Gallstones?   Not fun.  

My nephew waited longer than that at the emergency room when he cut his hand at work and needed stitches.  When I was having surgery a few years ago a woman had broken her leg and spent 48 hours in emergency before they set it.  She had to get someone to cover for her at work and since she was waiting for surgery she was not allowed to eat anything for 48 hours.

So sadly it is not uncommon.

Gallstones - OUCH!!  They can feel pretty nasty - sorry you've been in pain somegirl, and that you missed out on a nice sunny day.

Emerg depts are a whole other universe!  Totally unpredictable ... how long you will be there completely depends on what else is coming through the door ... all things are relative.  In the area where I live, two hospitals amalgamated some years back & so one now has the typical Emerg - go there if anything life threatening is happening!  The other has an Urgent Care Centre - go there for everything else & be seen much more quickly ... when my son was a skateboarding adolescent, we were regular visitors - but we'd usually be in and out in an hour or so - assessment, x-rays, physio referral, stitches, etc. -  which was fantastic. 

(((somegirl)))

I feel your pain totally, and have literally felt it too.  I had my gall bladder out in February and for 6 months before that it was attacks of excruciating pain with visits to the ER and 3 hospital stays.  A typical ER visit was about 6 hours, mostly because that was how long it took for the attack to pass.  Most of my attacks happend in the middle of the night so I didn't have to wait long to see the doctor usually. 

However, on Christmas eve I spent almost 7 hours in the ER when my doctor sent me there after I saw him in his office with instructions that I was to be put on iv with buscopan and have bloodwork done.  To top it off, this was in a tiny room with only two chairs and a small loveseat, and there was also an elderly man in there getting some sort of iv medication therapy.  There was barely enough room for the two of us and our iv poles.  Then my doctor finally came to see me and admitted me for a lovely Christmas stay in the hospital.

A month later I had another attack and had to spend from approximately 11:30 pm to 4:30 pm the next day in the ER because they wanted to admit me and look at doing emergency surgery after I had spent the night there, but there were no beds available and I had no choice but to hang out in the ER.  They almost ended up putting me in a wheelchair out in the waiting area with my iv pole so that they could use the bed I was taking up.  I would have been livid and probably would have lost it if they had done this, so fortunately they didn't.   My situation improved enough that they decided that I wasn't going to need emergency surgery so they sent me home, which is the only reason why I didn't spend even longer in the ER that time.

I hope that if it is gallstones that they can confirm that quickly for you and then get your gallbladder out.  It took them almost 4 months to determine that in all likelihood it was gallstones for me, and another month before they showed up in an ultrasound, which is why mine went on for so long.  Then I had my gallbladder out and other than for the typical period of pain and healing after surgery, it is like those 6 months were a bad dream.  While for some people there can be some issues with not having a gallbladder anymore, I have had none and feel the same as I did before I got sick and can eat all the same foods.

FYI - they kept pushing buscopan on me which did absolutely nothing as far as getting rid of the pain. Don't be surprised if this is the case for you as well, although buscopan may very well work for you.  Just don't be surprised if it doesn't.  I was getting pissed off because I would tell them this and that morphine was the only thing that worked, and they still kept starting with buscopan instead of going straight to morphine.  I even had one ER doctor tell me that it was basically all in my head because there was no way I could be in as much pain as I said I was without vomitting blood, so I didn't get anything for pain control during the 6 hours I spent in the ER that time.  Needless to say, I talked to my doctor and surgeon afterwards and came up with a contingency plan so that this wouldn't happen again.

 Hospital Emergency Wards are trained in Triage.  They look for life threatening conditions and treat them first.  If you have chest pain, poor vital signs or difficulty breathing or are unconcscious, an axe in the head or have a nail sticking out of  your eyeball or bleeding heavily they are supposed to treat those things first. The Life and Limb factor. However mistakes can be made and what seems not as urgent can be in fact life threatening, like a ruptured appendix.

The general lack of funding for Emergency wards is also a big factor.  Not enough beds or OR's or staffing. I don't envy the ER teams at all.

