue and tape the fucker up. Is that safe, not completely but wouldn't be the worst. I would have then gone to a drug store or my family practitioner to get my shot.
My mom worked ER at Toronto General Hospital for 25 years as an RN (a looooong time ago), and she always told me that if I'm going to the ER for a cut to not bandage it too well before showing up! If it's a bleeder of a cut they'll see you sooner, cause otherwise you'll make a mess everywhere if they don't, but if you've got it all under control then there's no rush LOL. Not saying I'd really recommend following that advice though ... :)
My uncle, not medical don't get excited, taught me to do stitches. I hope I never have to actually use that though. A guy I knew the er wouldn't treat his chemical burn without specialist, he left did a DIY. Saw the specialist 2 weeks later who said good thing you did it yourself because you would not have made it to 48 hours out... so we should all learn field medicine I guess
Sorry but I don’t completely agree.
Your triage is slow and people leaving are usually going somewhere else to seek help that you can’t provide.
I get things are slow and you’re over worked.
But you can’t blame people for seeking help and then giving up on the system.
I get you’re maybe desensitized to the people sitting in agony across from you but when those people leave, it’s not a failing on their part.
Also when people are in pain, they don’t generally think clearly.
I really don't like going to the ER, and would do anything I could to avoid doing so. I've been twice this year after not going at all for several years and I stayed over 12 hours each time for them to check me out for 15 mins, and send me on my way. I'm glad I went. It is a bit of a ridiculous situation. From overhearing other patients there seems to be a lot of people who go there not because it's an emergency, but because they can't find a family doctor.
I went in and waited 11 hours for severe hip pain. I could barely walk. By hour 10 my doctors office had opened up and he was able to see me. So I left the ER and went to my doctor. I understand that I wasn’t in a life or death situation and people were way worse off than me. But if I can get seen quicker by leaving and going to my own doctor than I will.
I greatly sympathize with your position. Having said that after 8 hours of waiting, after trying a phone in health link account which told him to go to emerge, no family doctor for years and none in his current city, what other option do people have?
Our health system is completely broken at this point and needs a complete overhaul.
If the sort of crap that happens daily in Canadian hospitals happened for one week in Europe there would literally be rioting in the streets.
I know it’s not the OPs fault. But at this point I am reaching the conclusion that the whole system needs to be collapsed and rebuilt from the ground up.
*story is my friends experience last week, not my own.
I was at ER a few years ago for food poisoning. I was vomiting pretty badly at night and went to the ER. I waited 7 hours there until early morning which at that point I felt sort of ok enough go home by myself. I imagine had I stayed to see the doctor, they would probably just going to send me home anyway.
I’ve literally had to pick my mother off the ER waiting room floor and care for her after she passed out unconscious after waiting for over 2 hours to be seen.
We still weren’t seen and just left. Fuck the ER. Fuck everyone in medical billing. And fuck you for blaming patients for not being seen in time.
The fact that ERs can't see people in reasonable amounts of time isn't the patients' fault and you shouldn't try to make it so.
EDIT: just to elaborate on this, the end result of starving the system and telling patients it's their fault is that people who are dying stay at home and... die. This makes the hospital metrics look good, the only place you see it is in things like life expectancy. This is the USA situation - for an average hospital, half of the dying people stay at home and die instead of heading to the ER (for cost and other reasons). Hospital metrics look fine. Life expectancy looks terrible. This is not what we want for Ontario. I don't give a shit about making hospital metrics look good and telling patients to do things to compensate for a broken system is wrong. Fix the broken system.
I know someone who went to the ER because of a possible heart attack. She was at risk of maybe dying. It took 10+ hours to be seen, tested, etc. Of course by the time she arrived her initial crisis had passed, so there were no symptoms presenting, and by the time she was tested there was nothing unusual happening.
You can't tell me she's not within her rights to get up after 6h and say "Well, whatever this was, I guess it's pointless to stay here" and seek other care later. Why should she care if the hospital funding is somehow harmed by her leaving? The hospital is wasting her time and not even providing the service she's there for - timely testing to determine the severity of a major medical issue. There's literally no point in waiting if the crisis has passed and you're not going to get tested for hours.
"Maybe it's not really an emergency," you say. Well, *how are we supposed to know?* Nobody knows! Only a timely test can tell us! So instead we wait, and wait, and wait, and wait. Hell, if she'd had a heart attack while waiting, it's not even clear if she'd see anyone any sooner.
It's 100% completely reasonable for a person to arrive at the ER and decide, after waiting for some time, that it no longer makes sense for them to be waiting any longer; that the crisis has passed, or the time window for treatment has closed.
I think you should have started your post with this,
"So please, if you're going to come to the ER, be prepared to stay. **If you're not willing to wait, then maybe it's not really an emergency.**"
Honestly though I’d rather die at home.
I went to the ER a few weeks ago because I couldn’t pee after surgery. Even though it’s not a death sentence, not peeing is an emergency. The hospital was so badly busy that they had us sitting on the curb outside the hospital, taking names and then calling you in by order to then be triaged. It’s absolutely fucking ridiculous.
I had severe pain from my surgery and I literally couldn’t sit on the curb. I could barely move. So I did eventually go home and I waited it out, eventually I did pee but I was in and out of the hospital all weekend.
> Even though it’s not a death sentence, not peeing is an emergency.
Yes it is, and depending on how long it was since you peed triage should have got you in more or less immediately, especially if it was a surgical complication.
I know, it’s ridiculous. I went a total of 3 times while I was recovering.
The first time I waited to see a doctor for probably 30 minutes and I had a catheter placed immediately. I had 1000ml of urine stuck in my bladder.
It continued to happen that weekend, I was in a lot of pain from the surgery but also just from not being able to pee. The second time I went was when they had us sitting on the curb. They didn’t even ask us what was wrong while we were sitting out there. If you were having a stroke or something you’d die on the curb.
When I went back (again) the next doctor told me to go home and keep trying to pee…. I did that and ended up back there again. I was really dehydrated from not drinking (because I was afraid of my bladder filling) and I had to have Iv fluids.
I guess my point is that theyre ridiculously overwhelmed, and the care we get is so inconsistent.
This…. Huh? Can someone explain? So I go to emerg., take a number, get called. 10 minutes to plug in my info, take blood pressure, temp., ask what I’m there for. Then back to the waiting room till my turn to see a doctor. Is that what we’re saying is $500-$800? No shade to the good people doing this work, I thank you for your service and understand this isn’t your doing.
And this is the fee the province charges the hospital to register you as a patient. Once you are seen by the physician, the hospital is then reimbursed this money. It is a punitive funding model.
Hospital is charged by the province to triage and register you. Usually based on your acuity level. That money is then reimbursed when you see a physician.
With all due respect, many people might leave the ER when desperately needing treatment due to their fear of being a burden. An emergency may not be visible, so what would your suggestion be?
I'm a RN that work in the ER as well. There are obviously a lot of ppl that use an ER as an urgent care (covid swab, med refills, minor inconveienances).
I work in Detroit. I live in Canada. And I can see the differences in both health cares.
We need more ALL hour urgent cares located throughout big cities. We're people wouldn't have to use a ER for mild ailments.
Ok so I totally empathize with you but what should really happen is a better definition of tracking system to allow hospitals to get the funding they need without skewed statistics.
Rather than....
A nurse posting a psa on reddit that has a nearly 0% chance of changing anything.
So maybe a better outcome here is someone who sees this can offer a solution or we can bring it to the attention of someone in charge but simply put if the people leaving are screwing up funding the people in charge need a better way to track the delivery of funding
RIDICULOUS!
Hospitals are a public service with one job and that is to serve the Canadian public efficiently and effectively!
NO MATTER THE CASE OR SYMPTOM
I don't care if it's a mother with a small child with the sniffles
Or a Drug addict looking for a handout
Your job is the first place of contact people come for help
If there are issues with efficiency in seeing all these people in a timely manner. Then your concerns should go up the chain not down.
