Man dies in ER because of doctor and nurse shortage

[DavidS]

The only problem is this didn't happen in Canada, or the UK or France, or Australia... it happened here in the US. And problems like this are all too frequent.

ER Death Points to Growing Wait-Time Problem - ABC News

With notoriously crowded U.S. emergency rooms, chances are most American families have a story of someone waiting. It could have been half a day for a sore throat or perhaps hours for stitches or a sprained ankle.

But for 58-year-old Michael Herrara of Dallas help never came. He died of a heart attack last week an estimated 19 hours after he arrived at Parkland Memorial Hospital's emergency room waiting room complaining of severe stomach pains, according to reports from WFAA News in Dallas.
Members of the Herrera family said they know they aren't alone in facing dangerously long emergency room waiting times in this country.

Emergency physicians say the problem is getting worse.
"He's not here because they let him die, pretty much," Edward Marquez, Herrara's nephew, told WFAA.

 

[DavidS]

Family plans lawsuit for waiting room death - CNN.com

(CNN) -- The relatives of a woman who died on the floor of a New York hospital say they plan to file a $25 million lawsuit against the city and the facility where Esmin Green died.

Green's family is also calling for criminal charges against hospital workers, who they say failed to help her and then attempted to cover up the circumstances of her death.
"My sister was killed twice," said Brenda James, Green's sister. "First, by those who neglected to offer her the needed health care. Secondly, she was killed by those who tried to cover up this criminal action."
The family has retained a lawyer, Sanford Rubenstein, to file the suit.
Green, a Jamaican immigrant, had been involuntarily admitted to the Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn, New York, on June 18 for what the hospital described as "agitation and psychosis."


Surveillance camera footage captured the mother of six sliding off of a chair and onto the floor of waiting room of the hospital's psychiatric emergency department, where she lay convulsing for more than a hour before anyone helped her.

 

[DavidS]

Dallas Man Dies After Waiting 15 Hours In ER - cbs11tv.com

A Dallas man died at Parkland Hospital Saturday after waiting 15 hours in the emergency room for doctors to see him.

Mike Herrera went to Parkland Friday afternoon. He had been playing golf, but cut his game short because he was having abdominal pain.

He waited in Parkland's emergency room all night before doctors saw him Saturday morning.

He began vomiting, and not long after staff had taken him to an examination room Herrera collapsed and died.

Parkland doctors tried for two hours to revive him, but they couldn't save him.

Herrera, 58, had a history of health problems, including hernias.

He was the youngest member of the family that founded the chain of Herrera's Restaurants.

Now some members of his family want to know why it took so long for doctors to see him at the hospital. "I knew he was gone," said his sister, Becky Marquis. "They kept telling me they were going to try to do everything for him. And I thought, 'Why now? Why didn't they do this yesterday?'"

Ron Anderson, M.D, is Parkland's CEO. He says doctors are still trying to figure out why Herrera died. "His vitals were normal," Anderson said. "Everything about him indicated he would not have an acute event. So what happened at the end is still a mystery at this point that will be fully investigated."

Parkland is not the only hospital where a patient has died after a long wait in an emergency room. A Canadian newspaper reports that just last week a man died after waiting 34 hours in a Winnipeg ER.

 

[KittenKoder]

We're still better than Canada.

 

[DavidS]

We're still better than Canada.

Yes, the private hospitals that cater to the rich are fabulous.

Go spend some time in a public hospital where over 60% of the people don't have health insurance then tell me we have a great healthcare system.

 

[manu1959]

We're still better than Canada.

Yes, the private hospitals that cater to the rich are fabulous.

Go spend some time in a public hospital where over 60% of the people don't have health insurance then tell me we have a great healthcare system.

once obama insures the rest of america and all those folks show up at the hospital should be a fun time.....

lets see....obama will have created an incres in demand when you are already complaining about a shortage in supply....

ya ....cost should go down and care will go up.....

obama and his droogies are fucking brilliant.....

 

[CaféAuLait]

Re:Man dies in ER because of doctor and nurse shortage

So if we ALREADY have a shortage how are we going to handle the influx of millions more? Do you know one reason why there is a shortage? Tort, doctors and nurses have quite because they are tired of being sued for idiotic things. Tort reform needs to happen.