However, there is no excuse for a doctor saying "The pain is all in your head".

I got my results from my ultrasound and I don't have gallstones and my death is not imminant.  So off I go to my regular Dr. to set up a round of tests to find out what is wrong.

I really do think that emergency rooms are understaffed and they have been having problems finding beds for people who are to be admitted.  10 years ago I lived in a smallish town with no family doctors at all accepting new patients and no walk-in clinics so the hospital was used as a walk-in clinic and I didn't have to wait very long for my son to be seen.  My aunt had to spend the night in emerg. waiting for a bed.  I wonder where the problem is?  Are hospitals being badly run or do they really not have enough money?

I don't think the issue is staffing in the ER.  The issue is putting patients elsewhere.  If the hospital is full, no beds available then no one moves until someone is discharged.

ER do the life threatening emergencies first.  They have to. 

Unfortunately that means everyone else waits till there is space, or time or if you are lucky you get ther before the car accident or MI victim. 

Timing is everything and if you get there after the accident or whatever, you are in for a long wait.

Gee, trishcuit, thank God for Triage. You won't get a whimper of complaint from me if someone with an axe in the head gets priority over me. I'll just sit quietly in a corner on a vinyl chair and wait my turn.

Lastpointe is right - lack of movement OUT of the hospital prevents movement INTO the hospital - so people wait in hallways, in emerg, on stretchers ... it's really a problem.

The gold standard is for hospitals to operate at 89% occupancy (I think I remember that stat correctly) - that leaves room for people needing admission.  Currently, my hospital runs at 103% occupancy on a consistent basis.  Nursing homes are full ... nowhere for people to go.  Homecare is pitiful in what is actually provided ... nowhere for people to go.  Families are working ... nowhere for people to go.  Finances are tight ... nowhere for people to go.   Big problem.  They sit in hospital beyond the time they actually medically need to be there.  Hospital budgets are tight ... they fire the discharge planners (DUH!!) ... compounding the problem of moving people through. 

Today when I left work, there were 8 ambulances waiting outside emerg - they had offloaded their patients, but have to wait until patient is admitted & care is transferred before they can leave - they take turns waiting with the patient in emerg. So it backs up the ambulance response ability too. 

Not much sign of it improving anytime soon ... sadly. 

One thing that I think compounded the problem was in the 70's "chronic care" hospitals were closed or amalgamated with acute care ones.  In the past there were hospitals where the elderly could go to recover.  Those places are no longer there.  (there are a few but no where near the number there used to be)

For instance last year my father in law was dying of bone caner.Initially during the diagnosis stage he was getting testing and so was on a medical floor in an acute care hospital.

Once the diagnosis of terminal bone cancer was made though, where was he to go.  Not home to his apartment.  Not to our home with no main floor bathroom.  Not to his daughters home who works full time.

He was a 200 pound man, who was bed ridden.  He needed care.  He was on a morphine drip, that needed  an RN to monitor so that meant no to nursing homes.

In fact at the family meeting the social worker wa all for a nursing home.  That was when it was helpful to be an RN.  I looked at her and asked for the names of homes that had 24 hour RN coverage for the morphine.  That had always 2 staff on for two person lifts.  There wasn't a single place in Ontario.

ultimately he moved to a paliative care floor in the hospital.  An 8 bed ward so he was lucky to get a spot.

I knew the hospital needed his acute care bed.  But there was no place to go.

Compound the bed problem with the number of people who use an emergency room for non emergency care.  Soem hospitals have divided up into acute care and emergency care to try to keep those with minor issues out but it's an issue.

Of course that problem is often related to access to family docs.  Many can't find one and the ones who do have family docs don't find the work horse of the past.  The old style who was on call 24/7 for his patients.  So even if you have a family doc, unless they are part of a team that share on call coverage it isn't likely you can get them late on a Saturday.

I'd probably strain my neck for a closer look. Not something you see every day.  