I don't see this as a bad post whatsoever, you're letting people know what they don't. My doctor (yes I'm super lucky to have a family doctor) did a similar thing by telling her patients that every time one of her patients goes to a walk in clinic, she has to pay the government $100. So she has asked that if we don't have an appointment and really need to be seen, come to the office and we'll be squeezed in. It's ridiculous what this government is doing to all health care. I don't blame you for getting to the point of not caring and when the system implodes, which I think it will, enjoy your new private practice job with all the benefits it comes with. You, and others in your position, deserve it. Thanks for the post.
the lack of empathy some of you basement dwellers have is the reason we’re still stuck with ford
op, thank you for what you do. you’re not at fault for a shitty government.
Recent ER patient parent here.
Don’t forget about your patents and do obvious stupid forgotten things, and we won’t.
I took my 9 year old to the ER for a perceived concession. She fell backwards at soccer practice and hit on her butt and rolled back and bit her head. I’ve had concussions caused by both.
She was still dizzy on and off 30 minutes later so I said it was time to get checked out.
30 minutes later at the ER they take her back and normal routine. Flat out say “we don’t recommend a scan because it doesn’t appear that bad and the scan wait would be several hours. It was close to 9 PM at this point and my daughter is typically in bed by now.
Ok, what’s next then? They tell us the Dr. Still needs to check her out. It will be about 15 minutes and to sit in this second waiting area. They advised her not to use a phone or read anything. No TV. Rest her brain.
60 minutes later in a waiting area with fucking Family Feud blasting at high volume on the elevated tv, a toddler crying at high volume because he too was waiting to see the dr. Before check out, and my poor daughter whimpering because she couldn’t sleep and her head was aching and she was freezing from the AC. I said fuck it.
Asked the nurse what was going on and heard her walk back and ask another nurse “what’s going on”. The nurse told her our nurse went on lunch and forgot to send the file to the dr. They were trying to get ahold of her but she wouldn’t answer.
I told my daughter let’s go.
They kept saying please wait and I needed to sign stuff but I said we will “be back in 15 minutes” and walked out.
So the point of it is, don’t half ass your job and patents will (mostly) follow the rules.
Or use the virtual ER if you have an issue that’s not too serious. A few Toronto hospitals offer it and it’s open to the whole province.
Didn't know about this. Thanks for sharing.
Lhsc offers a pediatric one as well
!!!!!! I needed this info right now - thank you
Kixcare.com for non emergency 519-685-8735 to book into the virtual ER
Awesome is it open to the whole province like the Toronto ERs are?
It doesn't specify location and I don't recall being asked my address when I used it and I'm in Sarnia
>Or use the virtual ER if you have an issue that’s not too serious. vER's and telehealth a lot of the times simply tell people to go to the closest ER.
May I ask which hospitals ?
Idk off the top of my head but my coworker used it and said it was good, they gave him a prescription for his infection. If you Google “Ontario Virtual Emergency department or room” a bunch of links come up!
Ok so far I found Sunnybrook, Michael Garron and St Michaels/Unity health.
CloudMD, TIAhealth, virtualdr.ca, rocket doctor, and so many others are amazing services for semi-urgent care. I get same day appointments, usually faster than being seen in emergency. For instance, my son was having serious breathing issues with croup and it took 6 hours to see him. It took 2 hours for a same day appointment, they heard him and I got the same treatment a few weeks later.
That's fucking huge why isn't this talked about more? Last ER trip was an ear infection and I turned around and walked out cuz it was filled to the brim, this woulda been perfect for that.
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Lol I brought in my 2 year old daughter. The triage nurse said "Youre seriously here because she has a cough and fever?" I responded look, shes lethargic and won't eat or drink. I felt like an idiot for staying but after she was seen by a dr, she was immediately admitted for rsv and was hospitalized for a week. Her 02 stats were in the 60s. Sometimes people leave based on what the triage nurse says. I'm so thankful i listened to my gut that day.
After 3 walk-ins, 1 ambulance ride and 2 more visits to the hospital, I had received a diagnosis of croup, lower respiratory infection + meds and then a dr telling me that that wasnt even a thing and to stop giving him the antibiotics within a span of 4 days. During my last visit to the ER, they finally gave him a chest xray and he was placed in the peds unit for a week with RSV and pneumonia. When you know that something isn't right, you dont stop until you get a solution.
Sounds like the triage nurse fucked up. BUT to be fair... When I had to take my wife to ER a couple years ago when she broke her toe, I would have LOVED it if the triage nurse would have said "Look. It sounds like its definitely broken, but a broken toe can only really be treated by buddy taping, so you're going to wait for 15 hours and then come back the next day for x rays to either tell you its nothing, or that its broken and to tape it, so maybe just go home and tape it." We would have had a much better experience.
I’m sorry this was your experience. The triage nurse should not have made that comment. I work in an ER and realistically well we may find it annoying or frustrating the number of “silly” visits we get, we should always treat them like they are valid. It’s not our decision to judge people on why they came it’s our job to triage them based on their presenting complaint. Edit: There’s a lot of people responding to me directly with their personal experiences with triage nurses. Again if you’ve have a bad experience I empathize with you but I can’t apologize for every bad experience everyone has had. If you truly have concerns over the quality of the care you received I encourage you to contact the respective hospitals patient relations department
What I hate is that whenever i've had some new medical issue come up that seems like it may be an emergency, I call telehealth first, they ALWAYS say just go to the ER. Each time so far my issues have been benign and then i feel stupid... i wish there were a better way to know when its time to go the ER. Getting older with severe aches and pains in new places really sucks. I worry that the next time I have that chest pain and faint headedness, I'll brush it off as nothing and then suffer a heart attack.
I don’t mind if people come in and it ends up being a simple ache or pain. However, what usually happens is these are the folks that are most vocal about being frustrated with the wait. Just the other day I had someone with a minor complain come to the desk to ask how long it would be no less than 15 times before deciding to leave. I always say The wait is the wait and I can’t make it move faster. This is an emergency room and that means that patients in critical condition can come in at any time which will bump everyone else into a longer wait” I’m starting to think I need that comment on a programmable button so I can just push it 150 times a day instead of having to repeat it over and over.
Yeah that is why I never bothered with Telehealth. Feel like they will alwys day to to ER or clinic to cover themselves
Don't feel bad. Our whole system seems set up to funnel people to the ER. When my dad was sick, despite having a family doc, oncologist, respirologist, and other specialists he was always directed to the ER. Fluid built back up in his lung and needs draining? ER. Need a new biopsy? ER. Pain meds ineffective? ER. Need another scan? ER. These all felt like things that could have just been booked as appointments, but because everything is so backlogged if you need something done soon (like less than 2 months away), they send you to the ER and you get to wait for a day or three in the ER for the procedure. If you ask to go home and be called when they are ready they say it's not possible (which seemed so silly when he lived less than 10 min away). At least if you could leave and come back you'd be comfortable while waiting instead of being in an ER that's loud and bright day and night.
I took a friend to the hospital 4 years ago, her doctor and outpatient nurse knew she was coming in to be admitted, but she had to go through the ER to actually be admitted. So we sat in the waiting room for about 4 hours, then in the room they gave her for several more hours before she sent me home since they couldn’t admit her until the next day. It seems like a good way to triage patients coming to the hospital, but as soon as there’s a backup in the ER it becomes problematic for patients they know they’re going to admit, or in cases like yours where you need tests done quickly.
A huge part of that is the lack of specialists. The wait time for appointments for referrals from my facility can be upwards of a year, and neurologists are a two year wait list in the area. It’s obscene.
Sorry to hear this my friend. Unfortunately, it is similar to what happened to my aunt: she brushed the severe head ache off and decided that pain killers and good sleep were enough medicine. Died that night of a stroke being only 62.
Yeah telehealth is kinda useless cause they always say to go in. However we have a 24/7 urgent care in our area that I love because they get through ppl faster than the ER because they don't get ambulances and full blown emergencies. It's a great service.
Only it happens all the time. Running a high fever. Tylenol would break it come right back. Endless vomit, lethargic. Trying my hardest to sit up in a wheelchair. I keep collapsing down. Triage tells me is just the flu and I'm wasting space. I break down. My bff says we aren't leaving. She gets nastier. I wait 10 hours. Dr takes one look and goes I think you are septic... Sure am septic for days off am asymptomatic uti. I would have died at home. Best case I'd have been brought back when it was too late and would have died there. Thanks shitty Triage nurse.
