Every day, the scene plays out in hospitals across America: Older men and women lie on gurneys in emergency room corridors moaning or suffering silently as harried medical staff attend to crises.
Even when physicians determine these patients need to be admitted to the hospital, they often wait for hours — sometimes more than a day — in the ER in pain and discomfort, not getting enough food or water, not moving around, not being helped to the bathroom, and not getting the kind of care doctors deem necessary.
“You walk through ER hallways, and they’re lined from end to end with patients on stretchers in various states of distress calling out for help, including a number of older patients,” said Hashem Zikry, an emergency medicine physician at UCLA Health.
Physicians who staff emergency rooms say this problem, known as ER boarding, is as bad as it’s ever been — even worse than during the first years of the covid-19 pandemic, when hospitals filled with […]
While I agree with your notion that US health care is in shambles, it is merely the leading edge of an attack on health care systems around the world. The devastating failures of the public health care systems in Canada & England led by Tory conservatives prove that this is a systemic attack by rich businessmen on a worthy public institution. In their unending greed, these ignorant, selfish pigheaded businessmen and their politicians see the public and the government structures created for their benefit as ore. Just as the fossil fuel industry won’t stop burning oil until the last drop has been, these healthcare greedheads will not stop until they have every last penny in their own pockets — think nursing home operators on a universal scale.
Since both major political parties in the US are complicit in this nightmare, and both likely candidates are retreads with barely distinguishable records, I would say that we *don’t* have a choice in this election, but, if we survive perhaps we’ll have real choices next time.
Good story, but it missed the best part! What is that? Well, when a doctor says that your loved one needs to be admitted, they are often not admitted but “boarded”. That the article started. What it didn’t say is that you have to ask: “Am I on observation status or am I actually admitted?” This makes a huge difference in how you are billed. It makes a huge difference from an insurance reimbursement standpoint, and your co-pays. It makes a huge difference if your doctor is in or out of network in terms of how they bill and your responsibility is. You have to ask, hospital staff won’t tell you because you might “convert” from an observations status (where you are still technically an ER patient) to an admitted patient. You often don’t know until you get the bill. Surprise!
The article also spoke about when elderly patients are in the ED for long waits to make sure that they eat and drink. That part of the article is a trap! Why? Because it is up to the physicians and nursing staff to communicate this, and insure patients are properly hydrated and fed. Some testing requires the patient not to eat or drink, but, of course, you wouldn’t know that. Again, surprise! Welcome to modern American Healthcare. The best that money can buy – if you have the money that is.
Just had this happen to Victoria. Took over 24 hours in the ER and parked in the hallway before a room was available.