I guess I'm fortunate that I don't remember any unreasonably long waits in emergency.  My husband has had several attacks of kidney stones - every time they have hurried him through triage and into a treatment room on IV (once there was a slight wait when a young child came in with a dog bite to the face - and my husband actually told them to take her first).  My daughter has been in several times with flairups of crohns that come on suddenly and severely - always a bed right away.  My granddaughter twice.  Once as a toddler with a dislocated elbow that the doctor had set before her mother had the car parked (I took her in).  Once with her heart racing and her skin clammy - it turned out to be a kidney infection.  Most recently I was in in the middle of the night with chest pains - I was seen immediately.

On the other hand, my daughter once spent three days in emergency waiting to be admitted with a severe crohns flair up.   She spent two nights in a supply room - not too bed except when the staff had to come in for supplies in the day or night.  The final night was in an active treatment ward where people were coming in - the doctor and nurse checking and treating them and sending them home.  Worst night.  She told the doctor next day that tonight she would be sleeping in a bed - if not in the hospital she was going home.  Medication was taking effect by then and she was discharged.  I stayed with her most of the day when she was in hospital - on a floor or in emergency - helping with meals, getting her blankets, water, etc.  helping her to the bathroom and back to bed.

Yes, hospitals are underfunded and understaffed.  At the same time as the local hospital has patients backed up in the halls in emergency there are wards closed for lack of funding and staff.

Personally I think there is a lot of pressure from government, insurance companies, and some doctors to somehow undermine the public's trust in medicare and make it easier to introduce a two tired system. 

 They were talking about that tonight on CBC radio.  How people in Canada who have to wait a REALLY Long time for say, back surgery, can go to the US, shell out some pretty coin and get it done right away. One lady had cardiac surgery there on the advice of her doctor. HE said go to the States because you won't make it otherwise with the waiting list such as it is. Turns out he was right. The US doctor said 'You are walking a fine line. You wouldn't have lasted the week.. We are saving your life.'.

So, rather than try to fix the system doctors encourage people to jump the line by going to the States, or to a for profit clinic, and further lose faith in Medicare.

We have a two tiered system.  It's just that we don't like to admit it.

We have free standing xray clinics.  Pay as you go. 

We have several long standing pay as you go out patient day surgery clinics.  they are busy,

we have sports teams that miraculously get their star players surgery within days while the average joe with a torn ligament waits.

We have dental care.

We have drug plans that pay for some but not all.  We have the elderly, no matter how wealthy, who get free drugs or at least partially paid for drugs.

We have alot of two tiered systems and the succesful systems world wide combine the two in some fashion.

there is a place for pay as you go.  There is a place for government pay.  there is a place for the small business person to eek out a place.

One example could be child birth.

You can get total health care coverage of a basic level of care at any hospital.  You can get any GP or OB/GYN to give you prenatal care.  You can have your baby and go home and most of Canada does just that.

but there are many services that we offer as extras that people pay for.  Birthstone would have a much more comprehensive list but:

doulas for maternal care

postpartum live in care for mom and baby for 24 hours or 1 week

midwives ( some is covered some is not)

purchased by you sitz baths to relieve the swelling and pain

breast feeding consultants

there are people who hire others to stay with them and feed the baby overnight for the first few days.  20 years ago it was the post partum floor nurse who did that.

none of this is particularily necessary and may be covered in some cases but it is just one way that you can pay for health care.

and it could ultimately save bed space for others.

Lets think of the new mom, no experience, no siblings near by, no mother to assist, no close friends who have had babies to offer advice.

She is healthy and sent home in 24 hours post partum.

she is breastfeeding but not very succesfully.

the baby is beginning to get jaundiced but her GP appointment isn't for 2 days.  ( if she has a GP of course)baby continues to not suck well and she is having difficulty getting the baby to latch on correctly.

In one scenario she has that MD appointment, the baby is jaundiced and is back in hospital.  the mom gets help with the feeds

In another scenario the mom has hired a doula to assist her post partum and that skilled worker has, for a price, shown her how to feed the baby, has monitored the baby and encouraged the mom to push the breast a bit and wake the baby and when he gets to his first MD appointment he is less jaundiced and not admitted.