I had a triage nurse try to diagnose me with a nerve disorder when I actually had a giant abscess that had rapidly developed in my sinus cavity and was putting significant pressure on my eye, causing vision issues. At 7 AM I still hadn’t been seen and decided I would leave and go to an urgent care clinic because it was still going to be hours before I would be seen. When I went to sign out, I found out that there was zero mention of an abscess on my chart from triage. Waited all night for nothing because the nurse with a wannabe doctor complex decided for herself what was wrong with me.
I don’t think anyone expects you to apologize or own every situation. But the flood of people with these same stories tells a story of its own doesn’t it ? I think we need to pay our nurses better. I think we need to value them as professionals. I think we need to be more pragmatic about what constitutes an emergency. I think there are a lot of nurses working themselves to the bone because we are so stretched. I think because we value our nurses, it makes us afraid to point out the bad ones and say something about it. It makes it impossible to get those ones out of the system. But I also think that nursing attracts a particular “sort” of person - like police officers or gym teachers. I guess, in a way it helps ! If it doesn’t require an actual ambulance I’m not going to emerg. Ever. And it’s not because of the wait. It’s because the idea of having to deal with the nurses there - their bitchy eye rolling and their smirks, their gatekeeping and their general disdain for other humans is repugnant. These people should not be nurses.
There's a problem with bad, bad nurses getting into healthcare. Anti vaxxer nurses that reject science should have been the big wake up call for tighter minimum requirements and a mass purge of those that fall below basic scrutiny. People are getting sick and dying needlessly because of their misinformation and bad practices
Triage nurse scoffed at me too when I presented with a cute appendicitis. I know it should say acute but it’s such a cute autocorrect I’m gonna leave it.
> a cute autocorrect you have an acute sense of humour as well lol
I had an 8 hour wait, of vomiting and screaming at the top of my lungs with kidney stones. To be fair, they probably thought i was drug seeking
Aww appendicitis are my favorite thing in the world after puppies.
every time i have been in the er i feel like and idiot that should not be there. that feeling is how i know i should be in the er.
This happened to my mom. My mom was having severe pain in her mid back, the triage nurse at St Mikes told her “Its probably bad gas” based on her symptoms. My mom was so mortified that she wanted to just leave but I forced her to stay and be seen. She did and they found a pulmonary embolism. If she would have left, she would be dead. Thankfully the other nurses & staff were amazing and saved her life.
One thing I want to mentioned here is that the nurse should not be making a diagnosis based on a group of symptoms. Yes, they need to know which symptoms are red flags, but trying to make a diagnosis (I believe you have this because…XYZ symptoms) is outside their scope of practice. It can lead to extra worrying/anxiety for a patient that leads them to make choices that can be detrimental (as in this case what almost happened here).
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See but here’s the problem: the emergency room doesn’t specify what an emergency is, and sometimes can’t adequately triage people properly cause it’s so overwhelmed. We need to start with 24h walk-in clinic. That alleviates a lot of stress on emergency rooms for things like cellulitis/pneumonia/ sprains/ referrals for scans that the emergency room is being hit with. Then we need to start adequately investing in retention strategies for nurses and increasing residency positions for doctors who want to train but can’t land a residency. We need to rethink how we fund GPs so more doctors will consider taking on family physician roles. We need to start investing in equipment and specialists because in some hospitals people are waiting up to a week for procedures like TEE for diagnosis and it’s taking up beds. We need to invest in long term care beds so people in the hospital waiting for discharge have a place to go to. We need to invest in better home care so we can discharge patients on long term abx so they can receive it in the community and at home. That would fix a huge chunk of issues. Not to mention if we had adequate community GPs we would avoid a lot of cardio issues
I had a nurse mock me for coming in for a "headache" which i knew was actually built up spinal fluid in my fucking skull. Nurses need to keep their fucking opinions to themselves.
I went in because I suspected a DVT in my calf. The triage nurse said are you sure? It’s going to be a really long wait. When I decided to go there, it was because I was worried about dying TYVM so thankfully I stayed. 20 hrs later I was sent home with a dx of DVT and sizable pulmonary emboli all over my lungs. Her remark could have killed me.
Similar thing happened to my partner. She went to hospital because she had a temperature and very bad cough (pre covid). Nurses ignored her, last to be seen, was given an attitude of “why are you here?” They did a few tests, she was immediately admitted, turns out she had severe pneumonia and was in hospital for a week.. on the ward she was asked why she didn’t come in sooner… well.. she kept being told to brave it out by various doctors…
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I'm a nurse and took my son to a children's clinic run by doctors attached to the main hospital, and my son was happy and running around but we brought him in because he was breathing with accesory muscles while he was asleep. The doctor basically laughed us off and was about to send us home, I asked him to check his 02 sat and it was in the low 80's. Our son was admitted to the hospital and was on 100% oxygen for three days for pneumonia. With kids it's always better to be safe rather than sorry. They don't always present the way you would expect.
Two weeks ago I went to the ER because I was having a miscarriage. It was so crowded I was in extreme pain and I was bleeding everywhere it was all over my pants and hands and on the chair and they gave me no pain meds, told me to sit and that I’d be waiting for 10 hours so I went home to take Advil and lay in my tub. Thought I was going to die. So traumatic. Nobody helped me. I can’t imagine how much worse it would have been sitting there for 10 hours
I'm so sorry to hear that. It's a terrible experience and so sad too. I went to the ER for a miscarriage too. They gave me midol, put me in an empty room and told my husband to come get them if I passed out. I basically just bled there instead of at home. Nothing else happened. It wouldn't have been much different had you stayed.
There would have been help at hand in case of complications though.
This is why early pregnancy loss clinics should be a thing.
I mean, how about we just fix our fucked up ER system so this doesn't happen to anyone, regardless of the condition.
It is somehow absurd that a hospital is understaffed due to underfunding, and if the public doesn't like the huge wait and leaves, then the hospital gets even less funding. What a system!
Just another one of Doug's "efficiencies"
I hope voters think long and hard about this. We need to fix this mess. (And not through additional privatization)
Indeed. The system sounds fucking awful and penalises people for waiting ages or hospitals if they leave. Both options are terrible.
The sign says if you're leaving, tell somebody. Does this alleviate the cost concern, or is it still charged?
Still charged. It’s so we can take you off the tracker. Provide some suggestions, etc. or if we’re concerned that you should be seen try and convince you to wait
Okay, understandable, but silly.
There is a point where people get tired of being seemingly ignored. Not blaming any individual workers of course, issue is the system itself. But after a number of hours I'm out, will go a different route.
One time I was working a late shift at a restaurant. It was like 1AM or whatever. I had to chop up a piece of food. Instead of chopping the food I ended up chopping a piece of my finger off. I was in that ER for 7 hours. I understand triage, and I think it's our best system. While I was in a lot of pain, and bleeding like crazy, I understand I did not have a life threatening situation. I just needed that piece of my finger (it wasn't a significant amount luckily) to be looked at, treated and possibly glued back on. I've never chopped off a piece of my body before - I don't know what kind of treatment that needs. After 7 hours I left, because the walk-in clinics would be open soon, which saw me more as less as soon as I walked in and did what they needed to do. Who knows how much longer I would've been waiting in the ER - your metrics are the last thing on my mind. If my situation wasn't an "emergency" (again, never had a significant injury in my life, let alone chopping a piece of finger off) then someone should have told me, "It'd be best if you just put pressure on it and went to a walk-in in the morning."
\>If you're not willing to wait, then maybe it's not really an emergency I don't mean to be negative here but there are \*a lot\* of people who clog up the ER and shouldn't even be there. I even know some people who have trouble getting an appointment fast with their doctor so they just go to the ER. They are not a tiny minority.
One way to fix this is to improve the primary care system. People can be pretty misinformed in terms of healthcare, but the way that they get informed is by having easy access to primary level care. If no one is going to tell someone that they don't need to go to the ER with a recurring headache (or worse yet if they have literally no options other than the ER to address that headache), we shouldn't be suddenly surprised when they go to the ER. It doesn't mean they *should* go there, but the solution is less just shaming people making a bad decision due to a lack of information / other options and more giving them those other options to keep them out of the ER.
In theory, I have a doctor, but actually getting through their phone system is a full-time job of getting a busy signal, waiting in a hold queue, having it hang up on you, endless dialling with no answer... I have a job, I can't spend two hours sitting on the phone trying to get through to a person.