What do you propose we do about the nurse and doctor shortage? Have a new law which says that you must become a doctor or nurse in college?

 

[manu1959]

Re:Man dies in ER because of doctor and nurse shortage

So if we ALREADY have a shortage how are we going to handle the influx of millions more? Do you know one reason why there is a shortage? Tort, doctors and nurses have quite because they are tired of being sued for idiotic things. Tort reform needs to happen.

What do you propose we do about the nurse and doctor shortage? Have a new law which says that you must become a doctor or nurse in college?

one reason there is a shortage of nurses is due to union rules that nurses must have a ceratin patient ratio.......just the messenger here passing along a complaint of a union nurse.....

 

[Ringel05]

We're still better than Canada.

Yes, the private hospitals that cater to the rich are fabulous.

Go spend some time in a public hospital where over 60% of the people don't have health insurance then tell me we have a great healthcare system.

So what you are saying is you want this kind of care across the board for all of us? I mean hospitals and emergency rooms are understaffed and over worked already. How does this argument support your position for government run health care? This would actually be the antithesis to your argument, more patients, the same or fewer care providers, even longer waits.
Also, these private hospitals you seem to hate so much, won't change because of any health care bill. They will still cater to the rich, who even with insurance pay much more out of pocket to utilize these facilities, something standard insurance wont cover.

 

[DavidS]

We're still better than Canada.

Yes, the private hospitals that cater to the rich are fabulous.

Go spend some time in a public hospital where over 60% of the people don't have health insurance then tell me we have a great healthcare system.

once obama insures the rest of america and all those folks show up at the hospital should be a fun time.....

lets see....obama will have created an incres in demand when you are already complaining about a shortage in supply....

ya ....cost should go down and care will go up.....

obama and his droogies are fucking brilliant.....

You moron, we're ALREADY paying for these people. If someone is sick and they go to the hospital and they don't have insurance, they still get cared for! Who do you think pays for that?? WE DO! We're ALREADY paying for the poor to receive medical care.

But with a government option, these people now have the ability to have PREVENTATIVE care, which will LOWER their overall costs which means OUR overall costs are lowered as well!

 

[Contumacious]

We're still better than Canada.

Yes, the private hospitals that cater to the rich are fabulous.

Go spend some time in a public hospital where over 60% of the people don't have health insurance then tell me we have a great healthcare system.

Hummmmmmmm

I detect an agenda......so HOW is Obama Hellcare going to improve the situation?!?!


.

 

[Care4all]

we simply do what a natural capitalistc market does in this situation, increase supply of doctors, nurses, hospitals, med techs etc....

how we do this, is up for discussion...the market should do it on its own...med schools increase their students, teaching doctors will be paid more so to afford to leave their lucrative practices for the classroom, additional private and public colleges and universities will add medical schools, or nursing schools, or technology and therapist schools and courses....with more competition and increase in schools prices for med school should come down substantially....increasing the numbers becoming doctors...

hospitals will expand, KNOWING they have guaranteed to be PAID business of added customers to come...

things will happen naturally, that compensate for the increase in demand.

if this does not happen fast enough naturally, the gvt can stimulate such with offering grants for med school in return 2-3 years working as a doctor in a rural area with less doctors...

for example, in boston they needed teachers so they offered teachers that would teach there, an exemption from local/state income taxes for X many years...

my cousin was an engineer in the army Corps, she and her husband left to go work in a town on the Cape in maasachusetts that offered her and her husband a science teacher job and a math teachers job, sending them for the extra school to get their teacher's license and for 10 years the home they bought in the school's district would be exempt from Property taxes!!!!

my dentist, who is right out of school was offered by the state of Alaska, $50k a year to pay down her Dental school debt, if she would work in a dental clinic there for 2 years, getting paid in addition to the $50k a year they would pay on her debt, and the money to relocate there and relocate back!

these kind of deals with students that want to become physicians could be worked to increase their supply quicker than the normal market, though i believe the normal market will grow fairly quickly on its own, because THERE IS MONEY to be had!