That is not to say that the first mom shouldn't get health care.  she is getting it.  she is getting the basic minimum that Canada or her province has deemed appropriate for a new mom.  and for most moms it is appropriate.  but not all.

so teh mom who doesn't have any support system currently has the opotion to go it alone or pay for that expertise.

I also had a five hour wait before treatment for Kidney Stones that had cut my urethra up. I was in intense pain, but I am one of those guys that don't show it. My urine sample was deep red. When the doc finally saw it, he put me on morphine drip immediately - but it only helped a bit. Cutting off a leg couldn't have hurt worse.

Mental control of pain is possible - but it takes training and discipline. It still is incredibly irritating when you have to do it all the time. I have been in chronic pain for so long that I am often impotent from it as repressing the pain also represses the pleasure. Anger kills all pain for me, but it is a dangerous luxury.

For some reason men get far less pain treatment than women - especially when they refuse to stop working.

Oh no, Lastpointe - she doesn't have the option of going it alone or paying for the expense of extra help during and after delivery - not if she doesn't have any money.  That's where Medicare should make the difference.  It should cover necessary care - which would include a reasonable amount of care after delivery so that Mom and baby can be healthy.  In my opinion mothers are sent home far too early - especially those who have no support system.  And if they are sent home that early - there should be an extra mural nurse to call on them at least once a day for the next few days to make sure that everything is ok - and if it isn't (say if the baby isn't nursing well) the extra mural nurse should be able to request extra visitation - perhaps from a volunteer from the LeLache League.   But it should be covered by Medicare - and if there isn't enough money allocated to medicare now, taxes should be increased until there is. 

I also think that vision care should be covered, and dental care if it interfers with overall health.  And we also need pharmacare.  And we need to be willing to pay for it through our taxes.

I don't know what province you are in.  So far in this province I believe that the only free standing, for profit, clinics are for abortion and for blood tests.  I agree with it for abortion since the hospitals refuse to provide adequate access to abortion - but I refuse to use the blood clinic, prefering to wait my turn at the hospital rather than jump ahead just because I can afford it and jeprodize the medicare system.

I am not against free standing clinics if they can provide services cheaper and more efficiently than hospitals.  I just object to 'for profit' clinics.  I think that they should be part of the medicare system.

I agree seeler that in a perfect world a new mom would get all the care she needs.  but she won't if she has to depend solely on the hospital.  she just wont.  There are some legitamate reasons for early discharge: 

a growing belief that delivery of a baby is a healthy event and requires minimal care ( add in for most women),

issues related to the chance of mom or baby getting a nosocomial infection due to prolonged hospital stay

research that would tend to show that moms do better with breast feeing if other options ( such as the nursery nurse) are not available.

for most moms it works because most moms have some support systems at home.

for those who don't, they buy it.

for those who are poor/  Well those are the ones i illustrated as comign back to the GP with problems.

no questions it isn't right.  My point was only that it already exists.

I live in Ontario.

the best example of a freestanding out patient surgical place is the Shouldice clinic.  I am guessing here, but i think it has been in operations for 25 years.

they are situated outside of Toronto.

they do only hernia repairs. 

they have piioneered fabulous interventions and have cut the OR time down on these particular surgeries to a minimum.

they are the classic example of a two tiered medical system that has been in operation for decades.

I am in favour of medical access for all.

I just get frustrated when there are definately things that could be better managed by the private sector.

As long as the option is there for OHIP access as well, then why not go that route.

I'm just going to share a semi-recent experience from the Emerg room here in NB. It was over a year ago now, but I'm still mad...

I was having horrible, shall we say, loose stool, complete with cramps, fever, and nausea. This went on for 2-3 days and I decided late one night, after taking my temperature, that I had better go to the ER. I showed up at about 2am and the waiting room was fairly empty. I saw the nurse and sat down. After several dozen trips to the bathroom, I decided to ask the nurse if there was somewhere I could lay down. The time was 730am. She politely told me no, that I would have to stay in the waiting room. Another 5 hours pass (no hyperbole) and I ask the nurse when I will be able to see a doctor. She replies "As soon as one comes in, he or she will start seeing patients." "As soon as they come in?" I asked, shocked. "Yes, the doctor on call for the ER had an emergency." "There is only one doctor for the ER?" I asked, again shocked. "Yes." she said.