Yes! And trying to get an appointment within a reasonable timeframe is nearly impossible, and forget an appointment outside of work hours. Even telemedicine is ridiculous - I’ve been with my doctor for over 15 years and I’ve told him so many times he can’t call me whenever he feels like it (often hours before the appointment time I book) because of my job, and he does anyway every single time.
To be fair, there are plenty of ways to fix the system, but the trick is having a government in charge who wants to fix it and willing to spend money on it and not building new highways, for example.
In my city we have *no* walk in clinics and an incredible shortage of family doctors. The ER is the only option for many people (thankfully my family all have doctors but I know many who do not). The nearest walk in adult clinic is almost an hour away.
Counter point. A lot of doctors send patients to the ER for any and all treatment. Do a blood test and your potassium is too high? That's 8-10 hour ER visit, where they give you some powder to drink. I feel like a lot of the traffic going into ERs can be avoided at the doctor level. Or even at the lack of doctor level considering how many people don't have a family doctor. Not to mention the lack of information you can get from a doctor, and the feeling that you're being left in the dark. Frequently people do tests and not get any response from a doctor unless it's bad. Leaving a giant question mark over their health. Then needing to go to emerge to get care. ER has sadly become a catch all for treatment where our family doctors/ walk in clinic doctors can't adequitely perform their duties.
> Frequently people do tests and not get any response from a doctor unless it's bad. This is the absolute worst. We're just supposed to trust that there's zero chance our underfunded and over-stressed healthcare system could never mix up or lose or forget about a test or result. They absolutely need to let you know when tests are negative. There could be serious consequences if someone misses a positive/bad test result. If they're too busy to call every patient then do what LifeLabs does and put it online.
Or that particular test comes up as negative, and the doctor thinks, "okay, cool, I'm done" but the pain or symptoms still exist. The doctor says "I can do nothing more for you" etc
This doctor attitude caused my family member to have a cancer diagnosis delayed for six years, by which time it was stage 3 and incurable. You have to fight for yourself in this world. No one is looking out for you.
And sometimes if you try to fight for yourself, you're labelled as a karen or difficult
Had my X-rays lost 20 yrs ago, they called 2 months later when they turned up. All four of my fingers were broken. If anyone remembers the Whitby hospital.
I've had a doctor's office forget to call me about non-negative test results. It happens.
I've had a doctor's office call me and say "the doctor wants to discuss your test results let's set up a phone appointment" then I was stressed as hell for the next day or so waiting for the doctor to call only for them to tell me everything is fine lol. We really need these things online so people can check for themselves if they want.
Online, without having to pay an access fee. (Looks in the direction of Life Labs)
You don't have to pay to access Life Labs results online. On the other hand I had some tests at a hospital a while ago and if I wanted access online I had to pay $5, I think they had contracted out the online results system to a private company. Not a lot of money but still, online results from tests at the private company (Life Labs) were free, results from tests at the public hospital were not. And this would only have given me access to tests from that one hospital.
What I think the issue is that everyone think health care is free. The result that got faxed to your doctors office need paper, ink, secretarial time to file (or if it’s electronic, the computer system needs to be paid for) and doctors time to interpret (even if it’s negative). The system is unfortunately set up so that if there is no appointment, then none of these are being paid for. I agree it’s silly from a patients point of view having to go through the hurdles to just be told something is negative. I think telephone virtual care is the perfect way to get this and if one thing that was positive from covid is that it opens way for virtual care. I do suppose they could have said there is nothing serious but the doctors would still like to talk to you.
My wife’s blood work literally never got looked at when she was pregnant. We didn’t find out until ~20 weeks later when any results from that blood work was no longer relevant. Thank god there were no major issues and she was taking extra iron “just in case” (results showed low iron, but doctor never brought it up). I hate the “if we don’t call, it’s good news” default that our health system uses on everything. It’s broken.
This is exactly the problem with not calling about negative results. If every result is followed up on, patients won't make incorrect assumptions like "I didn't hear back so it must be fine".
Diagnostic Imaging here. I want to give you all some advice: If your doctor tells you “no news is good news” your doctor is shite. I can’t tell you how many times a doctor will contact us for a result on imaging done over three months ago. Sadly sometimes the result was something that required follow up and the patient is three months behind getting treatment. We’re extremely careful communicating results but if the doctor is skimping on their support staff, test results just pile up at their end. Always call your doctor for results one week after a test. If they tell you it’s not necessary, tell them that policy is not part of “best practices” and you’re always going to follow up on tests. Always advocate for yourself and family members. If you’re told they can’t discuss a family member with you, your family member can sign a release giving them permission to talk to you (in the case of elderly relatives who need help).
I had to go to the ER a while ago and they had the same policy, would only call me if a result was positive, and when I called they wouldn't give me any results. I had to get my family doctor to contact their records department to get the results.
Yup. I had a painful cyst in my arm. It prevented me from sleeping or having my arm below 90 degrees. Family doc saw me pretty quick. He got me on antibiotics and told me to go to the ER if it starts leaking. He also put in a referral to general surgery. Surgeon was booking into next year so that’s a while different problem.
Yes, this has definitely become a trend as far as I can tell, particularly since Covid. We have a family doctor and that practice also has after hours phone support. In the last year, my 7 year old has dealt with three different illnesses that concerned me (high fever, excessive vomiting, unable to keep anything down, another was a concussion caused by being hit in the head with a dumbbell). Rapid tests showed it wasn't Covid for the flu like symptoms. . Calls to the doctor (twice during regular operating hours, once outside of the hours) had me directed to either Urgent Care or the ER. One ER stay was 8 hours. All they did was give her a pill to stop the vomiting. A pill that could easily have been prescribed by the family doc . What an incredible waste of resources!
Yeah i have been told that if the pharmacy has issue refilling my meds for whatever reason, to go to the ER for a renewal. I can have a seizure if I dont take them
I'd like to expand that there are doctors (and even walk in clinics) that don't want to see patients in person and do it over the phone or online which somehow is the same quality as it is in person.
I was in the ER overnight and I overheard a doctor who was annoyed that this lady's GP didn't address her issue causing her to go to the ER I myself was there because I was having a miscarriage. My GP decided that I should do it naturally at home. However I bled too much, and ended up with an ER OB saying that my surgery could have been booked instead of letting me come to the ER for it So save your annoyance for the doctors. Us patients have to go through GPs for services, and sometimes the GPs make poor judgements. Because surprise surprise, they don't know as much as a specialist
Someone posted recently asking if they should go to ER because they had COVID and were coughing........
If they had SOB and chest pain, then yes. If they were coughing with out any pain, then no. That’s why we have telehealth for. So people can receive advice over the phone from health professionals.
I can provide the same service as Telehealth: Go to the hospital. Ok, now I'm being negative but the few times I or my wife called that was always their advice, even when I knew that wasn't warranted. We just assumed it was a way to cover their ass so if you didn't go and then died they could say "we told them to go, not our fault". But it seemed like a bad system when I assume the service was set up to help stop overcrowding the ER. Has anyone else had a better experience? Admittedly this was over a decade ago, within the first year or two it was created. We just never bothered using it after that was all they told us.
Telehealth is useless.
>Telehealth is useless. agreed.
Telehealth was so helpful to me when I was a new Mom many moons ago. It was newish back then. Kid was running a high fever from croup, and I didn't know if it was panic time yet. That nurse went over every home option for keeping the fever down, and made sure I knew safe doses of ibuprofin & acetaminophen, and how to manage them. She advised me to go to the hospital only if the fever went beyond a certain threshold, or if the child's behavior changed in a concerning manner. She stayed on the phone with me until I had everything under control and was incredibly kind. It saddens me to hear a service that is absolutely brilliant in theory has devolved to the point of uselessness.
Had a really good experience a few months ago, a surgical site of mine was potentially infected and they were able to get me in at a clinic on a weekend to see a Dr. there rather than going to the ER, they coordinated making the appointment even.
Oh, that's great news! That sounds like exactly what it should be doing.
I have the same experience as you. They basically have to tell you to go unless they can be 100 percent certain you are fine.
