I grew up in a state that didn't require vehicle inspections. This is a new and highly annoying process for me. I just sat for an hour and a half so they could tell me that my three year old car isn't a safety or environmental hazard. What a surprise. And I got to pay $30 for the pleasure...and I go back on Monday with our other car.
All that waiting was giving me flashbacks to the emergency room last Friday. There was one story I haven't yet told from that night.
I decided to go to the emergency room because it was a Friday night. If it had been any other day of the week, I would've waited it out and called the next day for advice. But since I already had the procedure booked and needed to know if I should continue with the meds or stop, and since I know someone who nearly died from Clomid complications, I decided to play it safe.
It's darn near impossible not to eavesdrop on other people in the emergency room. All that separates you is a curtain, so all night long my husband and I were also privy to the medical business of the patient next to us. I am not going to reveal any details, but their presence was baffling and a tad infuriating.
The gist is that the daughter had a chronic problem that had been happening for months. The parents were separated and the mother was "too lazy" to make the kid an appointment. The dad said that he works here in the hospital and had asked colleagues about his daughter's problem, but since it persisted, they wanted to have it checked out.
On a Friday night. In the ER.
There was no emergency, no sudden change in her condition that made them feel that treatment was necessary, nothing like that. This dad just brought his three kids in to spend the night in the ER. My husband and I were there for eight hours, until 5 AM, and this family had arrived before us and was still there when we left.
That is not an emergency.
This family was clogging up the ER and making me and, more importantly, other people with more pressing problems wait longer. They were sapping resources. If you work in the hospital, can't you find the time to make an appointment for your daughter? Why are you taking care of a child's chronic health problem in the middle of the night on a Friday?
Because you don't have to pay anything either way, that's why.
Why make a regular doctor's appointment during the week, and have to ask for time off work and take the kid out of school, when you could just bring everyone to camp out in the ER all night. There is no cost difference, so it's just easier to do it off hours.
No wonder it took me so long to be seen. And I feel even worse for the guy with the gall stones; he really would've liked to have been treated faster.
I am sure that this family isn't the only one of its kind. They bog down the system for all of us. A problem that's been going on for three months is not something that requires ER care on a weekend. Make a normal appointment and free up that ER doctor for someone who really needs him.
Posted by Sarah at February 6, 2009 12:03 PM | TrackBackJust wait, it'll get better once it’s all nationalized.
Posted by: tim at February 6, 2009 12:20 PMThe ONLY way I could give this dad a break is if he doesn't have custody of the kids & only had them on a weekend. Of course, urgent care would be better & the ER is not meant for these kind of things & it makes it harder for everyone else to be seen when folks like that are taking up a bed...I think it's dumb what he did, but I could see him being an either/or, all or nothing kind of thinker & just taking her where he knows people not thinking to the next step that this is the EMERGENCY room.
Posted by: Guard Wife at February 6, 2009 01:44 PMAt least you weren't 'shaken' (車検) up ... Japanese-style:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor-vehicle_inspection_(Japan)
Before a test can be administered on a vehicle the owner of the vehicle must call up a shaken [Japanese official car inspection] center and make an appointment by phone after which the owner must fill out paperwork at the center. The cost for the shaken is broken up as follows: 1,400 yen for paperwork and processing, 25,200 yen for the testing, 29,780 yen for 24 months of validity and 8,090 yen for the "Recycling Department" with fees being added depending on the vehicle and its intended use (business, personal, commercial, etc.). These variables can result in a shaken costing from 100,000 to 150,000 yen or more.
That's equivalent to US$1,100-$1,600 per car!
Posted by: Amritas at February 6, 2009 04:01 PMtim, slowly you are becoming a gOOd persyn. Healthkare will get better. You are beginning to see the benefits of a tOtal cOntrOl ecOnOmy. Once gOsplan takes over, everything will be fairly allOcated: wagyu steak for us, Soylent Green for you.
Guard Wife, there is a simpler explanation. The androppressor was a member of the nOmenklatura:
The nomenklatura were a small, elite subset of the general population in the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc countries who held various key administrative positions in all spheres of those countries' activity: government, industry, agriculture, education, etc. The nomenklatura was analogous to the ruling class, which Communist doctrine denounced in the capitalist West.Without exception, they were members of the Communist Party.
An Officer of the peOple always takes precedence. This is the true equality of sOci@lism.
Never give the state control over your life, because they won’t “take care of you” - they will make a token effort and leave you up the creek when it suits them.Posted by: kevin at February 6, 2009 04:25 PM
I think my parents may have taken me to an emergency room once, when I was a kid (between 4-8 years old: we were living in San Antonio, and I don't recall if I was in school yet or not). It was an emergency (I had injured myself climbing on the kitchen cabinets...), but I think they may have actually taken me to a military hospital (I don't think that was such an ordeal back in the day...).
As an adult, I've been in an emergency room once, accompanying a friend of mine who needed to have something checked out, and she didn't want to go alone. Believe me, she would much rather have been able to take care of it at her regular doctor, but it was a weekend night when the problem presented itself...
Posted by: Miss Ladybug at February 6, 2009 10:08 PMNever give the state control over your life, because they won’t “take care of you” - they will make a token effort and leave you up the creek when it suits them
הוו זהירין ברשות, שאין מקרבין לו לאדם אלא לצורך עצמן: נראין כאוהבין בשעת הנאתן, ואין עומדין לו לאדם בשעת דוחקו
אבות ב,ג
Be wary of the government, for they don't relate to anyone unless it is in their own interest: They appear to like [one] when they benefit from it, and they don't stand by him in the hour of his need.
Avot 2:3
Posted by: David Boxenhorn at February 7, 2009 12:17 PMMy sister is an RN in an ER. The stories she tells
(and has told for years) make you realize that a
significant portion of our population don't have
a whole lot of common d@mned sense.