I muster some self control and sit back down. By this time, I have all but taken over full control of the single washroom located just off the waiting area. At 2pm, the triage nurse comes into the waiting room and announces that the new doctor has arrived. Encouraged, I continue to sit. About 3 hours later, the nurse calls my name. "Finally!" I think to myself "I'll get to see the doctor!" The nurse says: "The doctor has looked at your file and said it looks like the flu. He says to buy some Immodium and rest for a day or so." I ask her "Does he know that this has been going on for 3 days?" "Yes." she says. I leave the ER at about 5pm, some 15 hours after arriving.

That night, after some excruciating quality time spent with the toilet, I notice that there is now blood in my stool. (Sorry folks...) I decide I had better go back to the ER. By this point I am quite dehydrated (or so they would tell me later) and wobbly so I have to get my wife to drive me to the hospital. When I arrive I inform the nurse that I have blood in my stool. She looks sufficiently concerned, but instructs me to sit in the waiting room. I try to sit, but when I am upright my vision gets dark and I feel very nauseus. I decide I will lie on the floor. This act illicits a tirade from the nurse on duty. She informs me that I am not to lie on the floor. I ask where I could lie down. She says that I can't. About 20 minutes later they call my name and tell me that they will be taking my blood pressure. I tell them that I don't think I can stand. This new nurse give me a menacing stare and commands me to get up. I stand (with help from my wife) and as she takes my blood pressure I promptly pass out, her exclamation of "Oh dear!" ringing in my ears from the blood pressure reading. I awake a few minutes later and they have magically found a bed for me. My head hurts a little from where it hit the floor, but I am otherwise unscathed. I wait.

17 hours later (yes, 17) a doctor comes in to see me. Of all the stupid things he could ask me, he says: "How are you feeling?" "Well" I respond, "I can't see when I stand up, I passed out in the waiting room, I have a fever and horrible cramps, and I am bleeding from a body part that I would rather not bleed from. Other than that I'm all rainbows and sunshine." He does not appreciate my sarcasm.

In the end I spent 2 days in hospital for severe dehydration, and it turns out that I had Salmonella. Yay Medicare!

I've heard that if you start to remove your clothes, or start being bizarre (pooping on the floor?), they may pay attention.  Of course they might give you a shot of thioridazine too.

wow, that is some experience.  I hope you had a chat with the director of the hospital.  it woudl seem to me that you received a substandard level of care.

now small hospitals don't have the same level of staffing as large ones do but that is totally out of line to me

I did have a conversation with one of the administrators at the hospital. I left it alone as I was just glad to be out of there when they discharged me, but she actually called me which was nice. I appreciated her proactive problem solving, and there were quite a few mitigating factors. Its all good.

Wonderingg - that is a horrible, horrible example of things gone wrong and I would say probably more the incompetence of the emergency staff (whether lack of training, understaffed and overworked, or just plain indifferent to human suffering) than it is the fault of medicare.  Yes, we have to have a triage system.  But we also have to have competent, compassionate, caring individuals who can really help. 

Blaming a serious illness on "the flu" seems to be a common mistake.  Many years ago I woke in the night in a terrible cold sweat, stumbled to the bathroom and collapsed on the floor.  The next thing I knew my husband was standing over me asking what had happened.  He helped me back to the bedroom where I discovered that I was too weak to get dressed.  He called the ambulance.  I was immediately triaged into a treatment room, blood pressure, IV, etc.  Eventually a doctor came in and advised me that I had the 'flu' and that as soon as my husband arrived I could go home.  Fortunately it was time for the early morning shift change.  Another doctor came on duty and came in to see me.  I grabbed her hand and pleaded, "I'm too sick to go home."   She checked my chart:  "I wouldn't even think of sending you home like this."   A few hours later, after tests and monitoring, I was in a hospital bed.  And soon after that on my way to the operating room for emergency abdominal surgery.  Ruptured tube from an ectpic pregnancy - heavy internal bleeding with nothing visable.  That surgery saved my life.