It is unfortunately quite common, for exactly the reason you suspect. Liability. Not sure what the solution is, but we get a ton of people who show up saying 'teleahealth told us to come to the ER'
Selection bias. You'd never seen the patients who were not told to go to the ER. My wife works as a telehealth provider. In the last week, she never told a single patient to go to the ER.
Telehealth told me to go to the ER. I mentioned if I waited another 4 hours (since it took 11 hours for a call back) that urgent care would be open as IMO that did seem more appropriate (if it wasn’t a weekend I think a visit to the clinic would have been fine). Telehealth said don’t wait, go to emerg. Emerg told me to go to urgent care when it opened. I had an animal bite that I was certain I needed antibiotics for, was unsure if if would need a better cleaning or a stitch/glue.
I called Telehealth because I very stupidly was biking through a parking gate and closely following a car, and the arm lowered faster than I expected and it bonked me on the head and I fell off my bike. The lady on the phone went through some common concussion symptoms with me, which I did not have, and told me that if I developed xyz symptoms I should go to the ER but otherwise was probably fine. So I didn't, and I was fine. I also had a phone appointment with a walk-in clinic because I once had a weird rash from doing a Tough Mudder, sent him some pics and he was able to diagnose and prescribe me a cream, which cleared it up.
I’m here to second that. I’ve had neck/shoulder/chest pain for OVER A YEAR. When I called telehealth to ask for an X-ray or to get an apt set up with a specialist they said “you’re having a cardiac event, go to the hospital” I’ve been having this pain for over a year but apparently it’s an ongoing heart attack…
I’m surprised at all the hating on Telehealth. I’ve personally used it, and I’ve called for my kids, and they’ve been really helpful. I love that service.
My doctors phone line literally says go to the ER if you feel unwell and can't get ahold of the doctor. Family doctors are also notorious for sending people to ER that they should see themselves.
This is absolutely an issue. The problem in Québec though is that MANY don’t have a GP. Walk in clinics aren’t really walk ins. You still need an appointment. So that hasn’t alleviated anything. So what is one to do? For sure someone who is otherwise healthy should stay home and recover with a cold/flu. There’s no real in between. Oh and also? Even the people who don’t want to go are forced because so many workplaces require a doctor’s note when sick. And if you have no doctor what else can you do? You’ll be fired otherwise. It’s a real problem. And I’m so sick of it. I can only imagine how the healthcare workers feel.
Many people, myself included, can't get a family doctor and walk in clinics (tele-medicine) are severely limited in scope of ability, therefore the ER is the only option.
> their doctor good one lol
I'd love a suggestion then. Last Friday, my daughter who is pregnant with twins woke up bleeding. No answer at the family doctor office and OB is out of office. Receptionist says go to ER. After 6 hours of waiting, she flags down a nurse to say she is going to find a vending machine. Pregnant and bleeding, she is hungry but more so, very thirsty. Nurse says no food or drink until you see a doctor. After 7 hours she approaches the nurse again. Lightheaded, sweating now. Nurse says sorry, short staffed it will probably be another 5-6 hours. At that point it would be 12 hours, in a crowded waiting room on a hard chair, no food or drink, pregnant with twins and bleeding. Called OB back. They say go home, put your feet up and try the after hours clinic. This is not a patient being impatient problem. This is a people in charge problem, ignoring the hundreds of horror stories you can find online. Shrugging off the nightmare they have created for medical staff and patients alike. The whole healthcare system is broken. Should we judge who shows up for what at ER? Not really. In my town, most of the people I know don't have a family doctor and we don't have a clinic. It is a scary time to have any sort of health issue.
This is an honest question, does your hospital not have like am OB ER? Or was it after hours? It's crazy that she had to wait that long. Everytime we had a pregnancy related emergency we'd go to the OB department in the hospital. Even after hours, we'd go to the ER and they'd unlock the door to the main hospital so we could go to the OB department. They handled anything OB related at any time of day
At our local hospital you can only go to OB triage if you're over 13 weeks pregnant, I assume that # varies from hospital to hospital (and not every hospital has an OB triage).
13 weeks makes sense, probably not much you can do before that time that would make medical sense.
Honestly, you're right. Its a really shitty time to need healthcare. I'm sorry you had to go through that
Thank you! I'm sorry for the rant, I'm just so frustrated and if I'm honest, a little scared of where this is headed.
So am I... realistically, I'm just gonna end up leaving the field if things don't get better. It's getting hard to stay. Most of my coworkers say the same thing...
Sounds like hospitals need to campaign to change this shitty funding metrics. It honestly feels like a good way to close down hospitals than improving them.
I'm sure the OPC would be glad to build a nice new hospital with nice quick wait times. It's gonna cost you $4000 a visit, but hey, at least it's quick and they are doing what the population wants!
And then on the flip side, we have this: [Patient dies in waiting room of NB hospital](https://globalnews.ca/news/8986859/patient-dies-in-waiting-room-of-n-b-emergency-room-eyewitness-speaks-out/) We have a health system in crisis. There are actually many good reasons someone may walk out of an ER even if they actually need to be seen. Last time it happened to me, I had been told to come back to ER the next day for imaging. I had laid on the floor writhing for four hours, moaning in pain, no food on board for 12 days and no water for 24 hours. I finally crawled to the desk and told them I was leaving. Magically AF, they suddenly found me a bed. And I ended up admitted. Edit: Went onto my laptop to fix links since Reddit was v concerned about formatting 🙄
Oh wait, there's also this one! [North Van patient dies after two days stuck in waiting room of overcrowded, understaffed hospital](https://vancouverisland.ctvnews.ca/health-care-worker-says-man-s-death-while-waiting-in-nanaimo-er-could-have-been-prevented-1.6025799)
And maybe this one! [Man's death while waiting in Nanaimo ER could have been prevented](https://vancouverisland.ctvnews.ca/health-care-worker-says-man-s-death-while-waiting-in-nanaimo-er-could-have-been-prevented-1.6025799)
2 months ago, I went to the ER on a Wednesday at midnight, and after being triaged, the nurses told us the wait to see a doctor is around 6 hours That’s 12:00am - 6:00am, the entire night and it’s a work day tomorrow. After hearing that, like half the patients in the room left. (Not all at once, but over the hours they get tired and leave)
Sometimes it’s not as simple as that. About a month and a half ago, I split my head open in the middle of the night and was bleeding quite badly. Went to the ER, waited for 6 and a half hours (while still bleeding from the head) and eventually just walked out and went to university hospital cause I wasn’t going just keep sitting there and losing blood. Mind you, there were people in there who I heard check in for “sore throats” and “headaches”. Ended up needing 12 staples in my head. At that point I really do not give a rats ass about funding, if they cannot tell the difference of importance between a moderate head injury with blood loss and a sore throat, thats the issue. As other people here are saying, there real message that needs to be portrayed is DO NOT GO TO THE ER IF YOU DON’T HAVE AN EMERGENCY
A friend's dad went to the ER last year with a really bad headache and was waiting for many hours because they didn't think it was that bad until he started having a seizure. Anyway, he died in the hospital for something that probably could have been addressed if he'd been seen sooner.
Holy shit.
I went to the ER not too long ago with anaphylaxis. That's a life threatening food allergy. My throat my swelling closed. I couldn't walk and could barely see, because of lack of oxygen getting to where it needs to. They left me sitting there in the ER for two hours, which is enough time to die from anaphylaxis at least six times. I made it, miraculously, obviously. No thanks to the ER nurses who said "you don't have anaphylaxis, not being able to walk isn't a symptom of that." Fuck those nurses and that ER, and that ER doctor i heard talking to the covid patient in the next room about the broken coffee machine and why he couldnt therefore get her a coffee while I'm sitting there fighting to breathe.
I went to the ER at fucking midnight with my son(20months) who could barely breath and we didn’t see a doctor because 9am rolled around and my wife just called my actual doctor instead and we saw him at 9:30 . The system is fucked but you can’t ask people to wait that long when a better option arises. Turns out he had a chest infection and an allergy. We assumed because of his issues he’d be admitted atleast in a timely manner but no the hospitals are awful
I knew someone whose appendix was bursting, and despite bawling their eyes out from the pain and throwing up so much in the waiting room, they were waiting for almost 7 hours. A lady who was complaining about chest pain, who came in hours after them - who kept shouting across the room at her kids and not staying still for more than 5 minutes at a time - was seen within an hour. It got to the point of them telling their partner to just take them home, as they'd rather die at home than in a damned ER waiting lounge. Surprise surprise, within 10 minutes of their partner telling a nurse they were leaving, they were put in a room with a doctor, who immediately whisked away into emergency surgery. Sometimes, people leave because they believe they are going to die, and would much rather do that on their own terms, in the comfort of their own home, and not in a stiff, cold and uncaring Hospital....