 

[manu1959]

Yes, the private hospitals that cater to the rich are fabulous.

Go spend some time in a public hospital where over 60% of the people don't have health insurance then tell me we have a great healthcare system.

once obama insures the rest of america and all those folks show up at the hospital should be a fun time.....

lets see....obama will have created an incres in demand when you are already complaining about a shortage in supply....

ya ....cost should go down and care will go up.....

obama and his droogies are fucking brilliant.....

You moron, we're ALREADY paying for these people. If someone is sick and they go to the hospital and they don't have insurance, they still get cared for! Who do you think pays for that?? WE DO! We're ALREADY paying for the poor to receive medical care.

But with a government option, these people now have the ability to have PREVENTATIVE care, which will LOWER their overall costs which means OUR overall costs are lowered as well!

hate to tell you having the ability to get preventative care and using it are two differnet things.....do you get a check up every year.....

but lets just say these millions suddenly start going to the doctor because obama tells them to and he....well you are paying for it .....that is a demand that didn't exist yesterday.....where is this supply going to come from......demand has gone up and supply has remained static......

also......how would have obama care prevented this mans stomache ache....made him go to the doctor prior to his er visit.....and increased the number of doctors and nurses in the er to care fro him when he did show up.....

 

[HUGGY]

Re:Man dies in ER because of doctor and nurse shortage

So if we ALREADY have a shortage how are we going to handle the influx of millions more? Do you know one reason why there is a shortage? Tort, doctors and nurses have quite because they are tired of being sued for idiotic things. Tort reform needs to happen.

What do you propose we do about the nurse and doctor shortage? Have a new law which says that you must become a doctor or nurse in college?

Cafe,Manu,Kitten

Why so willfully ignorant?

The shortage as pointed out is in EMERGENCY CARE!

If everyone is covered MOST, probably 90%, of unneccesary emergency care will go bye bye.

Serious emergencies will be headed off with regular check ups ...timely medication, and early proceedures.

Instead of $10,000 plus emergency room visits for preventable conditions that strain critical resources americans like the heart attack victim would have made a couple of regular MD and specialist appointments and recieved prescribed medication that would have prevented the emergency and the victims demise in most cases.

More emergency doctors to go around and better emergency outcomes would be the result since reaction time is the most important factor in emergency situations.

Many "heart attacks" and other critical conditions would be discovered long before they become untreatable and in many cases simple treatments and minor surgery could correct what if put off as now would save many thousands of lives and billions of dollars.

If there would be any "shortage" it would be in regular MDs for a period of time until thier numbers caught up with the number of patients per doctor.

What we really should do instead of a seperate single payer system is to gradually lower the age of medicare over the next ten to twenty years until everyone that needs to can opt for that tried and true system of coverage. That would be the most responsible way to cover everyone in my opinion. For those that want "special" coverage like private rooms and "elective" surgeries such as face lifts and tummy tucks they could pay for private insurance that covers those proceedures.

As for "tort" the same legal recourse for mal practice as we have now for medicare participants should apply. The red herring of the "frivolous" law suit could be dealt with by a panel of impartial omsbiman to help determin if best proceedures were applied.

Saying that we have the best system is assinine. We may have the most talented surgeons and the best technology but to say we treat the general health of our citizens properly, let alone "the best", is a god damned lie.

 

[Contumacious]

If everyone is covered MOST, probably 90%, of unneccesary emergency care will go bye bye.

.

Really?

BBC: In A Socialized Medicine Emergency Room Patients Dropping Like Flies


.

 

[cunclusion]

We're still better than Canada.

Yes, the private hospitals that cater to the rich are fabulous.

Go spend some time in a public hospital where over 60% of the people don't have health insurance then tell me we have a great healthcare system.

once obama insures the rest of america and all those folks show up at the hospital should be a fun time.....

lets see....obama will have created an incres in demand when you are already complaining about a shortage in supply....

ya ....cost should go down and care will go up.....

obama and his droogies are fucking brilliant.....