I only remembered it as I read your story.  My more recent experiences have all been positive.

 Seeler,

I never said shipping people to the States was right.  That was one person's story.  Apparently getting 'nonessential' back surgery in Edmonton is near impossible.  So many people end up having to go elsewhere. Nonessential meaning not life threatening but to the sufferer it is certainly lifestyle crippling. It is a shame that we even NEED private clinics to get our needs met. The people who start the private clinics are addressing a need that shouldn't even really exist, but it does.  (and they make a tidy profit too.)

And as for the chap on CBC who was faciliating people's going to the States to get things done, well he was just seeing an opportunity and utilizing it. (and profiting)

The Canadian health system is similar to ours in Australia. We have Medicare also, but if you want an operation for something that is non life threatening, you have a long wait. If you can afford it, private health cover is available - which means a two tiered system.

What to do about it? Medicare is paid for by taxation. If the money raised isn't sufficient, then the percentage will have to be increased. Perhaps cuts could be made in other areas - such as defence.

If we're honest, a lot of us could contribute more via taxation, if we spent less on McMansions, "new" kitchens/bathrooms, the "latest" cell phones, televisions.

The answer lies with us.

 The private clinics are merely doing what any skilled entepreneur does: Seeing a demand in the market and filling it.

I agree Trishcut - and the solution is to improve Medicare to the point where these clinics are unnecessary. 

You might want to read this seeing as it pertains to the myths of long waits at hospitals: :)

Dal master's student Andre Maddison wins a national myth-busting competition for his research contending that non-urgent patients are not the main reason why emergency departments are so crowded.

http://dalnews.dal.ca/2009/06/02/mythbust.html?utm_source=my.dal&utm_med...

(Sorry I don't know how to link it)

I was out with a wondercafe friend for lunch one day last year.  When I got in the car, there were a number of frantic messages on my cell phone from my father, including the last one that said he was going to emergency room with my Mom.

I got there, and they were sitting in the waiting room.  I sent him home after a couple of hours, and stayed with my mother until close to midnight when we got home.

The issue she went in for was something that could have been resolved through a call to the family doctor and some meds.  It was due to their not dealing with an issue appropriately for weeks before.

I was not a happy camper.  My parents were shocked that they didn't get whisked in, as after all, they are in their 80's.  I said "why?", you are healthy. You are not in distress. You should not be here.  That individual who is quite sick is using ER appropriately. You aren't.  (What followed was a week of "clean up your act" intervention...in as caring a way as I could..but also being clear of the implications of not doing it)

Mom ended up getting some treatment....but....had she gone to doctor, she probably also would have got treatment which would have done the same thing at less cost, and stress.   oh, and why didn't she go to the doctor...she didn't like her.  I ended up going on a  doctor visit, and the doctor was amazing with her.  After giving them a few different understandings and methods with the doctor, they too have discovered she is fine.  

anyhow, there is misuse of ER's as well.

Yes, there is misuse of the emergency room.  There is also misuse of ambulance services. 

My brother-in-law was a possible example.  While living alone, on the outskits of a small community the cancer he had been coping with for over two years got worse.  Sometimes the pain would get so bad he couldn't bare it.  Sometimes he would fall down.  In these cases he would phone for the ambulance.  It would transport him to the nearest hospital (70 or so klms away), he would be evaluated, given something for pain, maybe kept overnight but usually not.  Then he would phone a neighbour or a brother and they would come and get him and take him home.  In my humble, non-medical, opinion most of these ambulance rides and emergency room visits could have been handled much more cheaply and efficiently by having a nurse practicioner in one of several communities in a 20 mile radius who could have visited his home, evaluated the situation, given him a shot, adjusted his medicine and set up a doctors appointment.  Eventually, his two brothers pursuaded him to come to the city and live with one of them until he had to be admitted to hospital.  The day his brother drove him to the hospital for what proved to be the last time, he remarked:  "We could have called the ambulance.  It doesn't cost anything, and it would have saved you the bother."