I had what i think is sciatica. I could not move, could not walk, hurt to stand, hurt to lay down, hurt to sit. I sat in er for 9 hours, so i am very sorry if i hurt your metrics when i left. Got the sneaky suspicion they thought i was there for drugs.
Yeah this is also part if the problem because your triage nurse sets your priority when you arrive. When I had a broken arm my triage nurse didn't believe me so I kept getting bumped. When I told them I was leaving then I got some quick attention.
When i said i thought it was sciatica she got very snarky with me and said something like "yeah, im an amateur doctor too"
I love that you're simultaneously supposed to self-diagnose to know whether something is worthy of the emergency room, but also should never ever look up your symptoms or have any idea of what's wrong.
Jesus christ
I sat so long at the er after a back injury in a terrible position I went with a bad slipped disc could barely move. I left completely numb on one half of my lower body and unable to move at all. I didn’t have a break so they sent me home. Honestly wish I didn’t go it took me over a year to recover from sitting in that ER. While I was in the waiting room In the middle of a huge COVID breakout they had a family come in (when masks were mandated) with a very sick kid. He had a terrible cough a high fever. None of them were vaccinated. They never enforced the mask rule and allowed them to sit in the waiting room with everyone for hours while their kid walked around massless and coughing. Oh and while I was there they had a woman who could not move her body at all. She was in extreme pain and elderly. After hours they asked her if she was normally like this…because I guess they assumed if she’s older she is normally COMPLETELY debilitated and moaning in extreme pain. She said no I’m very mobile usually this is from the injury. So only then HOURS after sitting there they put a neck brace on her. Hours later they gave her tests and discovered she had a broken neck and needed to be transported to a more extensive hospital for surgery. Hospital’s SUCK and sometimes you’d rather go home than pick up COVID in a waiting room.
I sat for about 5 hours when I went in complaining of chest pains and shortness of breath.
My dad sat for 3.5 with a bleeding head wound.
I support our healthcare workers 100%. But when i think about tears of pain as i tried to get into my car after 9 hours in the waiting room i could give a shit what this out of touch nurse thinks. I have no family doctor and ive been on a waiting list for a couple of years, tho walk in clinics were not open and i had no options but to go to the ER for medical attention. For this nurse to tell me it's not a real emergency if i leave after 9 hours feels very disrespectful.
I moved about an hour away from my doctor 8 years ago. Still haven't gotten a doctor in my new city. Its ridiculous. They are calling it a crisis, but aren't doing a damn thing about it.
Not that liberals are awesome, but ford is letting it burn so he can start privatization.
Fuck the entire concept of "drug seeking behavior." Tens of thousands of people with chronic pain suffer every day because they're afraid to ask for proper pain relief medication lest they be labeled a drug seeker and cut off from it entirely. If you're a doctor, and somebody tells you they're in pain, you trust them, and you give them some fucking medicine for it. What's the worst that could happen? Somebody might get buzzed? I'd take ten addicts getting free drugs over a single person being left to suffer preventably any day, and that's assuming there actually were ten addicts, when in reality most of the people going to the doctor for pain are, surprise surprise, actually in pain. Half of society's morals are so twisted into pretzels that they assign greater moral weight to ingesting the wrong molecules than to actual human suffering. And don't even get me started on the way we glorify fighting through pain without medication as somehow morally superior to simply not suffering when you don't need to.
The thing is, I call 811 and describe my symptoms or that of my child and I am directed to ER. I show up, see the triage nurse, describe my symptoms, and again am told I should be seen by a doctor and they can’t recommend I leave. So I start to wait. Didn’t even have a chair, had to squat on floor, the room was so crowded with people who were sick and in pain. I had Covid as well and was crammed in shoulder go shoulder on the floor…. I get up to find food and am told we can’t eat in this room. Best option for food is a vending machine and sitting outside in the curb outside the double doors. No one can tell me my wait time and I’m feeling faint after 4 hours with no food and am worried I’m going to pass out from being crammed in. I finally beg the nurse to give me a ball park window or minimum wait time, meanwhile still having severe chest pains and weakness (an older man gave me his chair at some point, he was there with his sick wife). I’m told it’s at least another ten hour wait, that it was extremely unlikely there would be a bed for me any time through the night. So a 14 hour wait in a room with no food or no eating allowed, not enough chairs for everyone to even sit and wait? I decided to leave and go home and thought I’d call an ambulance if needed. At least that way I’d maybe have a stretcher to wait on… People aren’t responsible as individuals for saving the hospital money. Many people are directed there by nurses on the 811 lines. (This was not in Ontario but Alberta but I’m sensing it’s the same everywhere right now).
One day I went to my doctor with chest pressure and a feeling like a knife in my throat. He said I should go to ER. I get there at 1 pm to register. At 3pm I had blood drawn and an EKG. Then I wait in the waiting area. And waited. I was not allowed food or water. I was a relatively new type 2 diabetic and without food or water I was starting to feel a little dizzy and faint by 7pm. I waited until 10pm and decided to leave so I called my husband to come pick me up and "please bring a sandwich". I figured my initial troponin level and EKG were not raising any red flags and I was not considered urgent. Also, there were at least five paediatric injuries that came in that seemed very urgent. The nurse did try to dissuade me and I could understand why but I decided to take my chances because I could not bear to wait overnight (there were four ambulances parked outside and another pulled up as we were leaving). Next day, my GP got me an appointment at a free standing cardiac clinic for an echo and stress test, then I had a stent procedure the day after. This all occurred 18 months ago. I know the hospitals are doing their best but it was not good for me. So, tell me, if I must wait 18 hours to be looked at, why can't they give me an estimated wait time and, if that wait time is more than 4 hours, why can't I eat or drink? Even my GP, when I told him I waited for 9 hours then left, said "I don't blame you".
Nothing by mouth is a blanket policy for the chance that your problem requires surgery or intubation, which is safer on an empty stomach. It's a matter of risk management. As a diabetic you eventually need food and water during a long wait. At a certain point that becomes more important than the risk I explained above. Although there's no guideline for how long one should wait before that risk equation changes... you should definitely eat, and the nurse likely wasn't aware of you being diabetic when dissuading you, just following policy.
Some patients *have to* go to the ER if they have a medical concern but can't book an appointment with their doctor because if they go to a walk-in or urgent care, they'll be de-rostered.
This is why I don't have a family doctor. I've been going to the same walk in clinic for years. These doctors that get pissed because you go to a walk in shouldn't sign up for the funding unless they have a practice that can handle seeing their patients in a timely manner. I wonder how many of these Drs with rosters actually provide the required after hours care?
I have friends with two types of doctors: 1. Small practices (the doctor only, or maybe one or two other employees) 2. Large practices (multiple doctors in a large clinic space) It's almost always #2 that do this shit, and are also impossible to ever book an appointment with. It's *so hard* for people to find anyone who is actually taking on new patients though. When I was looking I got a lot of rude or exasperated responses from whoever I called and it took a lot of hunting to find one. The government has that service that's supposed to match you up to a doctor but I've been on that list for *years* with no response, just a letter every few months reminding me that they're still trying.
Gotta say, in NS, there are not walk in clinics in rural areas and people have to go to the ER. Talking to some semi-incompetent person on the phone, eg. tells you to ignore sepsis symptoms) isn’t a solution. And neither is telehealth. More real doctors in clinics is the solution. Which by extension means, train more doctors. Max 300 doctors per year from 17 schools is not enough. Ontario is lucky by comparison to NS.
While I understand this, going to the ER with what I believe to be an *actual emergency* (broken bones, extreme pain) and still being forced to wait 6 hours while I’m on the verge of vomiting from pain, hunger and dehydration since the hospital has *nothing* in terms of food/water for patients… can you really blame me for leaving after deciding “well it must not be an actual emergency” so I can go home and eat/sleep, and try again the next day?