Ok lets put this into plain English if people could go to a regular doctor since they have insurance that will cut back on the amount of people in the Emergency Room for issues other than emergency ones. It also pushes for an increase in doctors and nurses. Cost will go down because its cheaper to go to a doctor than the emergency room anyways even with insurance.

 

[HUGGY]

If everyone is covered MOST, probably 90%, of unneccesary emergency care will go bye bye.

.

Really?

BBC: In A Socialized Medicine Emergency Room Patients Dropping Like Flies


.

That was one hospital. 400 people died in one hospital over a four year span. The article also said that some of the patients would have died regardless of the quality of care.

We lose nearly 20,000 people needlessly every year under our current private insured system.

There will be "bad apples" that pop up in any system. There will always be a "best" hospital and a "worst". So what is your point? Private HMOs decline coverage and delay coverage as a matter of standard operating proceedure. They elect to let tens of thousands die so they can make more profit to pay thier top executives hundreds of millions of dollars not to mention the demands of stock holders.

Making a profit on pain and suffering is beyond evil.

 

[cunclusion]

Re:Man dies in ER because of doctor and nurse shortage

So if we ALREADY have a shortage how are we going to handle the influx of millions more? Do you know one reason why there is a shortage? Tort, doctors and nurses have quite because they are tired of being sued for idiotic things. Tort reform needs to happen.

What do you propose we do about the nurse and doctor shortage? Have a new law which says that you must become a doctor or nurse in college?

one reason there is a shortage of nurses is due to union rules that nurses must have a ceratin patient ratio.......just the messenger here passing along a complaint of a union nurse.....

Wrong again especially here in the south there is no QUOTA system the reason we have a shortage is there are not enough people to educate them. One of our schools here has a 3 year waiting list to get into the nursing program.

 

[auditor0007]

Re:Man dies in ER because of doctor and nurse shortage

So if we ALREADY have a shortage how are we going to handle the influx of millions more? Do you know one reason why there is a shortage? Tort, doctors and nurses have quite because they are tired of being sued for idiotic things. Tort reform needs to happen.

What do you propose we do about the nurse and doctor shortage? Have a new law which says that you must become a doctor or nurse in college?

I can tell you one big reason we don't have enough nurses. I'm not sure if the same holds true for doctors, but the fact is that it is very difficult to get into a nursing program. In many parts of the country, there are waiting lists up to three and four years just to get into a program. Considering how much universities cost, you would think they would expand their nursing and medical programs.

And because of this we have a shortage of nurses, who then are overworked when they do finally make it throught the educational system. But more importantly, due to the shortage of nurses, wages for nurses has risen dramatically effecting the overall cost of healthcare. I'm not saying a nurse shouldn't make a decent wage, but there are times when my sister (she is a nurse at U of M) makes over $75 per hour. She works every holiday she can, especially when it is on overtime.

 

[HUGGY]

Re:Man dies in ER because of doctor and nurse shortage

So if we ALREADY have a shortage how are we going to handle the influx of millions more? Do you know one reason why there is a shortage? Tort, doctors and nurses have quite because they are tired of being sued for idiotic things. Tort reform needs to happen.

What do you propose we do about the nurse and doctor shortage? Have a new law which says that you must become a doctor or nurse in college?

I can tell you one big reason we don't have enough nurses. I'm not sure if the same holds true for doctors, but the fact is that it is very difficult to get into a nursing program. In many parts of the country, there are waiting lists up to three and four years just to get into a program. Considering how much universities cost, you would think they would expand their nursing and medical programs.

And because of this we have a shortage of nurses, who then are overworked when they do finally make it throught the educational system. But more importantly, due to the shortage of nurses, wages for nurses has risen dramatically effecting the overall cost of healthcare. I'm not saying a nurse shouldn't make a decent wage, but there are times when my sister (she is a nurse at U of M) makes over $75 per hour. She works every holiday she can, especially when it is on overtime.

It is no suprise that there is a shortage of nurses. The reports I see in local news is that the hospitals are squeezing nurses ..demanding pay cuts..and every other trick the neo cons have used over the last 30 years to squash the middle class. With the thuggery and robbery going on against unions and workers in general the nurses have not been spared either.