Since then the government has changed the rules - we now pay for ambulance services.  And so the poor woman who falls on an icy sidewalk on her day and breaks her leg has to figure out if she can come up with over $100, or if somehow she can get someone to call a neighbour and help her into a car.  How to avoid the abuse and yet make the services available when needed?  That's the question.

There is also the question of self-diagnoses.  Sometimes it is hard to know if we need to make an appointment and see our doctor, go to a walk-in clinic, or go to emergency.  I look back at the times when I used the emergency room.  That time last winter when I had chest pains in the night.  It turned out to be inflamation of the chest wall but I didn't know.  I was assured that I did the right thing.

And one time when my children were living at home.  My husband and I went for a drive.  We were gone all day, the children alone at home.  When we got back both were hurt.  My son had an elbow swollen twice its usual size from falling in the bathroom / my daughter a broken toe from catching it on something while running to answer the phone.  We loaded both in the car and went to emergency. 

It turned out that simple first aid that I could have done at home was all that was needed.  Hot and cold packs to the elbow until the swelling went down.  Baby toe taped to the next one to keep it immobile as it began to heal.  Something for pain.  A vow to never leave them alone again.  (You would think that kids in high school and university would be more responsible, wouldn't you?)   But how did I know that the elbow wasn't broken and that leaving it to heal on its own might have affected it for his life?  And how did I know that there usually isn't anything to be done for a broken toe? 

Seeler, I think that we do go, especially if no family doctor is on call.

in the case i am referring to it was mid-week, during the day, with no reasonable reason to not call the doctor first.

I understand Pinga.  Some cases are (or seem to be) quite obvious.  Once my son, a young adult, woke up in the night with a scratchy throat, watery eyes, head ache and feeling miserable.  He thought maybe he should go to emergency.  I told him to take two aspirin and a big glass of water and go back to bed. 

The ER here drags out waiting time for at least two hours even if it's not busy in an attempt to discourage the non-essentials.  It's not uncommon to see people just get up and leave because they are tired of waiting and in reality don't need to be there.  If you truly are sick enough to need the ER, you *will* wait as long as it takes.

The problem we run into here, and I'm sure many other communities do as well, is what to do on the weekend if you get sick.  We have one quasi walk-in clinic here, but it is only open Mon to Fri.  I get a UTI Saturday morning.  While not life threatening at that moment, it is excruciatingly uncomfortable and does need to be addressed immediately and antibiotics prescribed so that the infection doesn't move up into the kidneys where it is much more difficult to deal with.  It is something that can easily be looked after at the doctor's office and I really hate having to be in the ER for something that doesn't require it, but I have no choice but to go to the ER because I can't wait until Monday to go to the clinic or get in to see my regular doctor at his office. 

My doctor has other doctor's on call in non-office hours. If you phone his office, you get the on-call number.

Has anyone ever used "Telehealth"?  Is it just an Ontario thing?   I think it's wonderful and have used it several times both personally and in my job.  I think it's the best-kept secret in the system.  Nurse Practitioners are there to ask you all the right questions and "triage" over the phone.  They err on the side of caution, but they've never steered my wrong.  They also have a pharmacist on call, and if you need to go to the hospital, they will call them to let them know you're coming and send them your paperwork so you don't have to when you get there.

Amazing.

I wish Nurse Practioners would just be allowed to pick up the bulk of what goes through a clinic.  IMO it would be exactly what's needed to reduce wait times.

I can't recommend Telehealth enough.

I have used Teleheath....but, ended up going to emerg...it didn't seem worthwhile, but, then...i probably missed the part that my file was the there when I arrived.

The other thing....sitting in a waiting room, is kinda like being in observation...your symptoms are taken every so often.   I went once after being knocked out...(quite a good falling in the kitchen story)...and requiring stitches.  Yup, I was in emerg for a while..but they were also checking on me every so often.

DUDE!!!! All I can say is.......... I have a pretty high pain tollerance but that that kind of pain would drop me to the floor. I salute you.