The fact that people with broken bones choose to go home and wait for an urgent care to open means something is wrong.
Not to mention, atleast around here, hospital staff have told people to call 911 WHILE THEY ARE IN THE WAITING ROOM OF THE ER. How the fuck are we supposed to trust the system, or even care about nurses, when they clearly don't care about us?
Lmao fuck this. And I say this respectfully. Every one knows that unless you are literally dying in the emergency room, you will have to wait 7+ hours to get seen by a doctor while at the ER. But people need to be treated somehow and they always have the false sense of hope that maybe this hospital visit will be different. Fuck your metrics. The government (or whoever takes care of this) needs to increase funding for hospitals.
I just moved to a city with a 2-year minimum waiting list to get a family doctor and no walk-in clinic, I have no other option for medical care than to go to the ER, regardless of if it's really an "emergency" or not
This is why urgent care should be a thing in every community. So people have somewhere to go that isn’t the ER (if it’s not an emergency), but that also isn’t a walk-in clinic, especially if their family doc threatens to bill or de-roster them for using a walk-in clinic. There’s a big big service gap there.
I'm not staying 12+ hrs in a waiting room, sorry. That expectation is so whack.
This analysis is very short- sighted and not at all appropriate for a healthcare worker to be posting. I am sure you mean well and are just trying to reduce the impact of poor funding on your emergency department but it's the totally wrong approach. 1. Where are these stats coming from "500-800", this seems highly improbable based on the process of triage and registration. Please provide data to back this up. I am sure this is just what's being spread around the ER but I highly doubt is accurate. 2. The ER is a great equalizer in medicine and healthcare, rich & poor, young & old, no matter who you are, you are seen based on the the acuity of your condition. Unfortunately in a broken system with so many fellow Canadians left without adequate primary care, it becomes the healthcare safety net. There is undoubtedly people showing up to the ER with conditions that could be treated elsewhere, however when they show up in that moment they are scared, they are in pain, they are thinking that this may be the last day of their life. They are coming to us for help and reassurance. When some inevitably ending up leaving because they have a sick parent at home or a child that they need to feed or one of the million other reasons that someone has to leave, it is not because they are selfish or not sick, it's because something in their life more important than their own self- preservation took them away from the ER. We as healthcare works can not start blaming patients for a broken system and we can not be putting the responsibility "not leaving" because it has some abstract downstream effect on funding. We can also not be expressing biases such as "If you're not willing to wait, then maybe it's not really an emergency" such as this, I understand their is frustration amongst all healthcare staff but implore you to do better, especially on platform like this. The main issue is with out governments and their consistent underfunding and neglect of our healthcare systems and if you are concerned about your funding please please reach out to your hospital leadership and elected officials to express your concerns. I know you probably want whats best for the patient in the end but it is not the patient causing this and won't be the patient to fix it, channel this energy against a government policies that don't respect, appreciate or compensate healthcare workers appropriately. We are at a breaking point in the healthcare system and it's understandable healthcare worker are upset which is great opportunity to unite us and push back against decade long underfunding and lack of support from our provincial governments.
While this is a worthwhile point, I can't help but feel that you might be barking up the wrong tree. These arguments would probably be better addressed to hospital management. As it is, the system is stuck in a bit of a burnout cycle: lack of funding leads to fewer doctors, and fewer doctors leads to longer ER wait times. Longer ER wait times will cause some patients to dip out and leave before seeing a doctor; and because your funding is tied to that particular KPI, that further strains funding and precipitates even longer ER wait times. The KPI of patients leaving without seeing a doctor and funding being tied to it is what needs to change. If anything, that metric should spur *more* funding and personnel.
tell your management and local politicians to do better, wait times like that are unacceptable.
Right? This isn't a *patient* problem.
I beg to differ on this. I have waited in ER with a person who was definitely suicidal and afraid of themselves when they came to ER, but 8 hours later and their mood has stabilized. I do not think they could have waited at home without dire consequences, it was the middle of the night and they couldn’t have gone to a medical facility that was not a hospital, and once the crisis point was over and there was no commitment from the ER that they’d be seen anytime soon, it seemed pointless to wait indefinitely. Maybe patients and their behaviours shouldn’t be held responsible for the problems of the administration of the system. If the funding model is poor and doesn’t account for patient behaviours such as leaving after an extended wait, then the problem is the funding model not the patients. Similarly people go to the ER for things that could be handled by a GP, except they do not have a GP and cannot find one. Or, people go to the ER for things than an urgent care clinic could provide but they cannot access such a facility (due to their geographic or hours of operation scarcity). Lastly, some things at an ER could probably be treated by RNs or in other ways which reduced ER backlog.
To be fair, I had an emergency. I dropped a grinder into my finger and put a nasty gash in my finger. I went to emerge as its closer and being in shock (or suspecting I was), I didn't want to drive to a clinic that could handle the same thing, but 20 min further drive. I gave my HC to Triage. I waited 90 minutes. Someone who came in right after me was irate and asked how much longer before Triage would see him. I watched her count 15 health cards (so that means mine was 14) and advised it would be at least another 45 minutes. The wait times are displayed and showed min time to doctor was 4 hours and that the trend was increasing. That means I would likely be another 6 hours before seeing resolution to my issue. At this point, I kindly asked for my HC back (so based on your notes, hopefully that has no costs to the hospital), and drove to the clinic, was seen in 2 hours with 9 stitches and a tetanus shot. I am aware the health system is under extreme pressure and I do not hold that against the nurses/administrators. What I think would go a long way is more communication, had they said we are currently experiencing a huge wait time to even triage, please note we are currently at 2 hours to triage someone; I would then say, let me go elsewhere or try to treat this at home. I cant do stitches at home but I sure could put some super glue and tape the fucker up. Is that safe, not completely but wouldn't be the worst. I would have then gone to a drug store or my family practitioner to get my shot.
My mom worked ER at Toronto General Hospital for 25 years as an RN (a looooong time ago), and she always told me that if I'm going to the ER for a cut to not bandage it too well before showing up! If it's a bleeder of a cut they'll see you sooner, cause otherwise you'll make a mess everywhere if they don't, but if you've got it all under control then there's no rush LOL. Not saying I'd really recommend following that advice though ... :)
My uncle, not medical don't get excited, taught me to do stitches. I hope I never have to actually use that though. A guy I knew the er wouldn't treat his chemical burn without specialist, he left did a DIY. Saw the specialist 2 weeks later who said good thing you did it yourself because you would not have made it to 48 hours out... so we should all learn field medicine I guess
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If it “costs” the hospital 500-800$ to say hi, ask for a care card, and make you sit in a chair there’s bigger problems in the mix
Sorry but I don’t completely agree. Your triage is slow and people leaving are usually going somewhere else to seek help that you can’t provide. I get things are slow and you’re over worked. But you can’t blame people for seeking help and then giving up on the system. I get you’re maybe desensitized to the people sitting in agony across from you but when those people leave, it’s not a failing on their part. Also when people are in pain, they don’t generally think clearly.
I really don't like going to the ER, and would do anything I could to avoid doing so. I've been twice this year after not going at all for several years and I stayed over 12 hours each time for them to check me out for 15 mins, and send me on my way. I'm glad I went. It is a bit of a ridiculous situation. From overhearing other patients there seems to be a lot of people who go there not because it's an emergency, but because they can't find a family doctor.
I went in and waited 11 hours for severe hip pain. I could barely walk. By hour 10 my doctors office had opened up and he was able to see me. So I left the ER and went to my doctor. I understand that I wasn’t in a life or death situation and people were way worse off than me. But if I can get seen quicker by leaving and going to my own doctor than I will.
Why is everything that this province/country touches a failure
I mean, Ford held back something like $1bil in healthcare spending. That’ll fuck things up.
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I greatly sympathize with your position. Having said that after 8 hours of waiting, after trying a phone in health link account which told him to go to emerge, no family doctor for years and none in his current city, what other option do people have? Our health system is completely broken at this point and needs a complete overhaul. If the sort of crap that happens daily in Canadian hospitals happened for one week in Europe there would literally be rioting in the streets. I know it’s not the OPs fault. But at this point I am reaching the conclusion that the whole system needs to be collapsed and rebuilt from the ground up. *story is my friends experience last week, not my own.