I forgot about this thread, thanks CF because I went to the Dr today so I have a little update.  She said that my bowel is probably slightly enflamed.  I need to drink more and exercise more and do a little tummy massage.  Not too hard advice to follow.

OOOoooo tummy massage.... take up Belly Dancing!!

ok...ok... you can slap me now... LOL

*Peaceful Fluidic Movement Journey*

Wolfie

Glad to hear it is nothing to serious somegirl.

I thought of this thread today.

I was called by a video store that my father was on the way to emergency in an ambulance.

He arrived at about 11:30 am, and we left at 7:30 or so

In that time, he was well cared for by paramedics, nurses, surgeons, transport folks, x-ray technicians, CT technicians, and so on.

He received pain meds, and then an increase in meds (morphine)

He had multiple x-rays, including hands, chest, jaw, head

He had way too many stitches & his nose set

He then, due to dizziness at around 5ish when he was going to be discharged, had a ct-scan & bloodwork.

He has an appointment with a plastic surgeon at 8:45am Monday morning

He received scripts for drugs & meds, and on the way home, we got his meds covered. 

All of this without one penny of his money spent.  Without any concern for whether he could afford it.

In addition, we watched other folks who were triaged in....and we saw some abuse of the system, but the majority were folks, like my parents....people who had fallen, or people with heart issues, or people with injuries....all being cared for and triaged

Oh dear Pinga - hope your dad is okay ... that must have been some nasty fall.

He has a bunch of healing to go, thanks for asking Carolla.

The most damage was done by his glasses, specifically the nosepiece on the glasses.

 My week old son, who is a preemie, suddenly fell ill with infection.  Immediately he was sedated with morpine, intubated, started on IV antibiotics and the same day we were flown from Kamploops to Vancouver by Medi-Vac. When  a baby, particularly a newborn and a preemie to boot, fall ill it happens very quickly.  And the dangers are that they don't have the immune system yet to fight it and it can also spread very quickly (underdeveloped lymph nodes too I suppose).  He spent a week under the VERY best of care in BC Children's.  I am so grateful we live in Canada and not the US because I couldn't image the medical bill that would have made.

The health care system in this country is getting worse.  This is becoming the norm.

Wonderingg's experience is an example of when you should file a complaint. Doctors will make mistakes, hospitals are understaffed, but if people don't speak out about these problems to the administration in a formal way, there is no record when the staff are trying to make their case to the administration that SOMETHING HAS TO BE DONE.

Hope your Dad is okay Pinga.

And kidney stones...someone I work with experienced them this year. He said that they told him the pain is comparable with labour and childbirth because half of women rate labour as worse than kidney stones, the other half vice versa.

My husband took some sort of weird allergy attack and we went to our local Emerg for that. It was a Saturday morning around 10:00 a.m., so was not busy. We checked in, and then waited only about 10 minutes or so before he was in front of the triage nurse. She was asking him all the standard questions and was taking his BP. She commented that his BP was low and started putting the cuff on his other arm. He commented that he was dizzy, then passed out in front of her. He turned a horrible shade of grey at the same time. Anyway, that bumps you from a 4 to a 2 on the triage list, and all of a sudden everyone was coming to him. He was put on a bed, things were attached to him, and all manner of activity was happening. They took blood from him, did an EEG and asked him questions. Turns out it was his family doctor in emerg that day, so that was good. Two hours later, he was leaving after having been given Prednisone and Benadryl for his rash. They did not know what had caused this attack, and told him to come back if he did not feel 90% better the next day.

Oh, and like a true addict, he asked if he could golf that afternoon. I swear the doctor rolled his eyes as he said no. He also looked at me with some compassion. Sheesh.

Hubby has been fine ever since.

HA! Nice touch, sneaking in the golf question. Some of my family are golfers: I refuse to get involved.

Seems that in order to get quick triage in ER the thing to do is faint on demand.

Well faint AND have your blood pressure to tank to stupidly low levels! - And yes, he is a little obsessed with golf at times. The universe is trying to turn me into a golfer.....I am resisting!

You know what I consider insult to injury?  The bill from the hospital for the Ambulance that comes a month later.