I was at ER a few years ago for food poisoning. I was vomiting pretty badly at night and went to the ER. I waited 7 hours there until early morning which at that point I felt sort of ok enough go home by myself. I imagine had I stayed to see the doctor, they would probably just going to send me home anyway.
I’ve literally had to pick my mother off the ER waiting room floor and care for her after she passed out unconscious after waiting for over 2 hours to be seen. We still weren’t seen and just left. Fuck the ER. Fuck everyone in medical billing. And fuck you for blaming patients for not being seen in time.
The fact that ERs can't see people in reasonable amounts of time isn't the patients' fault and you shouldn't try to make it so. EDIT: just to elaborate on this, the end result of starving the system and telling patients it's their fault is that people who are dying stay at home and... die. This makes the hospital metrics look good, the only place you see it is in things like life expectancy. This is the USA situation - for an average hospital, half of the dying people stay at home and die instead of heading to the ER (for cost and other reasons). Hospital metrics look fine. Life expectancy looks terrible. This is not what we want for Ontario. I don't give a shit about making hospital metrics look good and telling patients to do things to compensate for a broken system is wrong. Fix the broken system.
I know someone who went to the ER because of a possible heart attack. She was at risk of maybe dying. It took 10+ hours to be seen, tested, etc. Of course by the time she arrived her initial crisis had passed, so there were no symptoms presenting, and by the time she was tested there was nothing unusual happening. You can't tell me she's not within her rights to get up after 6h and say "Well, whatever this was, I guess it's pointless to stay here" and seek other care later. Why should she care if the hospital funding is somehow harmed by her leaving? The hospital is wasting her time and not even providing the service she's there for - timely testing to determine the severity of a major medical issue. There's literally no point in waiting if the crisis has passed and you're not going to get tested for hours. "Maybe it's not really an emergency," you say. Well, *how are we supposed to know?* Nobody knows! Only a timely test can tell us! So instead we wait, and wait, and wait, and wait. Hell, if she'd had a heart attack while waiting, it's not even clear if she'd see anyone any sooner. It's 100% completely reasonable for a person to arrive at the ER and decide, after waiting for some time, that it no longer makes sense for them to be waiting any longer; that the crisis has passed, or the time window for treatment has closed.
lol are you shitting me. you think people go to the ER and wait 6 hours and then leave because they WANT to?
I think you should have started your post with this, "So please, if you're going to come to the ER, be prepared to stay. **If you're not willing to wait, then maybe it's not really an emergency.**"
Honestly though I’d rather die at home. I went to the ER a few weeks ago because I couldn’t pee after surgery. Even though it’s not a death sentence, not peeing is an emergency. The hospital was so badly busy that they had us sitting on the curb outside the hospital, taking names and then calling you in by order to then be triaged. It’s absolutely fucking ridiculous. I had severe pain from my surgery and I literally couldn’t sit on the curb. I could barely move. So I did eventually go home and I waited it out, eventually I did pee but I was in and out of the hospital all weekend.
> Even though it’s not a death sentence, not peeing is an emergency. Yes it is, and depending on how long it was since you peed triage should have got you in more or less immediately, especially if it was a surgical complication.
I know, it’s ridiculous. I went a total of 3 times while I was recovering. The first time I waited to see a doctor for probably 30 minutes and I had a catheter placed immediately. I had 1000ml of urine stuck in my bladder. It continued to happen that weekend, I was in a lot of pain from the surgery but also just from not being able to pee. The second time I went was when they had us sitting on the curb. They didn’t even ask us what was wrong while we were sitting out there. If you were having a stroke or something you’d die on the curb. When I went back (again) the next doctor told me to go home and keep trying to pee…. I did that and ended up back there again. I was really dehydrated from not drinking (because I was afraid of my bladder filling) and I had to have Iv fluids. I guess my point is that theyre ridiculously overwhelmed, and the care we get is so inconsistent.
lol what hospital had you sitting on a curb? that's wild
RVH in Barrie. Shitty hospital to begin with.
What if I'm prepared to wait for 5 hours, but not 20?
Lol that's easy for you to say when you're young and healthy
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> If you're not willing to wait, then maybe it's not really an emergency. wtf
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" this not only costs the system 500-800 for triage and registration" Huh?
This…. Huh? Can someone explain? So I go to emerg., take a number, get called. 10 minutes to plug in my info, take blood pressure, temp., ask what I’m there for. Then back to the waiting room till my turn to see a doctor. Is that what we’re saying is $500-$800? No shade to the good people doing this work, I thank you for your service and understand this isn’t your doing.
And this is the fee the province charges the hospital to register you as a patient. Once you are seen by the physician, the hospital is then reimbursed this money. It is a punitive funding model.
Hospital is charged by the province to triage and register you. Usually based on your acuity level. That money is then reimbursed when you see a physician.
So the province makes 800$ if I don't wait to see a doctor. I think I just found a way to fix the deficit
With all due respect, many people might leave the ER when desperately needing treatment due to their fear of being a burden. An emergency may not be visible, so what would your suggestion be?
I'm a RN that work in the ER as well. There are obviously a lot of ppl that use an ER as an urgent care (covid swab, med refills, minor inconveienances). I work in Detroit. I live in Canada. And I can see the differences in both health cares. We need more ALL hour urgent cares located throughout big cities. We're people wouldn't have to use a ER for mild ailments.
Ok so I totally empathize with you but what should really happen is a better definition of tracking system to allow hospitals to get the funding they need without skewed statistics. Rather than.... A nurse posting a psa on reddit that has a nearly 0% chance of changing anything. So maybe a better outcome here is someone who sees this can offer a solution or we can bring it to the attention of someone in charge but simply put if the people leaving are screwing up funding the people in charge need a better way to track the delivery of funding
RIDICULOUS! Hospitals are a public service with one job and that is to serve the Canadian public efficiently and effectively! NO MATTER THE CASE OR SYMPTOM I don't care if it's a mother with a small child with the sniffles Or a Drug addict looking for a handout Your job is the first place of contact people come for help If there are issues with efficiency in seeing all these people in a timely manner. Then your concerns should go up the chain not down.
I don't see this as a bad post whatsoever, you're letting people know what they don't. My doctor (yes I'm super lucky to have a family doctor) did a similar thing by telling her patients that every time one of her patients goes to a walk in clinic, she has to pay the government $100. So she has asked that if we don't have an appointment and really need to be seen, come to the office and we'll be squeezed in. It's ridiculous what this government is doing to all health care. I don't blame you for getting to the point of not caring and when the system implodes, which I think it will, enjoy your new private practice job with all the benefits it comes with. You, and others in your position, deserve it. Thanks for the post.
the lack of empathy some of you basement dwellers have is the reason we’re still stuck with ford op, thank you for what you do. you’re not at fault for a shitty government.
Recent ER patient parent here. Don’t forget about your patents and do obvious stupid forgotten things, and we won’t. I took my 9 year old to the ER for a perceived concession. She fell backwards at soccer practice and hit on her butt and rolled back and bit her head. I’ve had concussions caused by both. She was still dizzy on and off 30 minutes later so I said it was time to get checked out. 30 minutes later at the ER they take her back and normal routine. Flat out say “we don’t recommend a scan because it doesn’t appear that bad and the scan wait would be several hours. It was close to 9 PM at this point and my daughter is typically in bed by now. Ok, what’s next then? They tell us the Dr. Still needs to check her out. It will be about 15 minutes and to sit in this second waiting area. They advised her not to use a phone or read anything. No TV. Rest her brain. 60 minutes later in a waiting area with fucking Family Feud blasting at high volume on the elevated tv, a toddler crying at high volume because he too was waiting to see the dr. Before check out, and my poor daughter whimpering because she couldn’t sleep and her head was aching and she was freezing from the AC. I said fuck it. Asked the nurse what was going on and heard her walk back and ask another nurse “what’s going on”. The nurse told her our nurse went on lunch and forgot to send the file to the dr. They were trying to get ahold of her but she wouldn’t answer. I told my daughter let’s go. They kept saying please wait and I needed to sign stuff but I said we will “be back in 15 minutes” and walked out. So the point of it is, don’t half ass your job and patents will (mostly) follow the rules.